Encounters of the Third Kind

[A. G. Maisey]

Jean, I cannot see anything Hindu at all in this hilt. The tumpal motif goes back a lot further than the Hindu influences in Maritime S.E, Asia.

I really do not know where this hilt is from, so I'm just looking at it the same as everybody else. However, I do have a couple of small advantages:- I've got the thing in my hand, and although I've forgotten what sort of keris it came off, I do know that at the time I got it, I was buying mostly Bali & Lombok keris.

It is too big for a Jawa keris, and that makes it too big for almost any other keris, except Bali & Lombok.

It lacks the refined quality of even a village standard Bali hilt & the overall feeling of the carving is very much like a lot of the stuff that we see coming out of Lombok.

I am very much inclined towards a Lombok origin for this hilt, but I'm more than ready to listen to any other suggestions, especially if a little bit of supportive evidence could be included.