5th December 2014, 09:07 PM | #1 |
Keris forum moderator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 7,124
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Sumatran Mystery?
This is a strange one. Well, it's a bit of a mystery to me anyway. I have never seen either this dhapur or hilt form before. I don't post the blades of my collection very often, but this one has me stumped and i am curious what the consensus will be. I am calling this a patrem for now as the blade length is only 9 inches, but other than that i am pretty clueless. The hilt is what appears to be very old ivory with black horn at the base. The form seems to fall somewhere between the Javanese planar form and that of the Jawa Demam hilts. There is also black horn at the toe of the sheath stem that helps tie the dress ensemble together. The brass hilt cup is the only thing that seems perhaps a bit off about the flow of the dress. The sheath was obviously made for the blade as the fit is superb with the blade riding purposely high in a style i see more on peninsula keris.
The blade is short and stout.a very sturdy little fellow. There is no visible pamor, but that might change if stained. I think someone was perhaps a bit too aggressive cleaning this once as there are some scratch marks left behind. The blade, as you can see is very narrow at the waist and very leaf like. It appears to have a second gandik of a sort at back of the blade and what, in my imagination at least, is possibly intended to represent a putut, a seated, praying figure. None of the carving of the features appears very expert, but there is an over all feeling of quality about this short, but stout blade. Any thoughts on this one? I would love to see other blades with a similar dhapur or another hilt with a similar form. |
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