Beautiful Indian handles
 

All these are also from the Leeds Armoury. The variety of materials, the craftsmanship and the imagination are awesome.

Hey!!! That last picture of the wavy bladed kattar is interesting! If the handle is covered, it looks just like a keris!

Hi Ariel,

You are right; they made some striking hilts in India. The first one looks however a bit strange, was it brought together?

The ‘nail’ hilt has been discussed earlier – someone had bought a tulwar with a hilt like this. The other knifes have interesting hilts, but being a katar man myself I like the katar very much. Like BluErf writes, it could very well be a keris blade, pity we cant see the side of the side guards – it might very well be south Indian. Is it?

Thanks for showing.

Jens

Bali Blade ?
 

It could be a Bali keris blade Blu .
The one in this post (Katar#1) is made from the point of an Afghan sabre .
http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001461.html

When I read the title to this thread, I immediately thought of clear rock-crystal khandjar handles. :)

Is that a lapis handle in the last pic?

Thanks for the link Rick.

That's very interesting though, like the concept of the firanggi. The keris blade looked good in its 'reincarnation' as a kattar.

Another thought -- given that the Indians had generally better metal technology than Southeast Asians, why did they modify the keris into a kattar? European blades may be adopted because of good steel/forging techniques, but most kerises doesn't quite strike me as comparable in terms of strength. Or could this be a case of aesthetics/style over functionality?

Oh, and I forgot to *drooool* at Rick's Afghani sabre... :)

not very clear, but almost shows the side bars. from memory, they are relatively plain with a slightly bumped rim, as you can sort of make out from the images. it definately seems southern in design, and i would assume its hails from the south, especially if you veer towards the 'langet' theory, which is plausable.

Why do you think the blade on this katar comes from re-used kris?
The idea of wavy blade is not peculiar to Indonesia: Stone has a similar kris ( p.347, Fig 424, #19). What about European Flamberges? Also re-worked Krises?

Ariel , if you look closely at the base of the blade you can see the " fullers "
(for want of a better word) that end next to the langet on either side . These are evident on the Bali keris illustrated below . Not the central deep sogokan and pecetan but the wide shallow ones that are along the edge . I would also suggest that if this blade was made expressly for a katar the mounting 'langets' would be more in line with the center line of the blade itself .

Furthermore ..........
 

If you look closely at the close up that I've manipulated a bit you can see where the narrow part of the mounting at the base of the fleur dy lis shows a shadow on either side . These are the mostly covered channels of the sogokan and pecetan with the janur being covered by the mount .

I feel pretty certain that this is probably an old Bali blade , Bali being the longest holdout of Hinduism against the spread of Islam .

I can definitely understand the S.India-Bali connection .

Didnt the Balinese import rubys.sapphires,and other gems from India and Sri Lanka?

Outstading! love the ivory chinth on the dia chirri kukri, about the best ive seen.

Thanks for sharing!

Spiral

Yes they did Justin. Each has a spiritual/religious significance.