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Old 10th September 2020, 11:25 AM   #12
Peter Dekker
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Location: Kingdom of the Netherlands
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Thanks for sharing, Ian! I recall these from the catalog of that exhibit.

Over the years I also own and have owned some of these finer silver overlaid dha and my research has lead me to the village of Mindan in Yamethin district. Several gazetteers mention Mindan as the only place where such work was done at the time.

Some excerpts:

"The inlaid dha and dagger blades of Mindan near Yamèthin are well-known. The dhas are inlaid in gold, silver and brass."

-Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan states. 1901.

And:

"Of the 26,221 workers and dependents shown in the census returns under the head of workers in iron and hardware, few can have been capable of executing anything more than the coarsest blacksmith's work. An exception must, however, be made in favour of the forgers of the inlaid knife-blades produced in Yamethin District, some of whose work is really meritorious."

-Imperial Gazzetteer of India, Provincial Series, Burma Vol 1. 1908.

Here's an article I wrote about one of the makers, Maung Pyo who was the 7th generation worker in the art, which was handed down from father to son:

https://www.mandarinmansion.com/glossary/saya-pyo

Assuming roughly 20-30 years for a generation, it started about 120-180 years prior, from around the 1720s to 1780s perhaps.

Now when looking at the nature of the koftgari, what strikes me is that on the Burmese dha the entire surface is crosshatched and the designs are then drawn with mostly silver wire after which the surface is blackened for contrast. Classic Indian work tends to only crosshatch that area which is to be covered with gold, not the larger surface.

The crosshatching of larger surfaces and then "drawing" with the wire was quite common on the cartouches on Ottoman swords, and they use the same blackening to make the design stand out. In the early 18th century, many Burmese port officials were in fact Armenian. (See for example "The Muslims of Burma" by Moshe Yegar, 1972.) So I wonder whether it may have come from that angle instead.

I agree most of the later ones are only a faint reflection of what they used to be in Yamethin's heydays. That 1928 dated dha I had however was still decently made and still had a pretty heavy "user" blade, showing the manufacture of serious dha for local consumption did carry on for decades into the 20th century.
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