Scant antique gold in India due to jewellery recycling tradition

Art historian and curator John Guy says the tradition of passing down gold jewellery from mother to daughter is one of the reasons that explains the scanty presence of antique gold in India.

"Gold remains in gold. This is a very old tradition and partly explains the hunger and demand for it. It also explains why there is so little gold of antiquity found in India as it gets constantly recycled. We have much more ancient gold from Java than in India," Guy told IANS here.

Guy is the curator of South and Southeast Asian arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and is author of several books and papers, including "Woven Cargoes: Indian Textiles in the East" that tells the stories of Asian design history.

His research interests are in the area of Hindu-Buddhist-Jain sculpture, and in the ceramic and textile trade of the Indian Ocean diaspora.

Debunking myths about the textile trade being an invention of the East India Company, Guy says Indian dyed and painted cottons were admired in and traded to the Far East and the Mediterranean world for many generations before European interest in chintz created a new market.

Guy was at the Indian Museum here to talk about the loan exhibition 'Lost Kingdoms, Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia' which explores Southeast Asian history from the fifth to ninth century, through the lens of the region's sculpture.

--IANS

sgh/sm/vt