Dr. Dizon was kind enough to see me the other day. Here's some of the things he mentioned to me:
[1] on the bent tip of the Visayan kris -- he said that it is a sign that the blade owner willed when he was alive that the blade will be buried with him; bending the tip was a gesture that the blade is not to be used anymore -- in effect, this is another sign to look for when one is assessing the authenticity of an alleged excavated blade; he said that this practice was also done in other regions
[given the practice of ancestral worship then, these desires of the old folks were surely followed to the letter; the success of harvests and business enterprises were believed then to be heavily dependent upon the benevolent intervention of the departed forefathers]
[2] the similarity of the Visayan kris with old Javanese kerises, etc., is not surprising because there were really no borders then amongst what is now Phils., Indo., & Malaysia
[3] he added that blacksmiths then were itinerant, and thus all the more that we should see similarity in designs
[4] as far as artifacts found in ship wrecks in the country are concerned, he said he has never seen a bladed weapon [except for the katanas in the San Diego wreck, 1600, near Batangas] -- his conclusion is that the bladed weapons of ancient Phils. were not imported; we made our own
[5] he has also never seen blade artifacts in the country that are wavy -- all are straight [thus we can tentatively conclude here that the wavy/naga blade is a relatively recent concept]
[6] rather than mining iron ore and then smelting them, it's always easier to recycle old iron or steel as less effort is required
[7] also, as steel gets recycled (and heated and pounded once more to get the slag [impurities] out), all the more that the quality of the steel gets better
[8] thus it was quite popular in the olden days to use "drift iron", i.e., metal coming from various sources and then recycled.
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