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Comments

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  Eva Baby November 2, 2012 at 9:14am

  great!!!! As already written on the other picture. Tibet being a higland with some of the hihgest mountains, I wonder how did they get to have corals?
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  HALTER November 2, 2012 at 9:32am

  Quick response, Eva...they never had shells either ( no see , no ocean around...) and that was and is still the reason for them to adore these which by definition were coming from very far ( Thailand and other countries with see and oceans...) also very valuable after such long travels to arrive in Tibet end Himalayas areas...
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  Eva Baby November 2, 2012 at 10:04am

  thanks for the info. Yes, I imagine over very old and very dangerous trade routes...  (but I am still surprised that they have so many corals like on this necklace. Have never seen corals in Thailand (I lived there one year about 20  years back and visited many times), but perhaps from China or........ other places. Anyway a very impressive item!

   
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  HALTER November 2, 2012 at 11:05am

  My dear Eva,

  As you have for amber in Mauritania, Morroco which as you know as far the " real amber"is concerned always came from the Baltic area, you have the same phenomen for himalaya areas where the coral always came thru many routes from the mediteranean see... and the value is partly coming for them from the fact that they don't find such beads in their own neiborought...they also use these as currency because of their rarity!  Best regards
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  HALTER November 22, 2012 at 10:00am

  Skapak, cloth, coral, amber, agata, turquoise, silver, Ladakh, India and Tibet

  Description

  Oppi Untracht, one of the best specialist of the indian world describes the gorget" as coming from Hemis, Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir. He continues: "Ceremonial gorget: a cloth ground on which beads of coral, turquoise, conch shell, and carnelian (the most widely used bead materials of Tibet) are fixed. At the center is a silver ga'u, and from its lower edge is suspended six smaller silver ga'us."  I suppose that such rich skapak with so many corals an shells ( In Tibet, where there is no see and ocean, these materials are highly valuable!) and were worn by rich tibetans close to the hight rank buddhist hierarchy and important Lamas...