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

In vol. 2 of Reader's Digest's Kasaysayan: Story of the Filipino People, there's a pic (below) of a precolonial (pre-16th century) kris.

Later on, I found out that the artifact was excavated in the 1920s by an American archeologist [Carl Guthe, from the Univ. of Michigan], in the town of Loon in Bohol Island in the Visayan region of the Philippines.

This Visayan kris was estimated to be coming from the 10th to 15th century. The kris is still with the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), at its University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

More details are to follow.

Here's a close-up of the said Visayan kris ...

The details surrounding the Visayan kris can be found in a Univ. of Penn. PhD dissertation of a well-known Filipino archeologist, Dr. Eusebio "Bong" Dizon, from the Philippine's national museum.

The dissertation can be bought online from the university. The illustration below comes from the said paper.

Based on the graphical scale, the blade length is 36 cm (14.2"), blade thickness near the guard is 0.8 cm (5/16"), and tang length is 8 cm (3.2").

Please note also that the tang has a square/rectangular cross-section, as is the characteristic of Philippine krises.

The textual description of the Visayan kris:

For the technically-inclined:

Incidentally, the dissertation covered 75 pieces from the Guthe-Michigan collection, plus another 10 artifacts from the Phil. national museum.

As to the basis of the age of the artifacts, I've just leafed through the paper (it's about 500 pages long). The 10th to 15th century dating can be found in the excerpt below.

I suppose they also used the associated Chinese ceramics excavated together with the metal artifacts. These Chinese ceramics provide a pretty accurate metric, and are used all the time ("Nacho" is an expert on this also).

There's an artifact from Bohol in the Visayas which was initially thought to be a kris. But Dr. Dizon correctly pointed out in his paper that it is a spear:

Now I'm not an expert on Philippine krises, much more on Indonesian and Malaysian kerises :)

Thus the above info are being presented for purposes of validating and further examining things.

I realize that the 10th to 15th century dating of the Visayan kris will impinge upon the commonly held view that the keris/kris came from Java. And the images found in Candi Sukuh (pics below, from Wikipedia), are supposedly one of the best proofs.

Again, you guys are the expert :) Would the elaboration found here and here be representative of that commonly held view?

On the other hand, what's the meaning of life if we don't reexamine our beliefs from time to time? ;)

I've discussed the matter briefly with "Nacho" earlier. Off hand, he thinks that one explanation is that the Philippine kris and the Indonesian keris had a parallel development.

I think that's one very plausible view (instead of pitting one against the other, as to which came first).

We'd certainly like to hear more views and queries on the matter.

To broaden the perspective, I'll also be posting pics of even older blade hilts, from a recently published book on Philippine ancestral gold (10th to 13th century).

Very interesting.
Thank you for posting the articles/information.

Kino, thanks :)

Here's the continuation. Below are pics of Philippine gold hilts from the 10th to the 13th century. A little later, I'll post the comments of the southeast Asia expert from the Metropolitan Museum (NY) on these artifacts.

Kindly note that one of the hilts show the bird beak/ elephant trunk motif.

In the same book (Philippine Ancestral Gold), the artifacts from Java and Philippines were compared from time to time, like below.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (our central bank) has a few gold hilts as well, from the same era.

This was how they must have looked when carried.

I was blogging a related topic in my Facebook Page called Filhistory, and let me just post here the English translation of my slides there.

Here's the 2nd slide:

Here's the third slide. Please note that it was concluded by this expert from the Metropolitan Museum that Java and the Philippines were comparable, in terms of their excellence in goldworking tradition.

Another observation from the same expert:

Here's a second expert, expressing his opinion:

I guess the conclusion in all these is that Philippines, like Java, were both quite competent in coming up with very good designs, in the olden days.

And if anybody is interested in buying the books, the links are here.

Hello Miguel Diaz,

Great and fascinating post - thank you for sharing it. :)

While I am no expert on the kris, Moro or otherwise, as Gustav so eloquently put it in an earlier post in another thread, "a serious collector should at least be an amateur ethnologist," or something to that effect, and it is in this light I humbly comment below. :)

If I understand correctly, Dr. Dizon was the archeologist who published this paper on the kris. By his own admission, the dating of the site was limited to and by the following factors:

1. Site (i.e., contextual content of the grave)
2. Type
3. Metallurgical treatment of the iron items

Now, by his estimation, these items are dated to the Period of Contact or Trade, i.e., the 10th-15th century, CE.

