Ancient tin ingots in the Perak Museum
W. Linehan’s 1951 note in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society documents a small group of anomalous tin ingots held in the Perak Museum that bear no resemblance to the well-known tampang or “animal” types and lack any local traditional association. Linehan, writing from a museum-curatorial standpoint, catalogues these objects and then advances tentative interpretations linking their forms—mound-shaped, octagonal, and cylindrical—to possible solar cult symbolism, the Hindu linga, and the mound-marriage ceremonies of the Malayan aborigines.
Summary
The article addresses a gap in the typology of Malayan tin ingots. While the tampang (flat, stamped ingots) and the “animal” types are well attested and culturally embedded, the six groups of ingots Linehan describes are morphologically distinct: three are mound-shaped with circular bases, two are octagonal with longitudinal ridges (belimbing segi), and a series of tubular or cannon-barrel-shaped specimens bear a tooth-pattern decoration on a shallow ledge. Linehan provides dimensions, weights, and provenance for each, noting that several were recovered from the Klang River, the Lower Perak railway construction, and various estates in Selangor and Perak.
The interpretive section is speculative but methodically grounded. Linehan observes that the mound-shaped ingots with their circular bases and tooth ornamentation recall the dentate decoration found on the bronze bells of the Klang area, and that all three specimens of known provenance come from the Selangor–South Perak zone where the bronze-iron-age culture was concentrated. He suggests a possible solar-cult association for the mound forms. The octagonal ingots resist interpretation, but the cylindrical specimens he tentatively identifies as representations of the linga, citing Professor L. Renou’s treatment in L’Inde Classique. The article’s broader question—whether any of these objects connect to the mound or ant-hill that featured prominently in the marriage ceremonies of the Jakun, Besisi, and Sakai—is left open.
To support this final line of inquiry, Linehan appends substantial extracts from Skeat and Blagden’s Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula (Vol. 2), which document in ethnographic detail the construction of a truncated-cone clay mound (surmounted by a globe and knob) used in Besisi wedding rites at Ayer Hitam, Selangor, and the older practice of running around a natural ant-hill (busut jantan) among the Jakun of Bukit Panchor.
Key Findings
- The mound-shaped ingots (Nos. 1–3) have circular bases of 3–3¾ inches diameter and heights of 1¼–1¾ inches; the heaviest (No. 3) weighs 3 lb. 13¼ ozs.
- Ingot No. 1, dredged from the Klang River at Petaling and presented by H. E. Corbell in 1930, carries a high-relief tooth pattern around its ledge, which Linehan compares to the dentate decoration on Klang bronze bells.
- The octagonal ingots (Nos. 4–5) have a base diameter of 4 inches, heights of approximately 1⅘ and 1½ inches, and eight longitudinal ridges (belimbing segi); No. 4 was found on Sione Estate, Batu Caves, and presented by G. Allen Grant in 1917.
- The tubular ingots (No. 6 series) include a specimen from Lasah, Ulu Plus, Perak, presented by Sir Hugh Low, with a base diameter of 1½ inches, height of 3¼ inches, and weight of 1 lb. 1 oz.; one side is unfinished.
- A comparable but larger object from Burma (base diameter 5 inches, height 2¼ inches, weight 6 lb. 5½ ozs.) is held in the Raffles Museum, Singapore.
- The Besisi marriage-mound, as witnessed by Skeat at Ayer Hitam, was constructed as a truncated cone “surmounted by a small globe and knob, so that it was not unlike a gigantic bell and bell-handle,” and was described by a Batin as “the emblem of his religion.”
Conclusion
Linehan’s definitive contribution is typological rather than conclusively interpretive: he establishes that a distinct class of pre-tampang tin ingots exists in the Perak Museum collection, that their geographic distribution overlaps with the bronze-iron-age cultural zone of Selangor and South Perak, and that their forms invite—though do not confirm—connections to solar symbolism, the linga, and aboriginal mound rites. The article functions primarily as a cataloguing exercise that opens further lines of inquiry.
Context
- Linehan was almost certainly a curator or official at the Perak Museum; the article reads as an internal collection note made accessible to a scholarly audience, with provenance data drawn from museum accession records (e.g., “44/30,” “16/17”).
- The study relies entirely on the Perak Museum’s own holdings and on published ethnographic sources (Skeat and Blagden; Renou); no new fieldwork or archaeological excavation is reported.