7. 14th Century Gold Ornament

Besides the artefacts found during the archaeological dig, other 14th century ornaments had been discovered as well. During the construction of a reservoir at the top of Fort Canning Hill in 1926, workers came upon some 14th century-style Hindu Javanese gold ornaments.

The reservoir was built as a service reservoir to help supplement other larger reservoirs. During our walk, we did not manage to see the reservoir but caught a glimpse of the surrounding fence through the trees. Ah Gong must have stopped somewhere around here to take a drink!

The gold ornaments were found at a depth of 3m below ground. Among these was an armlet decorated with the head of kala, a demonic beast and son of the Hindu goddess Durga. It is speculated that these ornaments might have been worn by a member of the royal family of Temasek, who buried them in the face of imminent invasion.

Many of the ornaments were lost during the Japanese Occupation and the remaining ones are now on display in the National Museum of Singapore.

Hmm... I wonder if Ah Gong had seen any of these ornaments back then…

Resources:
http://www.worldoftemasek.com/index.php/article/archaeology
Picture of armlet:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JavaneseGoldOrnaments-14C-NationalMuseumofSingapore-20090712.jpg