Bali Keris for Comment

[RobT]

Hi All,

I bought this Bali keris a while ago (uwer added by me). I think the dapor and pamor are both very nice. Save for the broken last piece of grenning on the aring side, the blade is in pretty good shape. I think the blade and sheath are older than the hilt which I believe to be made of suar wood (AKA monkey pod or Rain tree, Saman Samanea). I would appreciate forum members opinions and observations so I can tell whether or not my evaluations are accurate. Can anyone id the pamor?

Sincerely,
RobT

[A. G. Maisey]

This is pretty fair old keris Rob, the blade could do with a bit of a clean, but I would probably not go gangbusters on it, the pamor is quite readable, there does not appear to be any excessive active rust, maybe just a good soak in WD40 might be sufficient.

At times I’ve worked over a blade in this sort of condition and picked the rust out of the pitting with a needle, I use a saddlers awl with a fine needle, & under bright light & sometimes magnification.

I cannot see any breaks in the greneng, could you clarify please? Maybe the last bit of greneng in the wadidang is a remnant of a broken piece, but the image is not clear on my screen.

The hilt would be referred to in Bali/Jawa as “pelet” wood : “kayu pelet” & possibly as timoho.

I would give the pamor as ilining warih/banyu mili/air mengalir/flowing water.

One face of the blade has been forged more heavily than the other, & this has resulted in the central part of the pamor on that face as presenting as wusing wutah/ujan baas/beras wutah/beras utah/wos wutah/scattered rice grains, however, ilining warih was clearly intended, so it should be named as the maker intended, rather than as it finished up. It is a not a different pamor on each face, only one side was not as well managed as the other.

In Bali the form (dhapur) of a keris is not as strictly regulated, nor taken note of, as in Jawa, however, I would probably give this keris as Durgam Pinis, luk 11. I cannot translate this name, "durgam" seems to indicate "dangerous" or "immoral" , "pinis" is actually one of the woods used in woodcarvings.

I am naming this dhapur in accordance with present day practice of the most influential Balinese keris literate people, & I would not challenge any other name given by somebody else. In Jawa all this nomenclature thing is pretty much defined , in Bali it is much more relaxed.

[Gustav]

Yes, the first element of Greneng is broken.

As I understand, a sheath of such proportions, with a slender crosspiece, could likely be attributed to Northern Bali.

[A. G. Maisey]

I'm using a decent screen now, & I can see that there is a little stump in the middle of the wadidang, this is a very minor defect and in Bali it would be cleaned up the first time the keris was placed with a m'ranggi for clean & stain.

Yes, that style of sampiran (the top cross piece of the scabbard) is usually attributed to North Bali, specifically Singaraja. The style is called " gegodohan".

However, a camera angle can alter perception, & there is very little difference between some bebatun pohan styles, & this particular gegodohan style, there are several styles of each of these types of sampiran. It can be quite difficult sometimes make a correct judgement from a photo. It is a similar problem with the bebelatungan style, in a photo it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between bebatun pohan & bebelatungan.