New kris book: "Keris Pasundan - Malacak jejak"

[Jean]

More detailed comments about the keris classification and specimens shown in the book:
. The classification includes the krisses from the old kingdoms of Galuh/ Segaluh & Sunda (8th-13th century), the later Hindu period of Sunda/ Pajajaran (14th-16th century), and the Banten & Cirebon sultanates (from 17th century). Because of the large variation of the periods, geographic areas, and origin of the collection of these krisses, there is a great diversity among the krisses shown creating some confusion for the book reader.
. The book does not use the usual Javanese terminology for dapur, pamor, and ricikan according to the Sundanese tradition.
. There are some descriptions of the features of the Sundanese krisses especially on page 82 of the book summarized as follows: "The blade has a thin shape, leaning to the front side, the front side of the ganja is long and its tip is rounded, the pejetan is shallow, very few blades have a groove to the tip, the waves of the wavy blades are shallow, etc...".
The Segaluh blades are correctly described with a protruding gandik but some specimens are not very representative.

However many krisses shown in the book have different features than described above, for instance:
. Many blades show a primitive naga (or pair of nagas) or other animal (tiger, frog..) carved on the gandik, and a pair of pudak sategal on the sor-soran.
. Some wavy blades have very deep luk, similar to the one shown on the attached pic.
. Some Sundanese blades are not thin and others seem very influenced by the blades from Central or East Java.
. I expected to see some specimens of the strong wavy blades supposedly imported from Banten to Europe during the 17th century but there are none. However there is one specimen of keris corok with a big blade.
. The estimated age of some krisses appears unrealistic (too old).
. Many hilts attached to the krisses originate from Central or East Java.

In conclusion and in spite of my comments (partly due to the language barrier) the authors did their best to produce this book based on relatively scarce documents and collections, and they should be thanked very much for their effort.
Regards