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Originally Posted by David
Detlef, i am curious how you know that the material on your keris hilts is actually dugong and not some other source. AFAIK there are no really large pieces of dugong ivory so i understand why Thor is skeptical.
I do agree that this looks more like ivory than bone to me also. How large is just the hilt of this piece?
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Hello David,
like I write before, I am not really sure between whale bone and dugong but I know that both materials was used for keris hilts and other hilts in SEA.
Tusks from dugong are 20 until 25 cm long (approx. 8-10 inch), whale tooth are approx. 15 cm (6 inch) long. So they are large enough to carve handles from this material. A friend of mine have written a book about keris materials ( Faszination Kris, Zauber des Materials, Wolfgang Schilling) and he have confirmed the material of some from my keris handles.
Best regards,
Detlef