I think it deserves mention that there was likely extensive trading and exchange taking place by this period, not just within the Philippine archipelago, but by extension, throughout the Indonesian archipelago as well.

In other words, in light of additional evidence, there is no reason to exclude the possibility this individual item may have found its way to Bohol by trade. As evidenced by digs all over the world, there is no shortage of trade goods to be found in burial sites, as often such items held every bit as much (and sometimes more) prestige than indigenously-produced goods due to their relative scarcity.

In short, the presence of this example of this form in a grave in the Visayas is not, IMHO, a sufficient condition to refute existing and established opinions of the Indonesian origin of the form. :)

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

laEspadaAncha, many thanks for the comments. And I agree with all of them. In particular, I certainly agree that that single evidence is not conclusive, as you nicely put it:

I guess we are like in a judicial court here, and we are merely trying to establish "beyond reasonable doubt" whether the specimen is indeed a Philippine kris or not. Either outcome is fine. We just want to establish the most plausible explanation.

Because for sure nobody can say that he is 100% sure that it came from Java or Indonesia.

On the other hand, nobody can likewise say that he is 100% certain that it is indeed a Philippine kris (due to the fact that raiding and trading were very much part of the culture then).

Thus to my mind we are working with probabilities here. So it's more like trying to establish if it's more like 20/80, or 50/50, or 80/20, etc. on whether it's Javanese/Indo. or Philippine ...

Kai, many thanks also for your comments.

I agree with you that labeling the gold hilts as kris (as some of them were captioned in the book/s) may be premature.

On the dating method employed, the use of excavated associated Chinese ceramics and pottery is actually a well-accepted method.

In any case :) if I may recap the considerations discussed so far --

ARGUMENTS FOR A PHILIPPINE ORIGIN

[1] the specimen was found in the Philippines; thus at first blush it has to be regarded as Philippine, and the burden of proof is in proving otherwise

[2] in the dissertation, it is apparent that the panelists (the American university professors) concurred with the proponent (Dr. Dizon) that the specimen was a Philippine artifact

[3] one of the dissertation's key findings is that over time, the metallography of Phil. iron implements improved as expected -- now if the subject kris was an imported item, most probably its characteristics would not have synced (or is anachronistic) with this key finding

[4] linguistically and from time immemorial, "kalis", "keris", and "kris" have been established to be the Philippine's primary weapon, aside from the kampilan -- hence, the presence of an ancient kris in the Phils. should not come as a surprise (and the Indonesians and the Filipinos must have had a common linguistic ancestry: "sandata" [Fil.] and "senjata" [Indo.] both refer to weapon, "kalis/karis/kris" [Fil.] and "keris" [Indo.] all refer to the same blade genre, etc.)

[5] it was also seen above that experts from all over have noted that ancient Philippine craftsmanship (10th to 15th century) was at par with the Javanese - thus once again, the plausibility of the specimen being Filipino is very much there

[6] zooming in on the specimen itself, I think it's easier (at least for me) to imagine the thing to be morphing over time into a Moro sundang (kris), rather than it evolving into the more slender and pointy keris -- but perhaps this is a matter of opinion

[7] and then we have the square cross section of the tang, which is a distinguishing trait of the Philippine/Moro kris (vs. the predominantly round cross-section of kerises)

[8] then we also see in post no. 10 above the elephant's trunk/ bird beak in one of the gold hilts (plus the bird's head motif in the others) -- my point here is that these features as we all know are still present in Philippine krises, and thus we see a coherent picture over time.


ARGUMENTS FOR A JAVANESE OR INDO. ORIGIN

[1] raiding and trading were prevalent at the time; thus it's also very possible that the kris was obtained via those means

[2] of the 90 or so artifacts examined, there was only one specimen that is like the subject kris

[3] I suppose that there is a larger body of literature that pertains to the development of the keris as originating from Java

[4] though the keris' tang's cross-section is circular, a few early (or rare?) kerises had square cross-section.

