Lions on the blades
I recently conducted a survey of the 275 keris daggers on the Oriental Arms website to evaluate the frequency with which atypical engravings/carved images appear on the blades or ganga under the hilt. Nine had such carvings, two had snakes (Nagas), two had demon faces and two had other mythical creatures. These six were all attributed to Bali (out of a total of 39 Balinese Keris). The three of the remaining 236, had images of lions carved into the blade (shown). Were these carving to appeal to native customers or to make them stand out to non-native customers?
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