Age Unidentified - Lanka
Ruhuna - Ornament - Capricorn

The mythical Capricorn (Sea Goat) is known in Sinhala as makara. A number of copper ornaments in the shape of various life forms has been found in Akurugoda in area of Tissamaharama. Age unknown.

SPECIFICATIONS
AlloyCopper
TypePendent
Height35.6 mm
Width20.0 mm
Thickness4.5 mm
Weight8.36 gms
Shapeornament
Edgerough
 ruhuna_ornament_makara_cu_obverse ruhuna_ornament_makara_cu_reverse
Obverse : The image of Capricorn (Sea Goat) facing right emerging from cocoon at bottom. The horn forms a hole on left to maybe hang as pendant on a chain
Reverse : uncleaned flat surface with no markings.

The mythical Sea Goat is stylized like the sea horse.
I picked out this from a small collection of copper ornaments which included as I remember also a scorpion and other marine life forms. Maybe part of the zodiac collection. All had small holes for hanging and about the same state of preservation.

sea_horse

See also copper ornament in roughly the shape of Srivasta without a hole which is probably a broken end. Copper ornaments are not listed in the 1999 catalog by Osmund Bopearachchi and Rajah Wickramasinhe titled Ruhuna. An Ancient Civilization Re-visited . It was obtained from the same collector who provided most of the items for that book.

If anyone has information on the age of items like it please let me know details about it.

The ornament was scanned at 300 dpi and displayed at 300 dpi. It was obtained in 2001 December from Mr A. Ratnayaka a collector in Katharagama, Lanka.