Palanquin Ring

When members of the royal family or priesthood traveled in a public festival procession to make offerings at a temple or participate in a ceremony, they would be carried in a palanquin, or a covered litter. Portable objects of veneration, such as bronze images or a sacred fire, were also carried on palanquins. The palanquins had wooden poles, hanging seats or raised platforms, and bronze fittings cast in intricate forms and gilt, lending the palanquins a sumptuous quality. This ring, which supported a suspended seat, would have hung on a hook attached to a wooden pole. The body of the ring is shaped in the form of a pair of nagas, or serpents. The flanges, or protrusions, on the top and sides are stylized spines of the serpent’s body, and the heads rear up on either side. In a richly textured cluster of separately cast figures on both sides of the ring are images of composite bird-human, monkey-human, and elephant forms.