The mystery of the twin masks on megaliths at Long Pulung in East Kalimantan: prehistoric wax modeling molds for casting bronze moko drums? An interpretative attempt.

Introduction

The great alignment of prehistoric urn dolmens at the site of Long Pulung hosts two exceptional megaliths with as yet uninterpreted designs. I would describe the main sculptures on these megaliths as stylized "anthropomorphic twin masks" or "double masks." The same designs are present only on the large unique Pejeng drum in Bali and on some prehistoric bronze moko drums of which only a very few still exist. The two investigated megalithic objects would therefore seem to this author to have been "negative" wax printing molds--not the casting molds--for the production of bronze objects by the lost wax technique, most probably of moko drums. An ancient stone mold fragment with a similar head design from Manuaba, in Central Bali, was already identified in the 1930s as a wax layer print mold for the production of bronze drums. On the basis of present evidence, the possibility cannot be excluded that early metalworking was being done in this remote Bahau and Kerayan area. The exact age of the two objects is still uncertain. The exact age of the three moko drums (two are incomplete) with twin mask designs like those on the megaliths at Long Pulung in the Prehistory Collection at the Indonesian National Museum in Jakarta is unknown, but estimated at about 2000 years. An archeological survey should therefore be undertaken in the Bahau area to locate fired clay fragments from bronze casting sites for thermoluminiscence verification. Simplified face or mask designs like those on the drums were still a feature of Dayak tattoos and building elements down into the 20th century.

Geographical Situation

In the East Kalimantan Regency of Malinau (formerly, Bulungan), in the sub-district of Long Pujungan, on the upper Sungai Bahau, as well as in the adjacent Kerayan area there exists a large number of prehistoric urn dolmens and some stone sarcophagi (see Figure 1: Map of the Upper Sungai Bahau Area). Today, this remote area is accessible only by a fortnight's boat ride from Tanjung Selor up the Kayan River and then up the rapids of the Bahau tributary, or, using a mission airplane, by flying from Tarakan to Long Alango, on the Sungai Bahau. The urn dolmen site with the ornamented megaliths got its name from the former village of Long Pulung. This megalithic burial ground is situated above many dangerous rapids on the bank of the Sungai Bahau, between the existing villages of Apau Ping and Long Kemuat, and just opposite the mouth of a small tributary known as the Sungai Pulung, where the former village of Long Pulung is said to have once stood.

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Description and Stone Working

Most urn dolmens at Long Pulung consist of large hemispherical stone containers up to one meter or more in diameter (3.2 feet)--each made of a single large river boulder--placed on a foundation of mostly four stones and covered with a stone lid. These constructions are encircled by tall stone pillars, and further bounded above by a large stone slab. The stone used in these constructions is sandstone. Hollowing out the huge boulders can only have been done with the use of metal tools, though, as we shall see, another opinion has been offered, although, in my view, it is not very persuasive. The pillars, lids and slabs are not worked. The alignment of the urn dolmens is on the high left bank along the Bahau River.

The shape of the last downriver urn, which is considered to be the most recent because of its placement, differs totally from all the other urns. It is not spherical but is a very regularly shaped hollowed cylinder with thin walls, 60 cm. (23.6 inches) in height and 40 cm. (15.75 inches) in diameter. A part has been broken off and lost.

This particular urn and one of the pillars are the subject of this paper because of their curious incised surface decoration.

Figure 2: The three urns on the lower end of the alignment at Long Pulung. The cylinder-shaped but partially broken urn with the designs and the decorated pillar are on the extreme left side. The Dayak man who appears in the photograph is the pastor of Long Kemuat. (Photo by H. Zahorka, 1999)

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Figure 3: Moko Mask Designs at Long Pulung. On the left side stands the even-shaped and decorated former pillar, which is now leaning into the center. Its exposed surface is therefore heavily weathered. After I had removed the moss from the surface, a heavily eroded incised design appeared. In the center of the design is the cylinder, which had been used as an urn. The designs on both stones are the same. As indicated, I would call them "anthropomorphic twin masks" or "double masks." This design motif exists only on the oldest (prehistoric) moko bronze drums of the Pejeng type and on the huge Pejeng drum itself, which is called the "Moon of Pejeng" or the "Moon of Bali." No Dongson bronze drums of Type Heger I that I have ever examined were ornamented with such mask motifs.

