burnisher;
modelling-tool/implement
- Museum number
- 1890,0208.27
- Description
-
Polished rod of pale brown steatite with black veins.
- Production date
- 4500BC-500BC
- Dimensions
-
Length: 2.54 centimetres
-
Width: 1.40 centimetres (max)
- Curator's comments
- Stone pieces like this were often used for polishing precious metals or for shaping sheet gold or bronze. This example has numerous striations indicating that it was well used.
Jammes went to Samrong Sen in 1887, collected numerous objects, and sold them to various museums in 1890, including the British Museum, Musée des Antiquités Nationales, Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de Lyon, and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Jammes published a short report on Samrong Sen in the Indo-Chinese magazine (no. 8, 1893).
Samrong Sen is a site in Cambodia on the Chinit River, a tributary of the Tonle Sap. The site has been occupied continuously since the Neolithic period. It has a very deep stratigraphy of almost six metres, but was poorly excavated without controls in the late 19th century. Only in the early 20th century was it more systematically excavated. Samrong Sen is a massive site with stone implements, beads, pottery, bones, shell items, and bronze objects.
For further information see Charles Higham, The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 172-73.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1890
- Acquisition notes
- This group of objects (1890,0208.1 to 62) is listed in the register as being from Siam (Thailand) and Cambodia and discovered by Jammes during his time as director of the Royal School in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The register produced by A W Franks, however classifies all the objects as being from ancient Cambodia.
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1890,0208.27