Strange engraved Keris blade.

[A. G. Maisey]

Gustav, my mention of the 1974 Surabaya keris was intended to demonstrate the somewhat flexible nature of perceived reality that one continually encounters in Jawa, it had somewhere between nothing and very little to do with the keris under discussion, other than that both the Surabaya keris and Athanase's keris had the same form of ornamentation.

Edit

Actually Gustav, you have me a little bit confused here. I don't really understand what you have written, nor your references.

Could you please clarify?

thanks.

[Gustav]

I am speaking about the Keris Kyai Arjunawiwoho, which, as I understand was in the possession of Pangeran Hardjonagoro. It also was linked with Erlangga.

By the homogenous group of three Kerisses I mean the initial Keris of this thread, one depicted in van der Hoop's book and one from the link Athanase provided, which all have the same iconographic narrative and more or less share the proportions of Ricikan features at the base of blade.

[Athanase]

Thank you for all these details.

I read the description of the auction house. It is specified that keris is from the collection of Emile Andrée (1871 - 1933), a "famous" french Art Nouveau architect from the city of Nancy. I found on internet that has traveled widely between 1894 and 1900 in Sicily, Tunisia, Egypt, Persia and Sri Lanka (but I don't find indications about travel in Indonesia).

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for that Gustav.
Yes, Go Tik Swan Penembahan Hardjonagoro (Alm.) did have a keris with carved blade faces, it had earlier belonged to Pangeran Hadiwidjojo (Alm.), but it was nothing at all like Athanase's keris, it was a bethok.

I believe the blade ornamentation had been interpreted as something taken from the Arjunowiwoho. I also believe it was Panembahan Hardjonagoro (Alm.) himself who named this keris K.K. Arjunowiwoho, and in his opinion it was Tangguh Kediri.

I was unaware that this keris had any link to Erlangga, I also did not know that it was a particularly famous keris. Panembahan Hardjonegoro was very, very restrained when it came to permitting people to see or handle his kerises.

However, if we can accept that by classifying a keris as Tangguh Kediri, we have established that the keris in question was actually made in the Kingdom of Kediri, then there is great difficulty in linking Erlangga to K.K. Arjunowiwoho, because Erlangga was the ruler of Kahuripan, which preceded Kediri. But on the other hand, Arjuno Wiwoho was composed by Mpu Kanwa at the direction of Erlangga.

All these associations seem just a wee bit flimsy to me.

So K.K. Arjunowiwoho really does not share any great similarity with Athanases's keris, but perhaps it may be somewhat similar to the Knaud Keris.

The Steinmann keris seems to be quite similar to Athanase's keris, but the keris in the Met, (link post 10) is more than a little difficult to link to Athanase's keris.

The keris in van der Hoop is similar in form to Athanase's keris, and may well be able to be classified as of the same or a related origin.

I cannot see the ornamentation of Athanase's keris well enough to be able compare it with the Steinmann keris, nor with the van der Hoop keris, and I've forgotten exactly what the ornamentation on K.K. Arjunowiwoho looked like. I only saw it once, very briefly.

This particular type of keris is not rare. I've owned several myself, not particularly good or old ones, and sold long ago. They were still being made in the 19th and early twentieth century; they were still being made after 1946; they are still being made today.

This type of blade ornamentation is not limited to only keris, it also occurs on tombaks and pedangs, in the Musium Radyo Pustoko in Solo there is even a peculiar little knife that has a blade engraved with designs.

Athanase's keris is a nice keris, it does have some age, but for myself, that's about as far as I'm prepared to go. From photos, and in the physical absence of all the kerises mentioned, I really cannot draw any defensible constructs of similarity, apart from what I have already mentioned, and what I regard as similarity there is based on form only.

Note:- The Arjunowiwoho (or Arjunawiwaha) was written by Mpu Kanwa under the direction of Sri Maharaja Rakai Halu Sri Dharmawangsa Airlangga Anantawikramottunggadewa, popularly known as Erlangga, the ruler of Kahuripan from about 1010 to about 1043. It is a Kekawin that tells the story of one of the Pandhawas, Arjuno, who fights for the Gods against the demon king Niwatakawaca.

The photo is of the van der Hoop keris, plus a couple of other similarly ornamented blades.

[Gustav]

There is an article by Toni Junus about Kyai Arjunawiwoho and a (not so good) depiction of it in "Pamor", November-January 2010.

[A. G. Maisey]

I haven't read it Gustav.

I do have a few copies of Pamor, and the other magazine --- was it "Keris"? --- but I never subscribed to them. Didn't like either of them much, but when they were being published, I'd buy whatever was on sale when I was in Solo.

[Gustav]

Me too. Its actually the only one exemplar I own.

[A. G. Maisey]

I assume its in Indonesian?

If you care to send me a photo of it to my aol email address I give you a precis of what he says.