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Figure 4: Both photos of the cylinder show the triangle- or heart-shaped mask faces furnished with big round eyes and pointed chins. Above the masks, horizontal lines are visible. I have not yet attempted to analyze the ornaments on the top. Below the masks are V-shaped and round engravings. All of these low reliefs are found around the cylinder which probably originally contained two twin mask sets.

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Figures 5 and 6: The pillar is no longer in an upright position, but leans into the center of the enclosure. Below the moss layer appears a heavily weathered mask. However, it is upside-down. This suggests a secondary use of the stone! In all probability, the ornamented cylinder fits this assumption as well, that is to say, that its use as part of an ossuary is a secondary one. It also seems illogical to cut a generally spherical shaped boulder into a slim cylinder and then use it as a small urn.

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The drawing shows the pillar in its "upside-down" position. The mask is of the same style as that on the cylinder urn. Below are horizontal lines and the stone with a "waisted" shape. This waist is a typical feature of moko drums of the Pejeng type. These features suggest to me that these stones were originally wax-printing molds for the production of bronze drums, most probably of the Pejeng type.

References in the Recent Past

Several references to these megaliths and to the "ornamented" urn of Long Pulung have been published in recent years by Werner F. Schneeberger in 1979, Martin Baier in 1987 and 1992, Bernard Sellato in 1995, Pierre-Ives Manguin in 1995 (reporting on a survey of 1992), and Dody Johanjaya, Anggara Yonathan and Yoga Prima Subandono in 1995. Baler provides the fullest description.

Baier (1987: 121, 123) presents two photographs of the "urn with designs" and describes its shape in some detail. Referring to the ornaments he writes (translated from German): "Two pointed triangles are depicted one above the other; and above and below them are two pairs of circles." However, no hint is given of their anthropomorphic shape.

Baier (1992 and 1995) again presents a photograph of the "urn with designs" (1992: 165) with a clearly visible mask pair. He points out similarities with some tattoo patterns used among the Kayan and Kenyah tribes. It seems, he is definitely convinced that the urns were hollowed out using metal tools. In 1995, he wrote (translated): "In the literature are confirming reports on ore mining (Elshout 1926: 100) and on iron processing (Nieuwenhuis 1904 II: 197) in pre-colonial times."

Sellato (1995 and 1996) offers another opinion. He writes that: "It is plausible that the funeral containers, made of coarse-grained sandstone boulders, were cut into shape with basalt adzes or scrapers and dug out with basalt gouges." He also mentions the designs: "Only two of the containers surveyed so far show any kind of decoration, incised or in low relief" ("two" containers is a misinterpretation). He finds support for his basalt tool theory (1996: 7) by referring to Padoch (1983: 36) who reported that during World War II a whole village (Nan Baa, Sarawak), comprising some twenty households, had only a single iron bush knife. "After World War II, iron tools became more commonly used," Sellato adds (1996: 8). Concluding, he remarks: "Finds of numerous stone tools in the upper Bahau region (Sellato 1995c, Karina 1995) imply that, 150 to 200 years ago, iron was not yet widely in use ..." (1996: 4).

The author, however, seems to have neglected the foreign language literature. This renders Sellato's basalt tool theory not at all plausible. Concerning the hardness of the materials, it is rather absurd, and in terms of historical sources untenable. The hardness of sandstone and basalt, unless the former is weathered, is almost the same, and it would therefore have required a great deal of basalt to have worked these stones. Moreover, inside the stone sarcophagi at Long Pujungan and inside of some urns at Long Pulung sharp marks of chisel work are clearly visible, typical for the work of a metal chisel. The big prehistoric sarcophagus at Data Dian is made of andesite, a hard volcanic rock like basalt (Tillema 1938:208 and other sources). Irong Njau, the "last Ngorek" in the Bahau area, professed that the urns were hollowed by using metal hatchets (Baier 1987: 120). The Ngorek are widely considered to be the descendants of the urn constructors. Baler also reports of stairs cut into rocks allegedly by the Ngorek using metal tools.

