How many Kris's are made of Indian steel?

[Jens Nordlunde]

As I don’t collect Kris’s I don’t consider myself qualified to take part in the discussion, but I think the text below must have, at least some interest to Kris collectors, and maybe raise some question marks.

Allan, James & Gilmour, Brian: Persian Steel, The Tanavoli Collection. Oxford University Press, 2000.

(page 115 and 116).In the 17th century, bothe East Indian Company and the Dutch East Indian Company were involved in trading iron from the Kingdom of Golconda to south-east Asia, and sometimes to western India, from where it would have been traded still further west. …………Bronson has established that is 1682, Masulipatam and Pulicat, the chief Dutch factory on the southern Coromandel Coast, shipped a total of 144.34 English tons of iron and steel to Indonesia, of which 49.43 tons were Masulipatam steel. The previous year the two ports had shipped 158.51 tons, including 15.01 tons of Masulipatam steel, to the same destination. Bronson concludes that the annual production of iron in India cannor have been far below that of Europe.

We know about Indian iron/steel export to Arabia, Africa and the Mediterranean in the second century AD, if not before, and there is reason to believe that the Indian also exported iron /steel to the SEA area in the early centuries.

How big was the iron/steel production in the SEA area, in the two years mentioned, and does these figures give us a rough idea of, how big a percentage of the Kris’s were made of Indian steel?

[A. G. Maisey]

This is a matter of some interest to me, Jens, but the question you have raised is probably impossible to answer.

In what I have written below, I am assuming that the Indian steel to which you refer is wootz, however, I do find the quoted passage somewhat confusing, because in one breath the author refers to "Masulipatam steel", and then he speaks of "---annual production of iron in India---".Indian steel I take to be wootz; Indian iron I would assume to be bloomery iron, but I would equally assume that such Indian bloomery iron would be essentially indistinguishable from any other bloomery iron.

There is a very rare type of pamor, which is really not pamor at all, but metal which displays the characteristics of wootz; it is probably reasonable to assume that keris displaying this type of pamor are constructed from Indian material.

Professor Jerzy Piaskowski of Poland carried out extensive testing of old keris blades, gonjos, and tombak. His metallurgical investigations were directed at discovery of the types of material used in construction of early wesi aji, and the methods used for construction. From all of his testing, only one gonjo was shown to contain wootz.

Looked at from a logical point of view , it would not be desirable, both from the practical and the economic viewpoints , to construct an entire keris blade from wootz, or to use wootz as pamor material in combination with a contrasting material, such as high phosphorus iron, so where wootz was used in a blade, it could be expected to be as the core , only. Detection of wootz used as core material would be extremely difficult, short of metallurgical laboratory testing.

[Jens Nordlunde]

When I wrote the thread I did realise the mention of both iron and steel, but I let it pass, as I felt sure that someone with a bigger knowledge that I have on the subject would comment on it - just like you did.
Yes, I too believe that the iron mentioned must have been bloomery and the steel must have been wootz - although I can't be sure. What surprised me, however, was the amount exported to a 'single' place, so I would be surpriced if it is only a few kris's which are made of Indian iron/steel.

[A. G. Maisey]

I think that it is probably reasonable to assume that a very great number of items made of ferric material in Jawa and the old East Indies did contain material that originated in India, however, the material that originated from India was very probably only a part of the entire manufactured article.

From a historical perspective, one of the processes in the making of keris, and other wesi aji, is the "washing" of the material. This washing is carried out to remove excess carbon from the material prior to use. Wootz has a high carbon content. If the material being used to produce wesi aji was wootz, then naturally it was necessary to subject it to repeated welding to reduce the carbon content to a manageable level.

However, the external body of the keris and some other wesi aji, is constructed of a mix of materials, "pamor". The mix perhaps made necessary to extend the quantity of material, and/or create a stronger material.

I do not think that we can ever ask:- "how many keris were made of Indian material?"

But I do think that we can assume that India was a source for much of the material used in Jawa and the East Indies for the production of keris and other wesi aji.

[lemmythesmith]

Hi Jens, Hi Alan, What I'm wondering about is how the steel for the core of a keris is constructed? Is it smelted as rough steel and then refined by washing to even out the carbon content through carbon migration (as a Japanese smith makes blade steel from tamahagane) or is it a mixture of say, wootz with wrought iron washed together to make damascus type material? I know from recent experience if you combine a small amount of wootz and cast iron with wrought iron and fold it you get a pretty hard steel when it's quenched. (LOTS of red short too!) I know today high carbon steel bar stock is often used, but how did they make steel for keris before bar stock was available? Wonder if wootz came in handy then?

[A. G. Maisey]

I don't know Lemmy, but I think that if it is reasonable to assume that they had access to wootz, then it is also reasonable to assume that washed wootz without additions was used for the core. I say "without additions", because the core of a keris is invariably solid black when stained, additions of other material would give colour variations.