A Bugis-Makasar keris

[adamb]

Thank you Alan, this is very insightful.

For what it is worth, this blade does seem rather similar in form - at least to my eye - to a Bugis keris illustrated in Matthes' 1874 Ethnographic Atlas of the Bugis, which I have attached to this post.

However, my Bugis-Makasar friends did tell me that owing to a very longstanding process of cultural syncretisation it is quite difficult in some cases to distinguish between Javanese and Bugis blades on stylistic grounds alone.

In any case, I understand that generally speaking it's not possible to say too much about the antiquity of this blade from photos on a computer screen, but do you think it is, indeed, "old" (i.e., pre-WWII)?

Kind regards
Adam