“Tulang mawas” re-examined
Prince John Loewenstein’s 1953 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society re-examines the long-debated function of the tulang mawas, an enigmatic Iron Age iron implement recovered from sites across the Malay Peninsula. Loewenstein’s central thesis is that a persistent error in the published drawings of these tools—specifically the misrepresentation of their socket as tubular rather than conical—has led previous scholars to an incorrect conclusion about how the implement was held and used, and that the correct reading points to a solid wooden haft and a carpentry function, most likely in boat-building.
Summary
The tulang mawas had attracted considerable scholarly attention since I. H. N. Evans first described slab-built graves in Perak in 1928, with subsequent contributions by Baker, Collings, Braddell, and Linehan. The dominant interpretation, articulated by Baker in 1937 and endorsed by Braddell and Linehan, held that the transverse socket was too small and poorly positioned for a wooden haft, and that the tool was instead suspended from the user’s body by a loop of rattan cord passed through the socket and tucked under the arm—hence the folk legend of the “iron forearm.” Linehan reinforced this view by drawing a parallel to a Dong Son bronze dagger whose tubular socket accommodated a ring.
Loewenstein’s intervention is fundamentally a correction of the visual record. He demonstrates that H. D. Collings, whose 1937 and 1949 drawings were the primary published illustrations of these implements, consistently rendered the socket as tubular when direct examination of the originals in the Raffles Museum collection shows it to be conical. This single morphological fact has decisive consequences: a conical socket admits a solid tapered handle inserted at its wider opening, projecting in the direction opposite to the working edge. Loewenstein further notes that the pointed end of the blade is consistently worn or broken, a pattern consistent with a pushing motion analogous to the operation of a wooden plane.
From this corrected physical evidence, Loewenstein argues that the tulang mawas was a carpenter’s tool, most plausibly used in the manufacture of boats—the most vital occupation of the Iron Age wood-worker in Malaya. He supports this by pointing to the distribution pattern of finds: rather than being concentrated in mining districts (as Baker’s miner’s-tool hypothesis would predict), the implements are scattered along river-beds from the Kinta district of Perak down to Klang in Selangor, and in East Malaya around Kuala Lipis, the Tembeling region, and Tersang in Pahang. He also dismisses Collings’s suggestions of ceremonial use or currency, arguing that the hoards in which tulang mawas have been found are mixed with spearheads and potsherds, and that none of the standard criteria for identifying prehistoric currency (uniform weight standards, impractical sizes, half-finished forms) are met.
Key Findings
- The socket of the tulang mawas is conical, not tubular, as previously published drawings by Collings (1937, 1949) incorrectly depicted; this is demonstrated by direct examination of specimens in the Raffles Museum, Singapore collection (p. 39, Fig. 3).
- A conical socket implies a solid wooden haft inserted at the wider opening, projecting opposite to the working edge—contradicting Baker’s 1937 hypothesis of a rattan-cord suspension under the armpit (pp. 37–38).
- The pointed end of the blade is consistently worn or broken across specimens, indicating a pushing motion comparable to the operation of a plane (p. 40).
- The geographic distribution of finds—Kinta (Perak) to Klang (Selangor) in the west, and Kuala Lipis, Tembeling, and Tersang (Pahang) in the east—argues against a mining function and favours a riverine carpentry/boat-building context (p. 40).
- Small hoards of tulang mawas are always found mixed with iron spearheads and potsherds, and none conform to the weight-standard, size-anomaly, or half-finished criteria that would support a currency interpretation (p. 42).
- Loewenstein cites W. Koppers’s methodological caution that prehistorians may not infer social complexity (ceremonial objects, currency) from the mere presence of artifacts without independent evidence (p. 40).
Conclusion
Loewenstein’s definitive takeaway is that the tulang mawas was a practical carpenter’s tool—most likely a form of plane used in boat-building—fitted with a solid wooden handle, and that the entire prior interpretive framework built on the “tubular socket” misreading must be abandoned. He closes by emphasising the broader methodological lesson: in the absence of skeletal remains or written records, the material culture of Malaya’s Iron Age peoples remains poorly understood, and scholars must resist the temptation to project complex social or economic systems onto a handful of ambiguous artifacts.
Context
- The primary physical evidence examined is the tulang mawas collection held at the Raffles Museum, Singapore, from which Loewenstein produced his corrected drawings (Fig. 3, p. 41).
- The article contributes to the historiography of Malayan prehistory by correcting a foundational error in the published visual record and thereby reopening the functional interpretation of one of the most discussed Iron Age artifact types in the region.