Dapur question ?

[A. G. Maisey]

Gustav, it costs a lot of money to make a complex pamor miring using the traditional methods.

In fact it costs an enormous amount of money when that cost is measured against average Javanese income at any time prior to WWII

Because of this and also because of the population levels of Jawa as we go back in time, there were not a lot of people in old periods of Javanese history who could afford to have a keris with a complex pamor. I have seen blades that can be conservatively dated to the 16th and 17th centuries that have complex pamor miring, but any blade with this type of pamor from that period of time must have been the work of a very skilled maker, probably an mpu, and to have been made for a wealthy and important person.

As for this crossed V method of constructing a blade, I have seen evidence of it occurring in blades from the Mataram Senopaten tangguh, and I have only handled blades with pamor wos wutah that have used this cross V construction. Thus it is not limited to only complex pamors, and it is not a product of later technology.

European blades also used a technique where the body of the blade was constructed with a pattern weld, originating from the necessity to wring the impurities from bog iron, and the edge of higher quality steel was inserted.

Complex pamors have been around for a long time, but they are found very, very seldom in genuinely old blades, and when they are found they are usually in very deteriorated condition.

Complex pamors that rely on surface manipulation of a wos wutah base are more often found, but I think it has only been with the resurgence of the keris since about 1980 that we have seen a proliferation of well executed, artistic pamor motifs, often of a type that has not previously been seen. This entrepreneurial spirit of present day pattern welders has resulted in a lot of pamor motifs that really are very difficult to align with traditional pamor motifs.