Wallace Collection Keris

[Gustav]

I feel, we should study a little bit more this fascinating weapon.

At first it seems to be clear, that what we see isn't the original state. The blade has been sharpened, very possibly losing some length and width (judging from the gold work), yet the most serious loss is the front Pudak Sategal. Just imagine it, and there will be no Kukri anymore in this picture.

This happens in a region where people do appreciate a sharp cutting edge and is not unusual regarding Keris, see the other example. The loss of material can be pretty substancial.

Interesting for me regarding ornamentics of this weapon is the way two kinds of popular ornaments are united. The first one is the natural plant ornament in the central panel (on a blade without sogokan, that meens, the "source" of the plant is visible), feature the weapon from Wallace collection shares with the other Keris depicted in this post.

The second kind of ornamentics is the sequence of curls, on Wallace weapon they are found on edges till the end of the remaining Pudak Sategal and on Gonjo. I feel, this ornament possibly derived from both DongSon spiral ornaments and more recent Chinese Ming influences.

I don't have any knowledge about Indian ornaments, so I don't know, if one or both of these ornaments are found on Indian weapons, yet both of them are found on Indonesian/Malay Keris, and there are big differences in how they are executed on different Keris. Of course, these are just ornaments.