tablets (ritual & belief: representations)

Impressed votive tablet or tsa tsa, of clay and perhaps the ashes of a lama. Imprinted with images of chorten, suggesting that the tsa tsa could contain the ashes of a lama, as was indicated when the object was acquired, and a mantra in Tibetan script.

often pilgrims make tsa tsa from sacred clay obtained at pilgrimage sites. The tsa tsa are then carried back home by the pilgrim. Since this tsa tsa depicts chorten, it was probably used in funerary practice. In this instance the clay of the tsa tsa could be combined with ashes from the deceased or a representation of the deceased. Funerary tsa tsa were often placed inside chorten or left at other sacred sites.

object
MUSEUM NUMBER
9.20
PLACE
COLLECTION
MEASUREMENTS
overall: 2 5/8 x in.; 66.675 mm; from conservation records: 1760 x 240 mm
CATEGORY
Anthropology: Ethnography
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Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

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