Pejeng drum (also Pejeng-type drum) is a type of Bronze Age kettledrum which was produced across the archipelago of Indonesia between the 1st and 2nd century AD. They are one of Indonesia's finest example of metalworking. Examples of Bronze Age Pejeng drum, such as the ancient

Moon of Pejeng The Moon of Pejeng, also known as the Pejeng Moon, in Bali is the largest single-cast bronze kettle drum in the world. and "the largest known relic from Southeast Asia's Bronze Age period."Rita A. Widiadana,Get in touch with Bali's cultural herit ...

, is the largest

bronze drum Bronze drums are ancient artifacts found in various cultures in Southeast Asia and southern China. The drums were cast in bronze using the lost-wax casting method. The drums were both musical instruments and cult objects. They are decorated with ge ...

in the world, indicating the advance of metal casting technique and the active trade in the archipelago in the first millennium AD.

Archaeology

The first record of the use of bronze and iron in the Indonesian archipelago was around 500 BC. Most of the earliest bronze objects were probably used for ceremonies e.g. highly stylized axes and kettledrums. Some drums were shaped in a form known as the Dong Son, a type of bronze drum which originate from northern Vietnam and are spread along the

Sunda Islands The Sunda Islands ( id, Kepulauan Sunda) are a group of islands in the Malay Archipelago.Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sunda Islands" . ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. They consist of the Greater Sunda ...

e.g.

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

, Java, Nusa Tenggara and even as far as the Kai Islands near Papua. The spread of the Dong Son drum in the Indonesian archipelago indicates an extensive trade among the kingdoms in Southeast Asia during the period. Other bronze drums found in the archipelago represented local variation, the most well-known of these are the Pejeng drums. The Pejeng drums, named after the Bronze Age village of

Pejeng Pejeng is a village in Bali, Indonesia, in the Petanu River valley. It is a bit east of Ubud in Gianyar Regency. It is home to the Moon of Pejeng, the largest single-cast bronze kettle drum in the world. Pejeng is a rural area with extensive, ...

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

, were the

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

variation of the Dong Son drum. Pejeng drums differ from the earlier

Dong Son drum A Đông Sơn drum (; also called Heger Type I drum) is a type of ancient bronze drum created by the Đông Sơn culture that existed in the Red River Delta. The drums were produced from about 600 BCE or earlier until the third century CE; they a ...

in that they had a more elongated shape and were made in two pieces (mantles and tympana) cast separately using the lost wax method. Pejeng drum was designed in the Indonesian archipelago and was produced extensively in the island of Java and

in the first millennium AD. The Balinese variation is among the most impressive metal artifact in the late prehistoric period of Indonesia. The

kept in the village of Pejeng, is the largest Pejeng drum in the world. Such enormous drum would have had great social value for the owners. Neither copper nor tin, the raw materials for bronze making, are available in Bali. The existence of huge bronze drums in Bali indicates an intensive inter-island trade between Bali and other parts of Indonesia during the first millennium AD. Trade was also more expansive in Bali, as pottery decorated with Indian-styled rouletted designs, were found at Sembiran and Pacung in the north part of Bali, indicating a trade as far as India within the archipelago in the 1st or 2nd centuries AD. Pejeng drums may have been used as a regalia by kings or chiefs who wanted to be considered an international elite. At

Plawangan Plawangan is a hill above the town of Kaliurang, on the southern slopes of Gunung Merapi, in Sleman Regency, Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It is east of Turgo, which is another named hill above Kaliurang. Formerly a vulcanological po ...

, a Pejeng drum was found in burials, together with other precious objects e.g. gold necklace and iron spearhead. In Bali, the

, the largest drum of this type, was simply kept in villages. The

Moko drum ''Moko'' are bronze kettledrums from Alor Island, Indonesia. While they have been found in several different locations in Indonesia, they are most famously associated with the island of Alor, where they have long been prized in ceremonial exch ...

of Alor, a Pejeng-type drum, are still used as heirloom objects which are exchanged in marriage ceremonies.

Appearance and construction

A Pejeng drum has a symmetrical appearance. Its shape consists of three parts: the head or the tympanum at the top, the middle barrel where the handle is attached, and the base. The design difference between the Pejeng drum and the Dong Son drum is that the tympanum protrudes around beyond the body, and was cast separately from it. Pejeng drums were made using

lost-wax casting Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is ...

. Another difference with the

is that the body and tympana of the Pejeng drum were sometimes cast separately instead of as a whole. A wax model in the shape of a drum was made around a hollow clay core. The standardized geometric pattern of human or animal were impressed into the wax using incised stone molds. The geometric patterns were molded onto for the tympana and the upper sides.

References

Cited works

* * {{Commons category, Pejeng drums Archaeology of material culture Casting (manufacturing) Archaeological artifacts Bronze Age Asia Archaeology of Indonesia Bronze drums