I am Ruth Barnes, the Thomas Jaffe Curator of Indo-Pacific Art here at the Yale University Art Gallery.

We are looking at a gold crown made in Java in the late ninth to early tenth century C.E. It was probably used as a crown to adorn a person, but it may also have been used to be fixed to a stone or wood sculpture. You see the tiny little holes at the rim of the crown that were probably to fasten the object to the top knot of either a person or the sculpture.

It certainly had a ceremonial function, so it would've been worn by the ruler or someone who represented the ruler in a particular possession, or if it were attached to a sculpture, it would've been a sculpture of the Buddha or Bodhisattva. We know that because of the tight little curls that are represented on the crown, which are believed to represent the snails that came to protect the Buddha from the hot sunshine while he was seated in meditation.

Gold was extremely valued in Java at the time. It was used to make jewelry and personal ornaments. It was also used for producing money. But Java itself actually has no gold, so it had to come from outside. It came from the islands of Sumatra and also from Borneo. But although Java itself does not have the metal—they had to bring that in from elsewhere—he goldsmith techniques that developed on the island are highly refined and enormously varied. Just about any technique that can be used in shaping gold was used in Java.