Very Old Moro Kris

Federico · 23rd May 2005, 09:39 PM

Rick, the lack of carving/fretwork kris I have seen fall into two categories. Those whose fretwork were removed purposely through either corrosion or a misguided owner (Cecil had a scary story about an owner who filed off all the fretwork on his kris), and then those whose shape/proportion would fit fretwork, but the fretwork was simply just never done for some reason or another. The second category has always fascinated me, and Cecil had mentioned it was something that struck him as interesting as well. However, in the few pieces Ive stumbled on (unfortunately never won) they all seemed to be newer pieces (circa late 19th early 20th century) and very new (eg. they looked like they had been collected shortly after being made).

This mystery piece, on the other hand, lacks the proportions to be of the second category (trying to do fretwork there would simply not be enough blade to work with). So then it would seem then that the fretwork either corroded off, or was removed purposely. Anyways, if it still has the gangya intact, I would vote against a Moro attribution. From the pics it would just be too dainty, even for some of the most corroded of archaic styled kris (regardless of who we attribute the form to). On my own archaic style piece, the gangya had fallen off, and when examining it I noticed that the wall were the gangya and the pesi met the walls were paper thin from use of wear, and it would seem far far far more robust shape than this piece given the pics. So if there is a gangya, then I would imagine the tang would be extremely tiny, again not going in line with archaic kris/keris, which have very robust tangs (even when round). I guess we could argue this could be a Moro keris before the change to kris, but it just strikes me funny. I dunno, thats just my opinion, and its hard to work off of pics.

23rd May 2005, 09:39 PM	#18
Federico Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA Posts: 312	Rick, the lack of carving/fretwork kris I have seen fall into two categories. Those whose fretwork were removed purposely through either corrosion or a misguided owner (Cecil had a scary story about an owner who filed off all the fretwork on his kris), and then those whose shape/proportion would fit fretwork, but the fretwork was simply just never done for some reason or another. The second category has always fascinated me, and Cecil had mentioned it was something that struck him as interesting as well. However, in the few pieces Ive stumbled on (unfortunately never won) they all seemed to be newer pieces (circa late 19th early 20th century) and very new (eg. they looked like they had been collected shortly after being made). This mystery piece, on the other hand, lacks the proportions to be of the second category (trying to do fretwork there would simply not be enough blade to work with). So then it would seem then that the fretwork either corroded off, or was removed purposely. Anyways, if it still has the gangya intact, I would vote against a Moro attribution. From the pics it would just be too dainty, even for some of the most corroded of archaic styled kris (regardless of who we attribute the form to). On my own archaic style piece, the gangya had fallen off, and when examining it I noticed that the wall were the gangya and the pesi met the walls were paper thin from use of wear, and it would seem far far far more robust shape than this piece given the pics. So if there is a gangya, then I would imagine the tang would be extremely tiny, again not going in line with archaic kris/keris, which have very robust tangs (even when round). I guess we could argue this could be a Moro keris before the change to kris, but it just strikes me funny. I dunno, thats just my opinion, and its hard to work off of pics.