Twisted rods

[A. G. Maisey]

Gustav, in respect of your post #7.

I have now had a chance to examine my photographs and notes of EDb16.

I cannot recall that we had an argument about the way in which this pamor had been produced, but we probably did discuss it, I say this because in my notes I commented:-

"The pamor in this K. is skillfully manipulated"

as you have remarked, this pamor pattern was very difficult to see, it did not come through in my photographs, which were not particularly big images, I was using a Canon S95 & in raw, this produced images that were adequate for what I was doing at the time, but even with more modern (this was 2012 I think) & more sophisticated equipment, I doubt that the pamor could have been captured.

In fact, that pamor was so difficult to see that I sketched the motif, & here below is that sketch. I've forgotten what my impressions were at the time, but looking at the sketch, my impression now is that if a bar was used to produce this pamor, that bar was probably tightly twisted & then bent into a series of "S" bends, something similar a lawe setukal pamor, but in different orientation.

This was a large, strongly made keris, ample evidence that by the 17th century smiths in Jawa did have more than adequate skills to produce very refined blades.

After that visit to the museum's stored collections I did exchange some correspondence with the curator there, & in that correspondence I was advised that this keris was in the collection from at least 1674, possibly earlier.