Rare find: Suseela showing the artifact she found inside the baby shark’s stomach.
Posted on 02/27/2012 4:33:12 PM PST by SunkenCiv
MALACCA: A baby shark being prepared for lunch gave a family here a big surprise -- an ancient artifact believed to be dated long before the Portuguese conquest of Malacca.
Housewife Suseela Menon, from Klebang, made the priceless discovery while filleting the fish for lunch.
It is believed to be a medallion worn by the Portuguese soldiers, presumably as a divine protection, during their conquests in this part of the world in the 16th century.
One side of the medallion is a profile of a woman's head with a crown and encircled by a halo and an inscription that is unclear.
The other side is a crucifix with an engraved inscription that read ANTONII.
Checks with a local historian revealed the head engraving could be that of Queen Elizabeth, the consort of King Denis I of Portugal during his reign from 1271 to 1336.
Suseela said she immediately cleaned the medallion and preserved it in a box.
"I bought two sharks from the wet market and was taken aback upon discovering the object inside the stomach of one of the fishes," said the 47-year-old mother-of-two at her home yesterday.
Suseela had wanted to prepare shark curry for her husband.
"Finally, my husband decided not to eat the fish as the object seems to be a religious item," she said.
The medallion is 7.4cm long, 6cm wide and weighs 10g.
"My husband feels it is a blessing for the family to have the medallion coming to our home from beneath the sea. We will always cherish it," said Suseela.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com.my ...
Rare find: Suseela showing the artifact she found inside the baby shark’s stomach.
Cool!
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Missed opportunity ping.Suseela said she immediately cleaned the medallion...Oh well. |
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A hurricane surged it up over the sands and a shark mistook it for a baby turtle?
I love the word “consort”....
I refuse to believe this. Absolutely refuse. A Hindu woman would respect the religious artifacts of a different religion?
Wait, no, sorry. I was confusing Hinduism with Islam. Carry on.
Cannonballs, license plates, tire rims.. who knows what sub-surface eddies might uncover under the sand.
The affinity for metallic objects might well be part of a migration and magnetic pole thing.
:’)
That would seem to give us a date, since the medal was presumably made after she was sainted. Wikipedia says:
“Miracles were said to have followed upon her death. She was beatified in 1526 and canonized by Pope Urban VIII on 25 May 1625,[5] Her feast was inserted in the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints for celebration on 4 July.”
Might as well follow this up. Here’s her life from “Butler’s Lives of the Saints.”
http://www.bartleby.com/210/7/081.html
“Checks with a local historian revealed the head engraving could be that of Queen Elizabeth, the consort of King Denis I of Portugal during his reign from 1271 to 1336.”
.
I’m not an expert at these kinds of things, but isn’t the term “ancient” typically applied to events, people and objects from around the Greek Classical period or before?
Yes, the “ancient world” in Europe is generally considered to have ended with the fall of Rome.
But perhaps it’s different with Myanmar, or Burma. Here, ancient may refer to the period before it became a colony. Burma became a British colony after the fall of Mandalay to the British, in 1886. So the 14th century would have been way back in the Imperial period, 1044-1885.
Hey, even “old” has taken on a new meaning as I’ve aged.
Don’t wear that medallion. It attracts sharks.
"Oh, why not; I've already cleaned the shark...".
old tires too
In a related story, Helen Thomas was recently reported missing.
“Housewife Suseela Menon,from Klebang”
I stopped reading right there. I wish I could say I was from Klebang.
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