Jawa Keris for ID

[HughChen]

Jawa Keris

[HughChen]

More pics

[HughChen]

more pics

[milandro]

this appears to be a Maduran kris, Tilam Upih, at least the blade and hilt may be from Madura or thereabouts, the selut , a modern addition in my opinion, appears to be in a Sumatran style as it is used on some Palembang kris. Personally I would replace it although it appears to be fitting well the hilt (probably made of bone)


The pamor should be Adeg Rambut.

[A. G. Maisey]

I like this keris, but it does have some elements that perhaps deserve
comment.

The hilt is a fairly conventional donoriko, & as Milandro has commented, the selut & mendak are recent. Together this selut & mendak do have a South Sumatera profile, but unlike the South Sumatera selut that has a similar profile, the profile in this keris is created by combination of two components, not as a single unit. Personally, I'd leave it exactly as is. The addition is totally within culture, and was probably added because of deterioration of the base of the old hilt.

I do not see any indicators that might suggest a Madura blade. The pawakan of the old blade has been altered by some rather severe edge maintenance, in the process the protrusion of the core has been reduced, or perhaps lost and along with it much of the tikel alis has been lost. Even so, the angle of the gandhik is insufficient to mark this blade as Madura.

Additionally, the shortness of the profile of the sirah cecak seems to indicate that we might be looking at a North Coast blade.

The pamor can be given several names, in Madura & East Jawa "Pamor Singkir" might be preferred, in Solo it would most likely be given as "Pamor Adeg Sapu". It cannot be given as "Pamor Rambut" because it does not have the required breaks in the lines of pamor that differentiate this pamor from Pamor Adeg.

However, the designation of Pamor Rambut can also be used as generic term much as we use mlumah & miring, so we could say it is a pamor rambut, Adeg Sapu.

The wrongko is most likely East Javanese, rather than Madura --- although Madura is a part of East Jawa.

All in all its a pretty nice keris, old blade, old hilt, old wrongko and comprised of decent components. The keris of East Jawa & North Jawa are not really subject to the same restrictions on dress codes that the keris of Central Jawa are, & this must be born in mind when forming an opinion on whether a keris is appropriately dressed or not. It is always a good idea to pause & ask ourselves who owns the culture.

[A. G. Maisey]

I forgot the picture.

I've taken the liberty of altering the blade orientation to make it easier to read, as we can see, it would be quite difficult to convince anybody that this blade displays Madura characteristics.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by milandro

this appears to be a Maduran kris, Tilam Upih, at least the blade and hilt may be from Madura or thereabouts, the selut , a modern addition in my opinion, appears to be in a Sumatran style as it is used on some Palembang kris. Personally I would replace it although it appears to be fitting well the hilt (probably made of bone)


The pamor should be Adeg Rambut.

Thank you, Milandro, the hilt doesn't looks like bone because it has no pores. The auction house tells me that it's made of wood, but there is still doubt in what it is. The selut is said to be silver.

more details.

[HughChen]

more pics

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by milandro

this appears to be a Maduran kris, Tilam Upih, at least the blade and hilt may be from Madura or thereabouts, the selut , a modern addition in my opinion, appears to be in a Sumatran style as it is used on some Palembang kris. Personally I would replace it although it appears to be fitting well the hilt (probably made of bone)


The pamor should be Adeg Rambut.

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

I like this keris, but it does have some elements that perhaps deserve
comment.

The hilt is a fairly conventional donoriko, & as Milandro has commented, the selut & mendak are recent. Together this selut & mendak do have a South Sumatera profile, but unlike the South Sumatera selut that has a similar profile, the profile in this keris is created by combination of two components, not as a single unit. Personally, I'd leave it exactly as is. The addition is totally within culture, and was probably added because of deterioration of the base of the old hilt.

I do not see any indicators that might suggest a Madura blade. The pawakan of the old blade has been altered by some rather severe edge maintenance, in the process the protrusion of the core has been reduced, or perhaps lost and along with it much of the tikel alis has been lost. Even so, the angle of the gandhik is insufficient to mark this blade as Madura.

Additionally, the shortness of the profile of the sirah cecak seems to indicate that we might be looking at a North Coast blade.

The pamor can be given several names, in Madura & East Jawa "Pamor Singkir" might be preferred, in Solo it would most likely be given as "Pamor Adeg Sapu". It cannot be given as "Pamor Rambut" because it does not have the required breaks in the lines of pamor that differentiate this pamor from Pamor Adeg.

However, the designation of Pamor Rambut can also be used as generic term much as we use mlumah & miring, so we could say it is a pamor rambut, Adeg Sapu.

The wrongko is most likely East Javanese, rather than Madura --- although Madura is a part of East Jawa.

