Very old Visayan kris

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by Gustav

Just a couple of facts to regain some attachment to reality:

I have looked into Spanish museums for some time now. Until now I haven't found any Kris from Phillipines in their collections that would predate 1800.

There, as Alan has pointed out many times, is a Kris, which probably everybody nowadays would call an "archaic" Moro Kris in its pure form. It comes from Brunei and was made in 1842.

-------------------

We have two tendencies. The first one I would call academic, it works with available dates, and treats these dates as facts. Everything else ranges between hypothesis and speculation.

The second is amateurs approach and is based on speculations going beyond the available dates.

The possible truth often enough is situated somewhere between these viewpoints in my opinion.


----------------------

What I personally see in the Kris from this thread is an old blade with very possibly reworked fretwork (Greneng in Javanese Terminology), conservatively datable from first half of 19th cent., in a dress from the turn of 19th/20th centuries.

I would beg to differ on the "amateurs approach." There are some of us who work within the academe, and who would only make statements grounded in fact or formal theory.

1. To note, there exists pre-1800 documentation of krises encountered in the PH in terms of local and foreign sources (Spanish friars, Dutch accounts, plus that captain who visited PH pre-1700s, I'll have to re-check my references).

2. There's also a book, with APA entry [SOLHEIM II, W. G. (1960). The Philippine Iron Age. The University of Arizona] which has a kris artifact found in Bohol area I think, dated 12th-15th century, I'm attaching the plate. Of course, we don't have any clue as to how it was dressed, if it was PH-origin; but the fact that it was found in PH soil points that kris was already being circulated in that time period.

3. Then there are also Moro elders' accounts, oral traditions, even myths and legends which trace krises back to pre-colonial times. These are valid sources under formal anthropological framework.

To summarize: there's no doubt that krises were already circulating in the Philippines pre-1800, pre-1700, even pre-colonial. In documentation it's clear that these were found in Southern (Moro) areas; in archaeological evidence at least, one is found in Visayas area (Bohol), which is not too far from Moro areas.