Although Sellato cites Van Walchren (1907) and Elshout (1926) in both his publications, it appears, however, that he has not studied these authors carefully. Van Walchren (1907: 800), reporting precisely from the Long Pujungan/upper Bahau area, writes (translated from Dutch): "Trade and industry are not performed; however, the Oma Badang had a smithy where ... iron ore was processed which is found in the mountains." Particularly, he notes, spears and sickles were forged.

The existence of metal ore in Pujungan (Bahau), Kerayan and the Apo Kayan areas, together with an early knowledge of metal processing, would seem to explain the former dense population and early megalithic culture of these regions.

Bernet Kempers (1991: 13) makes it clear: "Since preparation techniques usually required metal tools, most megaliths cannot have been made before the Metal Age. Different types of megalithic monuments, such as dolmen, stone casts, stone chambers, stone vats, and stone sculptures ..." (were all produced using metal tools).

Marschall (1995b: 190) concludes that (translated from German): "... all Indonesian megaliths (must) be attributed to a phase of the Metal Age ..."

Manguin (1995, reporting on an archeological survey carried out in 1992 at Sungai Bahau) also gave his attention to the "site of Long Pulung" (p. 74), noting that "With one notable exception, monuments here were built on the standard shape ... Within this group, one fallen monument revealed one single, upright sculpted stone. Figures are difficult to interpret before the stone is cleared of the unglazed from an ant's nest and other fallen stones." This description is unclear. By "upright sculpted stone," he seems to be referring to the ornamented urn of which he published a partial photo of the mask motif (Fig. 3, p. 85). Not understandable, however, is his remark about "unglazed from an ants nest." Nothing like that is visible from the photos of Baler 1987 and 1992 or my own photos of 1999. I have observed one other urn dolmen on which termites (not ants) have built nests. As an archaeologist, Manguin does mention finding "basalt tools." However, he offers no opinion about techniques of stonework.

Johanjaya et al. (1995) produced in Indonesian an inventory and a physical classification of the urns and dolmens in the upper Sungai Bahau region. Under the heading "Lampiran 13: Situs Long Pulung," they provide a detailed drawing of the stone group with the mask motives (1995: 30). On the partially broken cylinder urn, a pair of masks and horizontal lines are visible. The designs on the pillar are not depicted. Strangely, the pillar is shown as if it were standing upright, although in Baler's photo (1992: 164) and in my own photos of 1999, it is clearly in a leaning position.

It seems that it has not, until now, been recognized that the "ornaments" on the two megaliths at Long Pulung are anthropomorphic twin masks, which are also the main design motifs on the few still existing earliest prehistoric moko drums of the classical Pejeng type. These twin mask-faces are cast four-fold in a relatively naturalistic style on the huge Pejeng drum, i.e., one pair each between the four handles. On the earliest much smaller moko drums of Pejeng type, the designs are reduced to triangle-shaped masks like those on the megaliths at Long Pulung.

These "drums" have no sound-producing membrane. Therefore, they belong to the group of percussion instruments that produce sound by their own body. According to ethnomusicological classification, this group includes gongs and kettledrums.

Figure 7: This unique object is known as the "Moon of Pejeng" or "Moon of Bali." With a height of 186.5 cm. (6.12 ft.), it is the biggest bronze drum of its type known. For many centuries, it has been kept in a horizontal position at Pura (temple) Penataran Sasih in the village of Pejeng, in Bali. It is considered by the villagers to be a prehistoric holy relict. With regard to bronze casting, it is a miracle: a unified whole! The photo shows that the handles are cast together with the body and were not fixed onto it later. This is typical for all early "waisted" bronze drums of the Pejeng type. Only the metal tympanum is cast separately and then mechanically fixed onto the drum's body.

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Between the four handles are situated the mask pairs, here still recognizable as faces with protruding round eyes and with nose, mouth and ears. Disc-shaped ornaments distend the ear lobes to a medium length. Today, this can still be seen among elderly Dayak people, with women having longer and men shorter distensions than on the Pejeng drum. The other geometric decorations above and below the masks are not the subject of our investigation here (Photo from Reisefuhrer Bali, Singapore: Periplus, 1991).

