[A. G. Maisey]

Kai Wee, I tend to agree with you.

I have already referred images of this blade to two native speakers of Chinese, one who uses Cantonese, the other Mandarin. Both said that what they were looking at made no sense.

Currently the images have been sent to an acquaintance who works in classical Chinese literature at a Chinese university, and is recognised as one of the world's foremost authorities on archaic Chinese scripts. I do not know if he has, or will , receive my request for assistance, and if he does it will probably be some time before he gets back to me.

I have a tombak blade that was given to me under paranormal circumstances --- don't ask, I will not repeat the story --- that is inscribed with similar script and was regarded by its previous owner as having extremely high talismanic value. The script on this blade reads ( or is accepted as reading):-

"Big Man Sam Po Kong"

Sam Po Kong is a name that refers to a Chinese temple in Semarang that has been built around an original Mesjid, supposedly constructed by Cheng Ho, the famous Chinese Islamic admiral who visited Jawa in the 15th century. The local name for Cheng Ho is Sam Po Kong. The mesjid was built at a place where one of Cheng Ho's commanders took ill, and was cured, and which was originally a pile of stones, or perhaps a stone cave, and was known as "Gedung Batu" . The Sam Po Kong temple still has the alternate name of Gedung Batu ---stone building.

However, most, if not all historians do not accept this story and doubt that Cheng Ho ever landed at Semarang, and that the local Sam Po Kong is actually a composite of three other Chinese travellers known as the "Three Great Men" --- Sam Po Thai Djien --- who were probably merchants.

In any case, many Chinese people in North and East Jawa do believe the story, and talismans that can be associated with Sam Po Kong (Cheng Ho, Zheng Ho) are held to have very high value. In any culture, belief creates fact, so no matter what the actuality may be, the fact is that Sam Po Kong talismans carry a very high taslismanic value.

And yes, this is an old blade that has been enhanced.