Klewang Sumatra / arabian inscriptions
 

Hi, I am new member from Belgium, living in France .. married with Indonesian woman. I am a collector of ethnical artifacts, weapons... Fairly new and willing to learn from co members. I have acces to good and very good items from all parts of Indonesia.
This is a nice klewang sword from Sumatra. Nice with arabian text on the blade.
Who can give me more info on age, detail of inscriptions ect..
Thanks in advance
Alain

Bonjour Alain, welcome to our community!

Do a search for pedang on this forum - that will yield several reference threads. Based on the scabbard, I believe your piece is more likely to originate from Lombok.

A few more pics would be good to estimate age. Sharp close-ups of the inscription will make translation possible - long texts like this are usually citations from the koran. Sometimes these were added later to the blades to make them more attractive - the quality of the worrkmanship makes me wonder wether this may be the case here.

Regards,
Kai

Lombok
 

Welcome,

I agree with the Lombok attribution, the hilt shows a distinct cockatoo with its crest raised.

I hope you enjoy the forum as much as everyone else here.

Gavin

reply
 

Thanks for the info.. i will take more pictures when im back home.. and with a better camera :o

Hi Alain
unfortunately for you, it's seems not be a Koranic mention or verse,
as "kai" was expecting ... hard luck ... otherwise the matter could be easy (for us) :D

the language used is a kind of "Pidgin" (a very basic language
which is used to communicate between cultures)
definitively, it's not in traditional Arabic language :shrug:

bienvenu sur ce forum, je suis un des rares Français le fréquentant,
malheureusement ton domaine est absolument inconnu pour moi :o
ce sera une occasion pour moi, de compléter mon éducation. :p

à +

Dom

Reply
 

Ok, thanks for the update... old language apparently
What does this say about the age of the sword ?
I will more detailed pictures of the text soon ...
What is the use of putting such text on a weapon ?
Alain