Figure 8: Here can be seen the classical shape of the large Pejeng drum and one of the triangle- or heart-shaped faces (Bernet Kempers 1991: 16). The diameter-to-height ratio of this type of drum is always between 1:3 and 1:4. Bernet Kempers confirms that in Bali only this type of drum is found, although it occurs in different sizes. "So far no Heger I drums have been found in Bali ... their (Pejeng type) ultimate origin must have been Central Bali" (1991: 18). Bernet Kempers also writes that "The total absence of Heger I in Bali seems to imply that the time when Heger I was making its appearance in the archipelago, Bali had already made its own preparations for casting metal drums, and had been succeeding quite well. It is thus an independent development we are directly concerned with" (1991:19).

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The Heger I bronze kettledrums had their heyday between the 4th century B.C. and 1st century A.D. (Dongson bronze). Most imports to the archipelago came, according to Bernet Kempers, most probably after that time, "but a few specimen of much earlier Heger I drums may have reached the western parts of the archipelago long before that" (e.g., Palembang, Sumatra).

Therefore, there is some probability that the first classical Balinese Pejeng drums with twin masks might have been already cast in the last centuries of the last millennium B.C., before the appearance of Heger I drums. The question remains as to when the last drums with the twin mask design were cast, for all later moko drums were produced with quite different designs. The answer to this question could give a hint as to the latest possible age at which the stones were sculpted with the twin mask designs at Long Pulung.

Metal processing in Bali was already present in the last half of the first millennium B.C. and was not restricted only to bronze. In archaeological excavations of East Balinese tombs, not only bronze but also iron objects have been found (Hinzler 1991: 22).

Figure 9: In a locker in the Prehistory Collection of the Indonesian National Museum in Jakarta are stored three prehistoric bronze moko drums which are decorated with the twin masks. They are described in the Catalogus der Praehistorische Verzameling 1941 under the numbers 4950, 4951 and 4952, as "produced probably in Bali," at Manuaba or Sembiran. Later moko drum production centered in Gresik. According to the Chief of the Prehistory Department National Museum Jakarta, Ibu Suhardini Chalid, the age of these three mokos cannot be fixed exactly. However, it is estimated at up to 2000 years. (The more recent moko drums are displayed in the large Ethnography exhibition hall. None bear mask motifs.)

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Moko no. 4951 is a fragment; the part below the handles has been lost. Moko no. 4952 is also incomplete and shows many ancient repair efforts by means of bronze clamps.

Only moko no. 4950 is still in good condition except for its metal tympanum. It is shown in my photos. Its museum registration number is 14315. The height is 59 cm. (23 inches) and the diameter at its base is 28 cm. (11 inches). The tympanum rim juts out 4.2 cm. (1.65 inches) from the body, however, at least a quarter of this is broken off. The masks are heart-shaped. One pair is located between each of the four handles. The line and band ornaments above and below correspond with those on the large Pejeng drum. The vertical line visible on the right side of the drum's mantle was not created by plumbing or soldering. Rather, it is the connecting seam of the two halves of the wax sheet molds, which was filled in with molten bronze. This casting technique is described below. The Catalogus remarks that it was "bought by the Genootschap from Heer G.P. Rouffaer," in 1910 or earlier. The place of purchase is given as Alor.

Figures 10 and 11: All designs are in high relief. The casting mold must therefore have been in low relief. The designs on the stones at Long Pulung are of this nature. The masks are stylistically simplified compared to the faces on the "Pejeng moon." The round eyes are protruding and a small ring indicates the nose. It can clearly be seen that the handles were cast as a unit together with the drum's body. Swastika motifs adorn the handles.

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The tympanum shows a complicated pattern of bands, different from the coils on the big Pejeng drum and completely different from the Heger I tympana. The star-shaped octagon in the center is nearly totally broken off. A gap of approximately 10 cm. (3.9 inches) in diameter has been closed from below with a smooth sheet of bronze and fixed to the tympanum with bronze clamps.

A drawing entitled "Another early moko from Alor" in the book of Bernet Kempers (1991: 26, Fig. 22) seems to be of the same drum.

The Tropenmuseum at Amsterdam includes several moko drums among its collections. One, which is in excellent condition, collection no. 3879-3, height 54 cm. (21.3 inches), top diameter 34 cm. (13.4 inches), bears a continuous row of masks around its body just above the handles. The KIT Catalogus Budaya Indonesia 1987-1988 remarks that "Old mokos are considered to be the abode of ancestral spirits and are honored as such."

