A rare Bronze Age funnel-shaped axe that legends suggest may be made of meteorite iron has been found in Paau Village on the island of Borneo. It is approximately 3,000 years old and is the first Bronze Age axe head of its kind found in Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo).
Paau Village is in the middle of the Riam Kanan Reservoir and is very remote, accessible only by a two-hour boat journey. The axe head is one of numerous ancient artifacts discovered by Rahmadi, one the 600 inhabitants of the village, while panning for gold. It is the object that most impressed archaeologists when they saw it in Rahmadi’s generally impressive collection, because funnel axes are so rare and this is the only one known from Kalimantan. It is evidence that the area was developing metalworking technology at the same time as other populations elsewhere in the archipelago, and using it for artistic and symbolic purposes.
This discovery also caught the attention of Hartatik, a member of the Banjar Regency Cultural Heritage Expert Team (TACB). He explained that the funnel axe, also known as “Gigi Petir” or Untu Gledek by the Javanese, has its own mythological origins. It is said that the object appeared after lightning struck and became embedded in the ground or a tree. However, scientifically, researchers suspect it was made using metal technology from melted meteorite rock.
These types of axes were not utilitarian tools like their stone predecessors. They were very small and light, designed for their form over function. Archaeologists believe they were symbols of social status, or maybe used as valuable trade goods.
Cultural heritage authorities and archaeologists plan to collaborate on further study of the artifact. It needs to be authenticated first and foremost (there is a thriving market in counterfeit antiquities in Indonesia), and its original context explored. If its authenticity is confirmed, the axe will shed new light on Borneo’s early metalworking abilities.
Being unsure about those ‘legends’, the piece itself looks gorgeous! Meteorite iron had e.g. been used for King Tut’s dagger, and it also could have been available in Kalimantan. However, that green shimmer looks like copper, and the piece –typical for the Bronze Age– might be a tin bronze.
“Gigi Petir” means “tooth of lightning”. “Gigi” and “Untu” seem both words for teeth, despite a cultural gap. Borneo had been under the influence of the Austronesian Expansion that even may have reached the Americas. It would be interesting, if any ‘metalworking abilities’ had been passed on.
At 14, I visited the Transmigrasi Project in East Kalimantan, where in the jungle a road should be built. We touched down in Balikpapan, went to Samarinda, and from there with a tiny plane to a grass runway in the jungle. The two local pilots regularly got in an argument, which ended with doing calculations on a pocket calculator and shouting at each other.
In the early noughties, the Sampit conflict and others between indigenous Dayak, notably traditional headhunters, and Madurese migrants broke out, and Samarinda has now its own international airport. Back in the late 80ies, I saw in Samarinda my first PC. Its user had in one corner his traditional blowgun and in the other a PC text adventure game about railroads, which seemed rather absurd to me.
This axe-head is so beautiful, whatever its origin!
But is it really an axe? I think it is rather an adze. The strange v-shaped notch at the back is, I suggest, intended to surround/interface be bound to a wooden handle at right angles to the blade. If this is correct then the axe’s head would lie transversely to its handle, thus being suitable for cutting a plane surface (an adze) but not for cutting across an object at a right angle.