Another book
 

Coming soon
http://javakeris.com/?mode=viewlist&pageno=3&limit=3

The first few pictures are the book launch cum exhibition held at Bentara Budaya, Jakarta. The book is already available. I've got my copy. Interesting hilt collection. The pictures are a little dark and less penetrating as compared to Vanna Ghiringhelli's "The Invincible Krises 2" and Theo Alkema's " Iron Ancestors -Kris Sajen, Kris Majapahit and related Objects", imho. :)

So is it just another keris "pin-up" album or is there some good written info to go along with the pretty pictures? :)

I picked up a copy of this book last Saturday and have now finished reading it.

A beautiful production, lots of good pics but the photos could stand a bit of an upgrade, still they are more than adequate.

There is a fair bit of text.

All in all, I like the book, pics of some very scarce hilt forms, names for forms --- but we do not know just how accurate those names might be. Still a lot of this sort of info ie, correct original names for hilts and exactly what those hilts meant at the time and place they were carved, a lot of this info is not now and probably never will be available, so we make do with what we have.

Many years ago a very respected authority in the field of tribal art said something like this to me:- " the only person who knew exactly what the carving meant and what it was supposed to do for the owner was the carver, and he's dead more than 100 years ago."

Recently the man who is probably the western world's best known genuine keris authority said to me:- " what must be realised is that there often are no answers:- answers are not bananas, they do not grow on trees"

In my opinion both these men were correct.

So we should not be too critical when the information that we seek is not readily available. As I said, we make do with what we have.