All in all its a pretty nice keris, old blade, old hilt, old wrongko and comprised of decent components. The keris of East Jawa & North Jawa are not really subject to the same restrictions on dress codes that the keris of Central Jawa are, & this must be born in mind when forming an opinion on whether a keris is appropriately dressed or not. It is always a good idea to pause & ask ourselves who owns the culture.

Thank you for your comments. Very high amount of information for me to learn.

[A. G. Maisey]

Hilt:- marine ivory.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Hilt:- marine ivory.

Thank you Alan, could you teach us how to distinguish marine ivory donoriko with elephent ivory donoriko?

[A. G. Maisey]

Yep, look at a lot of the stuff and you recognise it instinctively. I have around 200 ivory hilts, many of those are marine ivory, others are elephant. I have seen & handled many more than I own.

Somebody who is expert in the study of ivory can probably teach the rules of recognition, I cannot.

Its a bit like music:- you hear a piece of music you might be able to hum it, or whistle it, but unless you have been taught how to read music you will never whistle a tune from the way in which it is written. One thing is instinct, the other is taught knowledge.

Again like music:- sometimes you get it wrong.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Yep, look at a lot of the stuff and you recognise it instinctively. I have around 200 ivory hilts, many of those are marine ivory, others are elephant. I have seen & handled many more than I own.

Somebody who is expert in the study of ivory can probably teach the rules of recognition, I cannot.

Its a bit like music:- you hear a piece of music you might be able to hum it, or whistle it, but unless you have been taught how to read music you will never whistle a tune from the way in which it is written. One thing is instinct, the other is taught knowledge.

Again like music:- sometimes you get it wrong.

But if you haven't learn the rules, ie the descriptive distinction, how can you categorize your 200 ivory hilts in the begin?

[A. G. Maisey]

Obviously I could not.

Over time the differences in appearance soaked in & it became second nature to know, or more likely to feel, what I was looking at.

Music again:- how can we listen to and repeat a piece of music if we are not familiar with music?

There are various scales in music:-

https://pulse.berklee.edu/scales/index.html

it can be a little bit amusing to listen to somebody who is not familiar with pentatonic scales trying to hum a tune that is expressed in a pentatonic scale. That person might have been listening to music in chromatic scales from birth, but his ear is just not attuned to the different sounds of the pentatonic, so he often has difficulty in trying to repeat what he has heard, or rather what he thinks he has heard.

I probably should add a comment on the various types of ivory.

I am not an ivory expert & that is the reason I refer to "marine ivory" rather than "whale tooth". There is also walrus ivory that is sometimes used in keris hilts, apparently it found its way into SE Asia through the hands of whalers, as did also whale tooth, but throughout the Archipelago the indigenous people also hunted whales, or sometimes a whale would beach itself, & the people who lived nearby would take parts of the whale for use.

Then we have vegetable ivory, tagua nuts, but these are not nearly big enough to carve a hilt from, although they are sometimes big enough for small components such as a buntut or a pommel. If I were to be given a small piece of marine ivory & a small piece of tagua nut, I could not tell one from the other, but I could probably differentiate both from a small piece of elephant ivory, especially so if schreger lines were present.

[David]

Not sure your really need any more info here, so i am just chiming in to say that like Alan i like this keris.
I also agree with Alan that i would not change this hilt and also agree that it is marine ivory of some sort. One way of telling it is not elephant ivory is that elephant will usually display Schreger lines and i do not see any here. I have posted an image that shows what these Schreger lines look like.
One thing for sure, the hilt certainly is not wood.
While it is not really possible to tell for sure just from a photograph, it does appear that the "selut" is indeed silver. The motifs are unfamiliar to me though.

[Rick]

This is Tagua nut. I purchased this in a little village in the Darien some years ago.
These are pictured at about 2x magnification.
Now, if only we could genetically modify the plant to produce nuts of a suitable size maybe it would put a dent in the ivory trade.

[A. G. Maisey]

I had heard about vegetable ivory a long time before I understood what it was or saw any, then in the 1980's exquisite little Chinese or Japanese carvings began to appear in (mostly) jewellers' shops in Sydney, I bought a couple, but they were expensive.

In the 1990's --- I think --- somebody must have dumped a container load of tagua nuts in Bali and the Balinese outcarved any of the carvings I had seen in Sydney. The market was flooded in Bali. The prices hit rock bottom. I bought a lot.

At the moment these are packed away because of house repairs, when they come out of the bubble wrap I'll post some pics.

[Rick]

Tagua was also used to make shirt buttons; most likely replaced by a synthetic these days.

[A. G. Maisey]

Never knew that.