Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Searching For A Story


One cool thing about the Foreign Service is all the unique things you end up with from around the world. I wrote about this some time back in a post called Decorating with Stories.

Well today I got something I know nothing about from a place I have never been.

A friend here at the embassy inherited this cool tapestry from his mother. He didn't particularly want it, but her instructions in the will were pretty clear.

He can't sell it.
He can't give it to a stranger.
If he gives it away, it must be to someone who promises not to sell it.

So he offered it to me, and I happily accepted it even though I know nothing about it other than what he told me, which is that it is probably from Burma and based on how long his mother owned it and when she likely purchased it, it is at least 50 and likely more than 80 years old. I did find on the internet that these are called Kalagas.

So I thought I would show it to you here. Because maybe you know something.

Because I would like to know this tapestry's story.


Taken with my iphone, so pardon the quality


This is on the back and may be a signature of some sort


3 comments:

Connie said...

No idea. It seems that all here are worshipping whatever is depicted in the upper left corner. It's lovely and very interesting!

jdc said...

The characters look like the Thai letters for N and K. I'd guess that it's a scene from buddha's life. I think the white elephant is Buddha in disguise, carrying a lotus flower to his soon-to-be mother.

Very cool tapestry!

Anonymous said...

The writing is Thai, not Burmese, but I don't know anything else about it.