Those are the pro-Java arguments I can think of. But the fewness of the points was certainly not to load the dice! ;) It's more because of my unfamiliarity with the Javanese keris. Hopefully, some of the other experts can chime in as well :)

PS - If anybody has access to the writings per attached, I think Guthe's own account can shed some more light on the matter.

I have always thought that there was a common kris form that later changed in various ways in Indonesia and in the Philippines. A similar keris to this one was found in Java several years ago with nearly the exact same shape to this one found in Bohol.

I thus go with this being an ancestor to the Moro kris.

Also, I have always been fascinated by the gold work of the Philippines before the Spanish took it all.

Battara, thanks for the comments! And hope that you can find that pic :)

Back to Javanese weapons from the 10th to the 15th century, here are some pics from Candi Panataran and from Candi Prambanan, for comparison with the subject kris.

Just found the link: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t=keris+museum

And here is a picture of the 14th century keris blade in the Amsterdam Museum in the link:

Battara, thanks! Below is the pic from the referenced website. Incidentally, there are much more better pics than the black & white one below if one googles 'knaud kris'.

Yes I've always wondered if the buda type of keris was the ancestor to all keris and kris (seen also in the stone work). From there they diverged on their separate paths according to the varying martial environments of the Malay world (Indonesia/Malaysia/Philippines).

That Knaud keris sure is interesting, to say the least. There are many pics on the Net and two are below. They came from here: knaud_1, knaud_2, knaud_3, knaud_4, knaud_5, and knaud_6. Thanks.

Here are close-ups of the tang. Does the cross-section appear round/oblong, or square/rectangular?

In determining whether the subject kris is an import (e.g., a battle trophy from Java or Indonesia), the other important consideration is knowing the burial practices of ancient Filipinos.

Based on Guthe's sketchy report of the kris' circumstance when it was found in a cave (per earlier post above), we can surmise that the context was that of a burial.

In the case of the other specimen which is a spear (mistaken by Guthe for a kris, per post above), it's very clear that there was a skeleton, with a presumable Chinese ("blue and white") plate over his face. Thus it's clearly a burial all right.

In the case of the subject kris, there was mention of lots of porcelain. But it was not indicated whether there was a skeleton found also.

In any case, the fact that those artifacts were found in caves points to burials. In the Philippines' ancient religion, caves were believed to be entrances to the Underworld.

Whereas Christianity views the netherworld as a place to be avoided, in the ancient Austronesian cosmology it's a nice place to be in -- that's where one gets reunited with his departed relatives and other deified ancestors.

It's often that the wooden coffins (or the huge jars, in case of secondary burials), would have images of serpents and other reptiles. And that's because the chief deities of the Underworld are the naga and the serpent. But we digress :)

Now in a male person's burial (especially if one was a warrior or a ruler), there are essentially two types of artifacts that get buried with him -- (a) his most intimate personal possessions, and (b) prestige items that are proof that he has helped his bayan (political unit) to become more prosperous.

Group 'a' would typically include his personal weapon, talismans (e.g., boar's or croc's teeth), etc. In some cases, the living wife and/or slaves also get buried with the VIP!

For group 'b' there will be gold objects, and prestige goods like imported porcelain, battle trophies, etc.

The whole point in having the 'b' objects with the dead is that the person would like to show his ancestors at the entrance to the Underworld that he had uplifted his community by his raiding and trading activities, and he's got proof.

The other proof would be his tattoos. As we know, in Austronesia one does not get a tattoo unless he's done exploits for the benefit of the community. In the case of females, once they had given birth/s they get tattoos also (because part of the women's job in community-building is to raise manpower, which was the scarce resource and not fertile land).

And these tattoos supposedly glow in the Underworld, to make them more recognizable to the gatekeepers of sorts (Borneo would have a similar belief).

So what's the above saying about the subject kris?

First of all, it has to be pointed out that the place as found by Guthe appears not to have been looted (the porcelains are still there).

For local grave robbers, porcelains would be on top of their list. Gold would be second only (the looters don't regard the ethnographic value; they actually melted most of the gold they found and sold them by the kilos). Rusty metal objects would be of least interest to them.

Given that there's only one metal blade found, most probably that's the only blade there was (i.e., the kris).

Now I'd like to think that the kris was a type 'a' object. For why would he not be buried with his own personal sword? And the porcelains would be type 'b'.

In a 1500s grave (drawing is below, from Laura Lee Junker's Raiding, Trading, & Feasting, and it's all about the Philippines' precolonial way of life), we precisely see a warrior with what we can conclude to be his personal weapon (the iron sword), and battle trophies (the bronze blade, as we didn't have bronze swords, then the enemies? skulls). Then there's the usual imported ceramics, etc.

In summary, given the cultural context as elaborated, it appears to me that the kris was owned by whoever person was buried in that cave. As such, it's mostly likely locally produced.

This is a very interesting thread Miguel. Thanks so much for all the research.
I am having a difficult time seeing this as anything but an Indonesian keris, in spite of the rectangular tang. The blade bears little resemblance to any other Philippines kris we have seen, but has much in common with early keris such as the blade shape and the carvings which look very much like a double puthut form at the base. There is also, i believe, record of early Indo Keris with square or rectangular tangs. The only thing that remotely resembles a Moro kris here is the tang which isn't very decisive IMO. Clearly trade was in full swing at these times as is evident from the presence of Chinese ceramics also present. So clearly it is possible that this was a blade gained in trade. Even as a traded blade it might very well have become a choice "A" object for the person buried. There is just no telling here.
I would think that if these blades were prevalent in the area during this era that far more than this one single example would have turned up by now. Hardly enough evidence exists to form any opinion of the origin of this single blade let alone to completely reverse the generally accepted theory that the keris developed first in Java before making it's way to the Philippines. Even the evidence of a parallel development is lacking as this seems to be the only example of a "kris" from this time period in the Philippines. Where are all the other artifacts? :shrug:

me and lorenz has been discussing this topic. i agree with you david that trading was prevalent at that point in time, but one must not omit the fact that at that time, indonesia and philippines as we know it, didn't exist, just a bunch of islands forming an archipelago from china to australia. it's also a possibility that this particular form of weapon was common in bohol, as it is in jawa. it's true that this is the only specimen, but as lorenz have mentioned, an old rusting iron was number eleven on the porcelain hunter's top ten list. with all the gold dagger handles that has been found, who's to say that there was a rusty iron, or an imprint anyway, left behind? kris or keris, wasn't as important to the visayans, or the northern mindanawans, as opposed to the javans, which has more relevance, therefore it was given more attention. as an analogy, if i'm standing on the beach looking at a wave with someone from the midwest, i see a nice barreling left point, while he sees rough water with a shark or two lurking below...

An interesting thread, and one that has opened up several avenues of discussion.

1)--- geographic origin of this blade

in my opinion it is not Javanese nor Balinese ( I group these two places together because for much of the period under consideration they can be considered as closely related, if not part of the same area of political influence)

I have never seen an early Javanese keris that had been forged without a gonjo.

I have never seen any Javanese keris from any period that had a tang similar to the tang on the blade under discussion. Early Javanese tangs were more or less square in cross section; this tang has an oblong cross section.

I have never seen a Jawa/Bali blade with a similar treatment to the sorsoran. Yes, in profile the notches in the sorsoran could perhaps be likened to a puthut, but likened only. I can see no suggestion of a puthut, only notches that would form an effective blade trap.

The flat sided tang and forward weighted blade indicate that this blade was used primarily as a cutting weapon, not a thrusting weapon. Early Javanese keris were used as over-hand stabbing weapons, and developed into weapons used as short rapiers.

In short, this blade simply does not look like a Javanese blade, early or otherwise.

2)--- did trade links exist between Jawa and other areas of Maritime South East Asia in the period 10th to 15th centuries CE.

Yes, of course they did, and had for over 1000 years prior to the 15th century. (see Christie, J.W.)

3)--- where did the keris originate?

The form first appeared during the Early Classical Period in Central Jawa, it developed to its modern form in East Jawa after 1000CE and prior to 1500CE.
The expansion of Javanese trade during the period 10th to 13th centuries CE saw the keris, along with other Javanese produce introduced to other areas of Maritime South East Asia.
The further expansion of trade and political influence under Majapahit to around 1500CE saw an intensification of Javanese influence and trade throughout Maritime South East Asia. This was the period when the keris spread into other areas. In some societies it remained very close to its original Javanese form; in others it developed a different form that was more suitable to local conditions.

4)--- the Candi Sukuh stele, and the other monumental representations of the keris at Candi Sukuh.

Candi Sukuh dates from about 1437. It is by no means evidence of keris origin in Jawa, as there is ample evidence of the existence of the keris in Jawa that pre-dates Sukuh by several hundred years. Sukuh is a relatively late construction of this period.

5)--- the Knaud keris

amongst academic researchers of the keris, there are many questions that surround the Knaud. We need to be very, very wary of using this keris as an example of anything, except perhaps the gullibility of European colonials.

Hello David,

(Being slow and distracted while working on my response, Ron and Alan beat me to it - I'm keeping this unedited though.)

Yes, it does look like puthut style but during that time frame, this style might not have been limited to what we today know as Indonesia. (And half of modern Indonesia apparently never had any keris culture...)

However, I see some features that make me think that this might be at best a copy of this style rather than being an expression of a genuine tradition (wether locally crafted or coming to Bohol as trade or as a gift from a foreign power):
1. This blade is essentially flat - no thickening at the gonjo area nor at the puthut areas while the tang is a mere extension of the blade.
2. The details of the putative puthut carvings don't fit any anthropomorphic features but appear to be merely geometrical by design.


Yes, and its proportions aren't typical "Moro" either - I don't think we can closely link it with the surviving kris tradition in the area.


In basically any warrior culture a blade is much more than a weapon. The choice of what constitutes the most important personal piece for someone of status (and, thus, being able to afford more than a very few blades) may very well be the perceived talismanic/magic/religious properties which most likely would also make treasured gifts from powerful foreign sources eligible. From the length I believe it's safe to assume that this most likely wasn't the person's primary war sword but rather something more "personal" anyway.


I believe we need to be more patient and remember that iron is prone to fast corrosion (as well as getting overlooked by non-professionals just trying to make a living). Iron artefacts do turn up but since so little archeology is actually being done throughout SEA, good evidence accumulates at a slow pace (and subsequent analysis/publishing being even slower).

Regards,
Kai

Messrs. David, spunjer, AG Maisey, and kai, many thanks for your comments! :)

Thanks most especially to Alan for the exhaustive commentary covering the various aspects of the discussion at hand. Coincidentally, I was reviewing the other day Alan's article on the origin of the keris.

Dr. Dizon also saw this thread by the way. And he mentioned that we should also consider the situation at the time -- i.e., that ancient Filipinos, Indonesians, and Malaysians were all maritime people, and there was really no distinct boundaries amongst them. Being genetically and culturally close relatives, he added that these peoples freely shared metal technologies among them.

On the subject kris, I also noticed that it was described that it appears that the blade's edge has more carbon content. Am mentioning this for whatever it is worth.

Lorenz

Double-edged symmetrical blades with a 'pinched' portion near the hilt, and a 'swollen' part near the tip, are actually common in precolonial Philippines (pre-16th century).

The Boxer Codex painting (1590) shows Zambals of Luzon (northern Philippines) using such a blade. The excavated Cebu blade (central Philippines) shown is likewise precolonial. The subject kris was found in Bohol incidentally, and Bohol is Cebu's neighbor (they speak the same language).

Finally, the blade shown in the other pic is most probably precolonial, too.

Hence the subject kris with a very similar blade profile is very much Filipino in this respect.

The other Filipino prehispanic blades have a more regular taper from the guard, to the point. The pic of the lone dagger is from 'nacho'.

From Laos/Cambodia/Thailand, we also see a similar blade profile. The pic below (and the ones to follow) are from the book, Images of the Gods: Khmer Mythology in Cambodia, Laos & Thailand.