A drawing of a typical pair of masks is also found in Hoop's Indonesische Siermotiven--Indonesian Ornamental Design, 1949: 101. It comes from a moko of KBG no. 4952 (Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap). The text reads (translated from Dutch): "A pair of masks on a copper object of Alor (i.e., moko)." The space between and below the two masks is filled in with lines that appear to depict a longhouse on high stilts. (This information courtesy of Mr. Jan Winkelhorst, Aalten, personal communication).

The Twin Masks

Up to the present, no attempt has been made to interpret the meaning of these twin masks or faces. The twin faces might best be understood in relation to the sound of the instrument on which they appear. (Translated from German) "The sound of the gong was interpreted as the voice of the deceased, particularly the voice of the progenitor. The gong shares that function with other instruments ..." (ter Keurs 1995:312). Ancestors are often depicted in pairs when they are asked to grant fertility or when offerings are being made to them. In addition, (translated from German) "In most societies the ancestors are put at the center of adoration during rituals and also in everyday life; the ancestors are the prime mediators. Prosperity depends on them and fertility in particular... This is expressed in various arts. Once a pair of ancestors can be depicted to show the importance of both sexes for the continued existence of the society" (Marschall 1995b: 188).

The twin masks on the drums do not show sexual differentiation. However, this does not disqualify them from being recognized as a symbolic pair of ancestors, because, in the afterworld, sexual attributes are said not to exist. In traditional Indonesian societies drums and gongs are frequently endowed with a soul. They are beaten only at rituals, and the ancestors are requested to participate and make their voices heard through the instruments. That could be a possible interpretation, but others are not excluded.

During a trip I made in June 2003 to the small, remote village of Pa' Raye in Kerayan Hulu, close to the border of Sabah and Sarawak in East Kalimantan, the Kepala Adat (traditional chief), Yusran Ukab, showed me a huge boulder which is called the Batu Ngarok. It lies in the Pa' Rayan River close to the village. That boulder bears six incised heart-shaped masks. One pair of masks faces upriver, another pair faces downriver, and two masks are single and located at different spots on the boulder.

Figure 12 shows the pair of incised heart-shaped masks that faces upriver on the Batu Ngarok boulder at Pa' Raye, Kerayan Hulu. I enhanced the outline with charcoal in order to make it more visible. (Photo by H. Zahorka 2003).

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Figure 13 shows another big boulder (Photo by H. Zahorka 2003), 500 meters north of the same village at the edge of a rice field. There I discovered an incised front view of a buffalo head (kerbau, my interpretation). This, as far as I know, is without any analogy in Borneo. Even the people of the village did not appear to be able to identify the engravings, the Kepala Adat who accompanied me included. They call the boulder Batu Narit (incised stone) because the whole surface is covered with numerous incised linear marks made by the sharpening of cast metal tools, most probably of iron (hoes, chisels, and spear heads?). This is distinct proof of metal working in that area. During a long period of time the boulder has obviously moved and rolled down a bit into the rice field. Therefore, the buffalo head which originally must have been situated at the top now appears upside down. The deep weathered and eroded linear engravings around the head indicate a very old age.

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Figure 14 shows the buffalo head from above. All these stone engravings are thought to derive from the Megalithic/Metal Period, which started in the last half of the first millennium B.C. (Hinzler 1991: 22). The water buffalo (kerbau) appears in the archipelago together with the Dongson bronze kettledrums like Heger I (Scheefold 1980: 130). The Kerayan District is rich in dolmens, megaliths, stone urns, stone tempayan and prehistoric mounds, which include several stone slabs. The Kelabit Dayak (Lun Daye and Lun Baa) living there use water buffalos (karbau) for transportation.

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A number of single triangle-shaped masks--not in pairs--with large round eyes and not in a systematic order are incised on a large rock in the Kerayan Hulu area at a salt source close to Kampong Baru. This stone was reported on by Baier (1979: 79, fig. 14 and 15). I also visited the boulder in June 2003. Baier further reports (translated from German): "... (such) triangle-shaped faces were also found engraved on bones from Niah (Harrisson and Medway 1962: Plate Ib)."

