Thank you Dave for expanding and clarifying the way in which we should approach the classification of keris from the areas outside the Jawa/Bali/Madura epicenter of the world of the keris.My own understanding of keris types once we move outside the Jawa/Bali/Madura region is very limited. Yes, certainly I can identify the more easily recognisable forms of blade, I can differentiate Sulawesi Bugis and Bugis not from Sulawesi, and a couple of distinctive Peninsula styles, but I have absolutely no knowledge at all of the materials typically used in various blade forms, no knowledge of minor variations, no knowledge of the various techniques and technologies used in manufacture, and no knowledge of so much more in respect of these keris forms. Accordingly I have no hesitation in categorising myself as abysmally ignorant of blade classifications once I move away from the blades of the areas that I know.
My teaching and experience has been directed at a system which attempts to fix origin of a blade in terms of time or geographic location---albeit that system may require considerable faith for some of the classifications to be accepted as reality. The appraisal system I have learnt allows for a complete keris to classified as Surakarta, or Jogjakarta, or Banyumas, or whatever, but then requires that the individual parts of that keris be individually classified, thus we can have a Jogja keris, with a Bugis blade.
If I have understood you correctly, what you are saying is that for keris from the areas outside Jawa/Bali/Madura, what we need to do is to firstly identify the dress of the keris, and take that into consideration in any classification of the blade. Am I correct in this?
If my understanding is correct then in application of this system, we can to a large extent ---or perhaps completely--- ignore stylistic differences in blades, and restrict our classification to an entire keris, taking into account the weight of evidence of the dress, and then say that the blade is probably from the same origin as the dress?
Under this approach, would it be acceptable to classify a keris as, say, Palembang without any further qualification, no matter what style of blade that Palembang keris may have?
I can understand you saying that there is no existing system as such for these keris, and I think I can recall some of your posts from some years past where you mentioned the disappearance of keris knowledge in the Peninsula, and the probable reasons for this.
My present questions are posed in an effort to assist my understanding of what is and is not acceptable to knowledgeable students of the keris in the areas where you have far greater knowledge than do I.
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