Seeking Help in Identifyling Keris

David · 18th March 2024, 09:11 PM

Well that's a nice old soldier. I think it is safe to say that it is much older than the acquisition date.

It has, of course, seen better days, but to my eye this is a blade that was forged to a fairly high standard. Unfortunately erosion has taken away some of the finer details, but i see a blade that once revealed very well tooled ricikan and it still presents itself with a sense of balance and harmony. It presents a strong, well formed sogokan, tikel alis and ada-ada. Unfortunately it has lost material at the end of the gonjo and it is difficult to say if it ever had greneng. I count 10 luk, but you can be sure that once there were 11 as there is some blade loss at the tip. I believe it is indeed a pamored blade, though i would stop short of calling it "nice" in it's current condition and the pamor pattern is pretty hard to read. That might change if the blade were to be properly cleaned and restained.
The planar hilt has a rather unique style of cecekan. While the over all style of the hilt is indeed Surakarta, this is not the average style of cecekan to be found on such hilts. I don't, however, thing the cecekan is intended to represent a demon. I would love to hear someone more knowledgable on this style of cecekan chime in on this discussion. Regardless, it is a very nicely carved hilt. If the selut and mendhak (if they can be called that) are indeed silver i believe you might be able to tell simply by polishing it up a little. There is no crime in polishing silver and gold fittings as they were never intended to be left to tarnish. Silver will respond to cleaning in ways the mamas and other white metals do not in most cases. Though, of course, there are relatively inexpensive tests to determine this for sure.
I am pretty bad at tangguh and guessing ages. I would venture that this keris is not quite as old as Mojopahit era, though possibly for some time in the Mataram period. So 17th century might be a fair place to put this in. The hilt and "selut/mendhak" a bit later perhaps. I'm not sure this "selut/mendhak" is actually proper for Javanese keris. Is it all one piece or two separate pieces. It appears more Malay to me and seems oversized for the hilt.
Still a nice and interesting collection.

18th March 2024, 09:11 PM	#3
David Keris forum moderator Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 7,125	Well that's a nice old soldier. I think it is safe to say that it is much older than the acquisition date. It has, of course, seen better days, but to my eye this is a blade that was forged to a fairly high standard. Unfortunately erosion has taken away some of the finer details, but i see a blade that once revealed very well tooled ricikan and it still presents itself with a sense of balance and harmony. It presents a strong, well formed sogokan, tikel alis and ada-ada. Unfortunately it has lost material at the end of the gonjo and it is difficult to say if it ever had greneng. I count 10 luk, but you can be sure that once there were 11 as there is some blade loss at the tip. I believe it is indeed a pamored blade, though i would stop short of calling it "nice" in it's current condition and the pamor pattern is pretty hard to read. That might change if the blade were to be properly cleaned and restained. The planar hilt has a rather unique style of cecekan. While the over all style of the hilt is indeed Surakarta, this is not the average style of cecekan to be found on such hilts. I don't, however, thing the cecekan is intended to represent a demon. I would love to hear someone more knowledgable on this style of cecekan chime in on this discussion. Regardless, it is a very nicely carved hilt. If the selut and mendhak (if they can be called that) are indeed silver i believe you might be able to tell simply by polishing it up a little. There is no crime in polishing silver and gold fittings as they were never intended to be left to tarnish. Silver will respond to cleaning in ways the mamas and other white metals do not in most cases. Though, of course, there are relatively inexpensive tests to determine this for sure. I am pretty bad at tangguh and guessing ages. I would venture that this keris is not quite as old as Mojopahit era, though possibly for some time in the Mataram period. So 17th century might be a fair place to put this in. The hilt and "selut/mendhak" a bit later perhaps. I'm not sure this "selut/mendhak" is actually proper for Javanese keris. Is it all one piece or two separate pieces. It appears more Malay to me and seems oversized for the hilt. Still a nice and interesting collection.