keris palembang

[Jean]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Blade classification in my terms is "tangguh" in the terms of just about everybody else, I use "classification" because I have yet to meet anybody from a western culture who truly understands all the things that "keris tangguh" expresses to a Javanese ahli keris. Use of the word "classification" simplifies things and brings the whole concept back to something that people who are outside Javanese culture can more or less understand.

Yes Alan, I fully agree and I would propose that from now on we should use "classification" instead of "tangguh" in this forum to avoid confusion and misunderstanding such as using the tangguh concept for blades from outside Java/ Madura.
In my book and after having failed to properly understand and describe the tangguh concept, I have used the word "style" which may not be fully appropriate but is easily understandable by Western collectors.
BTW I just checked the book "The World of the Javanese Keris" and noticed that unless I miss a few mentions the authors did not use the word "tangguh" at all but referred the age of the blades to the historical periods such as Majapahit, Pajajaran, and Mataram. I feel that the age estimate of some blades is overestimated but this is only my personal opinion.
Regards