Old nyamba
 

According to Jensen's krisdisk this hit could be very old (probably before majapahit)
Originally it musted be completely covered by a thin metal (mas muda according to some indonesian friends) leaf. Now there is only a little bit over garuda munkir.
IMO the quality of work is very very nice:eek: .
Strange is material: if i sting it with a burning pin: no smell and only very little smoke! It is probabily a hard mix between something like earth and something like sirlack (resin)... so ,if i am right :confused: , all the work that is on the hit is only a track of the work over the metal.
How can the maker did this work without make any problem to the hit's core?

Great
 

Very very nice and interesting hilt.
Thanks for sharing!

Here is an old nyamba, or as they are often termed, "minat jenggul", that still has its integrity.

The metal is silver, which has probably saved it from being pirated, if Marco's was low grade gold (mas muda, probably about 10 carat) that's a pretty considerable enticement to strip it and sell the gold, especially if they was any damage to it, which would be likely because of its thinness.

The way a handle of this type was, and is, made is by fabricating the figure, that is, soldering together individual small pieces of silver to form the general shape, then filling it with wax and chasing or embossing it. When the details have been filled in, the wax is removed by boiling in water, and a more durable material is used as the filling. This more durable material can be one of several mixes, sirlak (shellac, or more correctly button shellac) mixed with a filler or alone is one, but more usual is natural resin , damar selo, mixed with a filler such as ground terracotta. There are variations of the mixes using these two major substances, and there could be other substances used that I don't know.

What we are seeing with Marco's hilt is in effect a casting of this material that was used to fill the fabricated shell of gold.

I have a pedang hilt that has a good part of the metal shell stripped away that shows quite clearly the form of the core material cast in the shape of the missing shell.I cannot provide an image of this hilt because at the moment I do not have it in my possession.

In my opinion it is very difficult to place an age on this type of thing. The pattern, and other similar patterns, appear to have been made continually over hundreds of years. I have other hilts similar to this that I am almost certain are late 19th century, one that might be a bit earlier, and others that I know were made in the early 20th century.

An object that is only 100 years old, if given a hard life, could appear to be very much older; conversely, something that has been preserved in a protected environment since new can be hundreds of years old, and appear to have been made yesterday.

This pattern could go back to the time of Majapahit, but to suggest that any specific hilt may have that age is possibly a little adventurous

Alan thanks for exhaustive explanation about the way to make this kind of hits

maybe help.but this not my natural language

first making a thin sheet of silver or gold,its better for the next step if the silver or gold is "muda". Use a "jabungan" (mix of asphalt and teracota core) as a base when making motif on the silver sheet ,with chisel and hammer. this jabungan will follow the deep of line from the chisel knock,not fight back! compare it if doing it on wood or metal.and also lock the silver sheet nicely.
this jabungan can be clean by puling it.
after all part done then soldering, then fiilling it with mix of terracota dust and
damar sap.there two kind of damar sap in market: 1.Gondorukem 2.Moto Kucing,this one have yellow color of cat eyes.
sometime the silver sheet are very muda mean that ratio of silver and copper can be 50:50 or 40:60 this way the material will be tough for that kind of work.this ratio will make the silver a little bit yellow if not just been polished.
sorry for english
:D

[QUOTE=karset]
what i write before is could be wrong.
sorry all. :(

Perhaps not wrong Karset, but just looked at from a slightly different perspective.

Different craftsmen can use different methods, and depending upon what is seen by the untrained eye, a slightly different picture can emerge. I think we can accept what you have written as perhaps a somewhat different technique to the technique that I have observed. Not necessarily wrong, just different. I think that what you have described could still fit within the broad span of variation used by different people in executing silverwork.