Ceremonial textile (geringsing)

Traces of gold embroidery indicate that this cloth was probably made as a gift or tribute to a royal court of a neighboring kingdom. Textiles of this kind (geringsing) are also worn during ceremonial occasions and used during rites of passage. They are believed to be steeped in protective and magical powers.

Only three places in the world produce textiles in which both the warp and weft are tie-dyed—a laborious process known as double ikat—before weaving. Such highly prized textiles are made only in one village in Bali. The threads are strung on a frame, small sections bound tightly with fibers to prevent them absorbing color when dipped in a dye bath. After an initial dyeing, the threads may be rebound to add another color; eventually the entire pattern is dyed into the threads. In this complicated and difficult technique, the dyeing must be extremely precise in order to produce clear patterns.

Although at first this textile appears to have abstract patterns, it is actually ornamented with repeated scenes of seated people. A central four-pointed star divides the main field of the cloth into four semicircular sections. Within each semicircle, six human figures are seated in a row. A turbaned man with a woman on either side of him is mirrored in each half of the semicircles and repeated eight times throughout the textile. One kneeling female figure faces the turbaned man with her hands in a gesture of reverence. He sits slightly higher than the women, one hand in his lap, the other raised in front of him. Behind him the second woman sits, turning her head away and looking downward over her left shoulder. Her position, with her left arm seeming to be flexed unnaturally, is also seen in portrayals of women in stone carving and other mediums. Noting her turbanlike headdress, some scholars have suggested that she represents a priestess.