● Material Reference · Desk-Verified Dossier
Hand-Forged Perunggu Bronze
PerungguHigh-tin bell bronze alloy (roughly 77% copper, 23% tin) forged at red heat in Javanese besalen smithies to cast resonant gamelan gongs and keys.
Classification
Material
Origin / Scope
Indonesia
Connected Rooms
1 Tradition
Bibliography
1 Source
Archival note & context
At 23% tin content, cold bronze shatters under a hammer; Javanese gongsmiths (empu) must forge the molten billet within a narrow glowing temperature window before quenching in water and hand-scraping each instrument to its ensemble's unique embat tuning.
Used in traditions
1Sources
1What’s on this page is sourced from the citation below.
| Source | Publisher | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Metallurgy and Acoustics of Central Javanese Gamelan Forging | Asian Music / Society for Ethnomusicology, 2015 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |