Origin of this dagger?
 

Any ideas on the place of origin of this dagger? It is 37.5 cm long, the tip broken and the blade filed down to give it a new point. Brass wire on the hilt perhaps a replacement?

Nomen est omen?

How about a luju/loedjoe Alas variant? :)


Seriously, this seems very tough to pin down. I'm not even positive it is Sumatran/Indonesian.

Please post more close-ups of the hilt. Which kind of ivory?

How does the back of the blade look like? Maximum thickness?

What is the round depression towards the tip? (The other irregularities are forging flaws?)

I'd be inclined to etch the blade for obtaining more info, too.


The wire looks like an attempt to stop the splitting of the ivory - the marks seem to suggest that there were originally 2 bands of silver? (Ferrule is silver, correct?)

Regards,
Kai

Also a nice and unusual dagger. Blade shape is similar to a badik, agree with Kai that etching the blade can give some hints. Agree also that there have been bands from silver at the handle. Ivory look like dugong IMHO.

Regards,

Detlef

Very nice piece - thanks for showing it! I have no input as to origin or age, so I'll sit back, watch and learn. :D

Regarding the material for the hilt, judging from the pics, I am not sure that it is ivory - the pores and nature of the cracks indicate some kind of bone. When bone gets very old and handled a lot, it will sometimes obtain a beautiful warm glow like we see here.

If you'd like, try taking a picture from the pommel-end. A pic from this angle might tell more. What is the length of the hilt, 12-14 cm?

Regarding the possibility of dugong ivory, I still haven't seen an example of this material used for a weapon hilt, and will remain highly skeptical of it's stated use in this way, until presented with evidence of the contrary. :D


Best wishes, - Thor

Thank you all for your comments.

A luju Alas variant would be great, as Sumatra is my main interest, but like Kai I am not sure it is Sumatran/Indonesian - I was so intrigued by the hilt that I could not resist buying it. I had assumed that the hilt was elephant ivory - I shall try to take, and post, more photographs of it in the next few days, which may help identify it for sure. It is 12 cm long, to the bottom of the ferrule (which is pale brass, rather thick and crude, perhaps a later replacement).
The back of the blade is flat, maximum thickness 4.5 mm at the base. The oval depression near the tip, the tadpole-shaped one near the middle, and the two thin ones near the base (just visible in the photo.) are all identical on the other side of the blade - perhaps the oval one, at least, once had a metal inlay?
As for etching - same comment as in the reply to the comments to my other query, lack of knowedge, and nervousness about causing damage.

Here are a few more photos. of the hilt

Wow, those are some impressive pics! As good as it gets without having the piece in hand. :) The concentric age cracks visible on the end of the pommel do look mighty like those of elephant ivory.

Try having a really good look at the pommel end in good clear daylight. Does the material have overlapping angular lines like these?:

http://www.asianartmall.com/elepschr.jpg

If so, it's elephant ivory. Those are called Schreger's Lines and only ivory of the proboscidians - elephants, mammoths, mastodons, etc. - show these. If you can't see anything like this, my vote is back on some kind of bone.

Super nice piece regardless! The figural hilt reminds me of the lion/Makara hilt of the Sri Lankan Kastane as discussed over in this very awesome thread: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14998 - however, I'd be surprised if that was anything but mere coincidence.

Congratulations on the score and may you enjoy it in good health! :)


Best wishes, - Thor

Hello Thor,

I am nearly sure that it isn't some sort of bone since there is no porosity in top of the handle.

Still vote for dugong, I have some keris handle from this material. A other possibility is whale tooth. I have to admit that I have problems to differ between this both materials. I have send pictures from the handle in question to a friend of mine who is firm by this materials. Tomorrow I will have answer and will post his opinion at this place.

And soon as I find the time I take pictures from dugong keris handles and post them as well.


Best regards,

Detlef

Detlef, i am curious how you know that the material on your keris hilts is actually dugong and not some other source. AFAIK there are no really large pieces of dugong ivory so i understand why Thor is skeptical.
I do agree that this looks more like ivory than bone to me also. How large is just the hilt of this piece?

Here is a picture from an old thread of a Palembang hilt made from dugong ivory.

Hello David,

like I write before, I am not really sure between whale bone and dugong but I know that both materials was used for keris hilts and other hilts in SEA.
Tusks from dugong are 20 until 25 cm long (approx. 8-10 inch), whale tooth are approx. 15 cm (6 inch) long. So they are large enough to carve handles from this material. A friend of mine have written a book about keris materials ( Faszination Kris, Zauber des Materials, Wolfgang Schilling) and he have confirmed the material of some from my keris handles.

Best regards,

Detlef

I guess i could see certain styles of thin handles carved from them as the tusks do tend to be rather thin. But how would you carve a hilt such as your example out of a source with this shape... :shrug:

Depend from how thick this tusks are. The handle I have shown for example is from a old thread and belong to Ganyawulung who stated that it is from this material. The handle from the dagger hilt in question is long & slender and surely can be carved from this material.

Antique elephant ivory have typical cracks. The handle from Ganya hasn't and the handle in question hasn't as well typical elephant ivory cracks, so I am nearly sure that both handle are not from elephant ivory. One sentence I have heard in Indonesia many many times: "When ivory don't have cracks it is recent or not from elephant!" The handle from the dagger Loedjoe have shown has cracks but this cracks are very different from cracks are shown from antique elephant ivory.

The tusks, from the numerous examples i have looked out, just don't appear to actually be particularly thick. Ganja may have stated it was dugong simply because someone told him that. What i am getting at is that something isn't necessarily something simply because someone has said so. Word of mouth information should always be questioned, shouldn't it? :shrug:

Sure, you are right. But have a look to both handle and than for example to your ivory pommel gunong, you will see that this are different materials. I am still not sure if it is dugong or whale but for sure not elephant or hippo, so what should it be?
Of course is it very very difficult to be sure by pictures and without handling the material. A 100% sure result you only will get by chemical/physical analysis.

While sound experience often gives a quite ok answer within seconds, I agree that serious examination up to scientific standards would be preferable; DNA sequencing may even narrow down the origin (of the material if not the whole piece).

Regarding marine ivory, I guess that many pieces believed to be Dugong are much more likely sperm whale; the latter have been regularly caught throughout the archipelago and a single whale yields a lot of teeth while obtaining a really large male dugong seems less straightforward...

Regards,
Kai

Hello,

just get a mail from my friend. He think that it is dugong or very old and worn hippo ivory. When you can see in the cracks black dots in a line it is hippo ivory. He say the look from up on the handle speak for dugong.
But he is like I am nearly sure that it isn't bone.

Like said before, it is difficult to give a save opinion by pictures only. :shrug:

Regards,

Detlef

BTW, he give also the hint that it could be a Nias knife.

Thank you very much to all who have commented on this - it has been most interesting and helpful.

There are no black dots in the black lines, so I think we can safely exclude hippo ivory as the materail of the hilt.

Not sure on the knife's origin, but the hilts material I would say looks just like sperm whale tooth ivory. I collect mainly Polynesian art and see a fair amount of this material. Just my two cents
Great knife.

This make much more sense to me. The larger back teeth of the sperm whale especially would provide both the length and mass necessary to carve a reasonably sized hilt. Here is a large scrimshaw tooth as well as a nice keris hilt purported to have been made from a sperm whale tooth. I suspect that this is the material most often used where claims of dugong have been made.

Thanks for chiming in, ASH! Working this material with relatively brittle stone tools is certainly a feat! Any Polynesian examples that you can share?

Gimme five, David! :D

Regards,
Kai

Hello Detlef,

Interesting suggestion - thanks!

With the missing silver bands and a likely replaced ferrule, there's not much left to base any origin on. IMVHO though, I don't believe in a Nias origin because the hilt/pommel doesn't seem to have any specific feature which could be safely attributed to (northern?) Nias craftmanship and also the blade doesn't strike me as typical, too. Just trying to keep the ball rolling - I'd love to be proven wrong and learn something new!

Any chance to take close-ups of those possible forging flaws or features of the blade?

Regards,
Kai