Keris - javanese blade in Kedah mounts?

[Gustav]

Originally Posted by Henk

Alan,

I'm very glad with your explanation. You put it just in the way what i have in my mind. I completeley agree with you.

I was a bit short in my answer and i'm very glad you gave the arguments i should have done.

Henk, if this is so: I would be very thankful, if you could find some more time and comment on this blade, which also looks Javanese and also is mounted in Kedah dress. I would much appreciate your oppinion, put in a few necessary words.

[kai]

Hello Gustav,

Nice.
Looks again like a locally crafted blade to me.

Sorry for coming back to this thread late - will add more comments later. Please add a few pics of the whole keris for future reference, too.

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

Gustav, is it possible to provide a clearer image of the greneng?

[Gustav]

Kai, Alan, thank you for your answers. This Keris is not mine, it's depicted in both Jensens book and Krisdisk (chapter 10, page 32). Length of the blade 36,6 cm. Unfortunately no better pictures of Grenend there.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks Gustav. Yes, I see what you mean.

[T. Koch]

Detlef, thank you for the picture. I'm duly aware that the interstitial zone of hippo tusks sometimes produce dark inclusions along the lateral margins, but similar "spots in a row" can be found in other types of ivory: The inner cementum of walrus or longitudinally along deep age cracks in tusks of the proboscids, for example. I was just hoping that maybe you had an academic reference up your sleeve to tie them to the hippo.

In general I think one should exercise care in assigning a source species to any ivory based on one character alone. -this goes x10 when we're doing it from photographs of course. I can recommend the article "Unusual appearance of Schreger-like pattern in Hippopotamus amphibius ivory" (Simms, 2010). -I don't agree with their conclusions, but their findings illustrate this point very well.


Best wishes, - Thor

[kai]

Hello Thor,

I'm duly aware that the interstitial zone of hippo tusks sometimes produce dark inclusions along the lateral margins, but similar "spots in a row" can be found in other types of ivory: The inner cementum of walrus or longitudinally along deep age cracks in tusks of the proboscids, for example.

Do you have any pics of such examples? The mottled areas of walrus make it usually less difficult to spot if the pieces are of reasonable size; while I have also seen spots with elephant, these seemed much less regularly distributed compared to hippo.

I was just hoping that maybe you had an academic reference up your sleeve to tie them to the hippo.

Thanks for the reminder - still need to search my wide sleeves...

In general I think one should exercise care in assigning a source species to any ivory based on one character alone. -this goes x10 when we're doing it from photographs of course.

D'accord.

I can recommend the article "Unusual appearance of Schreger-like pattern in Hippopotamus amphibius ivory" (Simms, 2010). -I don't agree with their conclusions, but their findings illustrate this point very well.

Here's the link !

Regards,
Kai