Figure 15: A pillar of a prehistoric megalithic tomb or dolmen on a small island in the uppermost Sungai Kayan opposite the mouth of a small tributary known as Sungai Sui, situated between the longhouse villages of Lidung Payau and Long Sungai Barang, Apo Kayan (the latter is the last upriver village on the Sungai Kayan). This sculpture also has a similar triangle-shaped face with protruding round eyes typical of the style being described here (Photo by H. Zahorka 1994).

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The Bronze Casting Technique

In 1931 or 1932 in a temple at Manuaba in Bali (between Ubud and Tampaksiring) the German Artist Walter Spies discovered a stone fragment of a mold with an incised low

Figure 16: Studies and examinations made by Dr. K.C. Crucq and others revealed that this stone fragment was a printing mold, not a mold for casting. It must have been meant to be used several times in succession. The total height of the mantle projected from the Manuaba mold can be calculated at 107.5 cm. (42.3 inches), or twice as high as the moko drum in the National Museum in Jakarta. The two figures show the stone fragment with the head and a print made from it. The stone is the printing mold. It is the "negative" of the later cast. The typical round eyes are holes here--as they are on the stones in Long Pulung. The cast form then is the "positive." Here the eyes are protruding. All "negative" decorations on the printing mold become reversed as "positive" high relief on the cast drum.

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To cast in the lost wax method, the clay core of the drum had to be first shaped and, for practical reasons, hollowed. A layer of wax was then pressed over the stone printing mold and carefully removed. This now became a positive relief on one side. This sheet of wax was then applied to the clay core with its relief outside. The handles were formed in wax and fixed to the body.

Because the same motif was repeated four times around the body, the printing mold did not have to cover the whole circumference. A quarter or a half was sufficient. Two or four wax layers were fixed together at their vertical edges with wax, which later looked like a plumbing seam on the cast body. As a next step, the entire wax prototype had to be carefully enclosed in a clay crust or outer mold. Bronze plugs were used to maintain the correct distance between the core and the outer mold during casting, and holes for letting out fluid wax, gases, superfluous metal, etc. had to be fixed. All was then heated for the fluid wax to escape (to be used again for the next drum). The molten metal was then poured into the narrow spaces between the inner and the outer molds. The tympanumcum-cuff was cast separately and mechanically fixed to the drum's body. This method allowed for the production of large bodies with a minimum amount of bronze, which was important for producing a satisfying sound when the drum was beaten.

Bernet Kempers (1988 and 1991) has published a detailed description of this casting method.

Cautious Assessment of Age

Marschall is very cautious in dating the megalithic/metal age in Indonesia (translated from German): "An exact date of the gongs of type Heger I in Indonesia is not yet possible ... early dates particularly by Solheim (1972) and his colleagues are meanwhile being widely revised" (1995a: 40, 41). The Museum in Palembang, Sumatra, hosts two large boulders with sculptures. On the "Bull stone," two men hold a Dongson gong of type Heger I and on the "Elephant stone," a warrior carries a Heger I drum on his back. Both stones date from early in the first millennium A.D.

According to another source (translated from German): "... the gongs (Heger I) are the biggest and most conspicuous artifacts of the metal age culture on South East Asia's islands before the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism. It is accepted that they arrived there between 600 BC and 100 A.D. ..." (ter Keurs 1995: 312).

Today it is generally accepted that the bronze and iron production in Island Southeast Asia started about 500 B.C. Vickers (1991: 113) estimates the age of the "Moon of Pejeng" bronze drum at 2000 years.

The Popularity of the Twin Mask Motif in Borneo

In Borneo, or Kalimantan, the twin mask motif has existed in a schematic or simplified form into the twentieth century both in Dayak tattoo motifs and on buildings. Several authors have recorded drawings of Dayak tattoo designs:

Figure 17: Four tattoo designs from Hose and McDougall (1912: 258). The authors identify these tattoo patterns as "anthropomorphic." Fig. 69 was a tattoo on the upper thighs of women with tattoo names like tegulun, silong, or kohong. Fig. 70 and Fig. 71 are knee tattoos with the names nangn klinge and tushun tuva, respectively. Both patterns were also called kalong hang. The tattoo in Fig. 72 has lost its anthropomorphic appearance but its anthropomorphic origin is still obvious. It was called tishin tuva and was seen at the front side of the upper thighs of a woman belonging to the slave class.

