The 10th to 15th century Visayan kris, & earlier artifacts

kai · 17th May 2011, 09:22 PM

Hello Lorenz,

Thanks a lot for your great compilation! I've been meaning to post some of the hilts more recently found in SEA ship wrecks for discussion. However, I believe we should be cautious - for the time being - to label these as keris hilts rather than daggers in general.

For this discussion I believe it's reasonable to refer to the Bohol find as keris while keeping in mind that this is a borderline example with not much in common with either the surviving early Indonesian proto-keris (aka keris buda; which do have a square tang and a roundish iron methuk - the latter not seen here) nor the early Moro kris. Having said that, it does seem to be closer to the Indonesian keris putut style than any known Moro kris.

One more point: I heavily question the dating for the Bohol keris since it lacks any stratigraphic info as well as any "hard" dating methods. I'd posit that we need stronger evidence than the efforts given for dating before we can utilize this example in discussions of time lines and keris evolution.

Will comment more later when I find time.

Regards,
Kai

17th May 2011, 09:22 PM	#1
kai Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 3,255	Hello Lorenz, Thanks a lot for your great compilation! I've been meaning to post some of the hilts more recently found in SEA ship wrecks for discussion. However, I believe we should be cautious - for the time being - to label these as keris hilts rather than daggers in general. For this discussion I believe it's reasonable to refer to the Bohol find as keris while keeping in mind that this is a borderline example with not much in common with either the surviving early Indonesian proto-keris (aka keris buda; which do have a square tang and a roundish iron methuk - the latter not seen here) nor the early Moro kris. Having said that, it does seem to be closer to the Indonesian keris putut style than any known Moro kris. One more point: I heavily question the dating for the Bohol keris since it lacks any stratigraphic info as well as any "hard" dating methods. I'd posit that we need stronger evidence than the efforts given for dating before we can utilize this example in discussions of time lines and keris evolution. Will comment more later when I find time. Regards, Kai