Java keris?????

[A. G. Maisey]

Henk, recall our discussion of a few days ago re dhapur?

This keris is a good example of the traps in trying to give a dhapur.

This is a pretty simple keris---plain, basic, straightforward and with no complicated features.

You have said its probably jalak ngore. I understand why you've said this, there are a couple of indentations under the buntut urang that suggest the previous existence of greneng. However, if we were to add greneng to this keris, look at what would happen to the pawakan. It would finish up as a completely unbalanced keris, everything would be out of proportion. Thus, the indentations under the buntut urang cannot be regarded as residual greneng, but must be regarded as erosion.

Note where the indentations occur:- in a line with weld joints in the material, the place where erosion will occur first.

If it were residual greneng it could as easily be jalak sumelang gandring, or jalak tilam sari, or maybe pulang geni,and its certain that we can find any number of people to debate all these nominations.

Looking at what I can see in front of me today, my nomination would be tilam upih---and I could probably find those who wanted to debate that.

Dhapur is a trap best avoided.