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Figure 18: A complete view of the tattooed upper thighs of a woman from Bock (1881: Plate 6). The colored lithograph bears the caption, "Tattooed Woman of Long Wai." This may refer to today's Muara Wai on the Sungai Kedang Kepala. The basic pattern is in rows but remains strongly reminiscent of an anthropomorphic mask even if the spiral lines at the chin turn outwards. The eyes are also depicted as spirals.

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Figure 19: Also from Hose and McDougall (1912: 276), a "Sea Dayak Tatu." It is a tattoo worn on the larynx of men. The original triangle-shaped mask is reduced to a few essential lines. The eyes are only half coils and the nose is two vertical lines. Two "meaningless" names are given: katak ('frog') and tali gasieng ('spinning thread'). The Bakatan Dayak are said to have used the same motif. They called it gerowit.

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Figure 20: This very simplified row of longish triangle mask motifs I found decorating the terrace of the Catholic presbytery in Long Lunuk, in the upper Mahakam (Photo by H. Zahorka 2000). No special name for this motif could be given. This is the settlement area of the Bahau and the Long Glat Dayaks. Their painted or carved masks (hudoq) are always equipped with big round eyes, often protruding, and with long and pointed lower jaws.

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Figure 21: These woodcarvings surround the large pillars at the airport in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. Despite their artistic arranging, the traditional heart-shaped twin masks are still very clearly discernible. Hence, this thousands-of-years-old motif is still being used as an element in Dayak-inspired architectural design in the second millennium A.D.

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Conclusion and Outlook

The low relief of the triangle-shaped twin masks on the two stones with decorations, as well as their position within the urn alignment at Long Pulung, and the upside-down position of the pillar afford strong evidence that their use as an ossuary is a secondary one. The twin mask designs give a strong hint that the original function of these two ornamented stones was that of wax print molds for the early production of cast bronze by a lost wax method most probably like that used to make drums of a Pejeng type (Zahorka 2001). A similar wax print mold is represented by the "Manuaba mold" that was found in Bali which has allowed us to reconstruct the method of casting bronze in a lost wax form.

A reliable age assessment of the Long Pulung reliefs is not yet possible. However, the twin mask motifs on bronze objects are only known from the large Pejeng drum and from the oldest moko drums. Their production is assumed to pre-date the appearance of Heger I drums in the eastern archipelago, which is about 2000 years ago.

Clear evidence concerning early ore processing and metal production in the remote Bahau center of megalithic urn dolmens can only be provided by future archaeological investigations at the old sites of smelting and bronze casting. These sites must have been somewhere in the mountains west of the Sungai Bahau, from Apau Ping in the north down to the right tributary of the Sungai Lurah in the south, perhaps one of them not far from the former village of Long Pulung. Bronze smelting does not seem unlikely here as iron production was still being carried out in the Bahau and the Kerayan regions at the beginning of the twentieth century and possibly later (Bala 2002: 24, 53, 87). Using thermoluminiscence dating, the age of fired clay samples from ancient bronze casting sites could then be established.

Nevertheless, at this point in time, we can assume that the numerous urn, dolmen and urn dolmen burial sites, often furnished with huge megaliths, in the upper Sungai Bahau, the Kerayan and Apo Kayan areas are the result of early metal-processing operations. These megalithic monuments give evidence that there are still mysteries awaiting study below the jungle cover and under the soil in the heart of Borneo. If future research confirms that Borneo's megalithic period was contemporaneous with that of the other islands, i.e., roughly 2000 years from the present, then the Ngorek-theory could become questionable. In this context we should not forget that the first stone inscriptions of Indonesia today originate not from Java but from Muara Kaman, Mahakam River, East Kalimantan. The applied Palava script was surely incised by means of metal tools. It dates back to the Mulawarman Kingdom in 350 A.D.

Acknowledgements

My grateful acknowledgement is given to the Director of the National Museum Jakarta, Ibu Intan Mardiana Napitapulu, and to Ibu Suhardini Chalid, Chief of the Prehistory Department for providing helpful assistance in investigating the prehistoric moko drums and to Dr. Martin Baier for providing important literature hints.

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All photographs by H. Zahorka except figure 7.

Herwig Zahorka

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