I have cleaned and etched the blade with ascetic acid. That part in question was actually just dirt. The lamination pattern on the naga barong was random, somewhat unremarkable. However it is a shandigan blade, the first in my collection, and I am very happy about it. The bottom barong in my barong group photo has a double-edged, hollow ground blade.

Arms and Antiques,

I have not seen any evidence of wootz used in Moro weapons or heard of it being reported.

If such a thing did occur it would be extremely rare. As I look at the pictures of the cleaned blade, I'm not seeing anything that would suggest wootz. Some older Moro pieces were treated by collectors with various agents, including cosmoline, to prevent rust. These sometimes produced patterns on blades that were removed with the cleaning of the blade. I wonder if something similar occurred here.

Ian.

For Arms and Antiques, here are pictures of the same side of the blade all cleaned up and etched (it would have been great if the blade turned out to be wootz but all is good the way it is).

Hello Aslan,

the lamination would come out much better when you polish the blade better IMVHO.

Regards,
Detlef

How unfortunate. It's always exciting to look for wootz where it shouldn't be. But lamination is a good substitute especially on a fine overall example such as this.

Wootz does surprisingly turns up in sometimes the most unexpected places.

Totally agree with Ian. In fact, the same can be said about the whole Indonesian-Malaysian-Philippine region. When the exceedingly rare example shows up (in Indonesia) it always seems to be a trade blade from Persia.

I've made a quick word search and I've not seen this example below bought to these pages, so I've added it to this thread being the first one of a few within the forum that I found.... Sir Stamford Raffles collection.

W:eek:W!

Outstanding example Gavin. Is this one in your collection?

No Ian, the collection is noted in the thread... Raffles.

Hey Gavin, Might you have the dimensions on Raffles’ Barung?

Overall length 56,8 cm, 5,8 cm wide, weight - 870 gr.

The motiv of ivory carving looks quite Chinese.

Thanks Gustav

Indeed, they were best of the carvers... I've bounced this question off a few of our learned community... there are other Barong and Kris hulu with similar motifs in the BM too, I believe at least one is clearly Chinese in design too, may be noted as being Chinese made too... there is a Sadap hilt in the marketplace too, seems much like the same community of carvers...