Tenun Songket Palembang
Palembang Songket is the supplementary weft gold thread weaving tradition of Palembang, the historic capital of the Srivijaya maritime empire — and one of the most commercially sophisticated songket traditions in Indonesia. Produced in silk with dense gold thread supplementary weft, Palembang songket is distinguished by its use of full-gold-ground patterns (the songket limar — where the ground cloth is almost entirely covered by gold thread) and its characteristic combinations of silk ikat-dyed stripes as the background to gold supplementary work. The Srivijaya empire (7th–13th century) made Palembang a major trading hub — this mercantile history embedded luxury textile production deeply in the city's identity. Palembang songket GI Tag was granted in 2013.
Risk level: Endangered · Not inscribed; GI Tag 2013
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