Catalogue of the solingen exibition is now availiable

[thomas hauschild]

Dear all.
I copied this with agreement of the german blademuseum ( in person Sixt Wetzler, curator) . If not wanted, admins please feel free to delete or move.

Best Thomas



CATALOGUE OUT NOW!

The catalogue to our exhibition „Steel and Magic. Edged Weapons of the Malay Archipelago“ has arrived! It can now be ordered via the publisher, Edition Fichter: https://edition-fichter.de/produkt/s...y-archipelago/

(Unsere deutschen Freunde und Freundinnen bitten wir um Verzeihung. Da der Katalog komplett auf Englisch ist, wird er hier auch in englischer Sprache vorgestellt. Auf Deutsch liegt zur Ausstellung die Broschüre “Stahl und Zauber” vor: https://shop.histofakt.de/product_in...roducts_id=337)

“Steel and Magic” is quite a large book, with more than 300 pages, in a larger-than-A4 format. See the comparison with the German exhibition brochure.

The book itself consists of a foreword, a general introduction, and two background chapters: One on the “Development of blade making and blade types in Southeast Asia” by Dr. Achim Weihrauch, member of the International Foundation of Indonesian Culture and Asian Heritage (http://ificah.de/ificah-home/), and one by Michael Marlow, on “Religious beliefs and Magic symbolism in the Malay Archipelago”.
After that, the catalogue proper starts: 104 examples of various edged weapons from the Malay Archipelago, and 36 keris are described. The entries range from one to four pages, depending on the piece, and they give in-depth information on the respective weapon, on its making process, cultural background, symbolic meaning, etc.
The texts were mainly written by Michael Marlow, Dr. Achim Weihrauch, and Dr. Udo Kloubert (also of IFICAH); one texte each comes from Peter Dekker (https://www.mandarinmansion.com/) and from Runjeet Singh (http://www.runjeetsingh.com/), while some of the texts are from Dr. Sixt Wetzler (Deutsches Klingenmuseum).

The photos were taken by Lutz Hoffmeister, photographer of Deutsches Klingenmuseum. He is well known for his work for the other publications of the museum, for example “The Sword – Form and Thought” (https://shop.histofakt.de/product_in...products_id=64). Each piece is presented with at least one, often several photos, highlighting the interesting parts of the weapons.

The depicted pieces, which are currently on display at Deutsches Klingenmuseum, had been selected in a month long process from various private collections, and the combined collection of the IFICAH. They were chosen from several thousands of options, and our co-authors made sure that the selection is indeed mouth-watering for anyone fascinated with Southeast Asian weapons.

To facilitate the reader’s orientation, two maps are included, at the very beginning and the very end of the book. The first map gives the approximate geographical origin of the diverse edged weapons of the first part, the second map gives the locations for the keris of the second part.

Of course, a thorough bibliography can be found at the end of the book.

We at Deutsches Klingenmuseum are really happy with this publication, and we hope you will like it, too.

If you want to have a shorter overview over our exhibition, please follow the link above to the German brochure “Stahl und Zauber”. On 64 pages, the brochure highlights some of the pieces, and gives a full list of all the exhibits (including smaller photographs) at the end.