Keris Djogya?

[Interested Party]

I haven't bought a keris in a long time, but I saw this for the price of a pizza and I couldn't resist. No one has posted in a few days so I thought this would liven things up. I reviewed Tammens for some clarity and this seemed to give me more questions than answers. I have studied a lot since reading him and that opened up inconsistencies I hadn't noticed before. I have a lot of questions, but few statements about this object. Is this a keris from Djogyakarta or just the dress? Dapor Sempana Kalentang? Teak burl wranka? Alas alan motif on the pendok bunton? The blade is old enough to have lost its stain, how long does that take? Overall quality. I noticed for example the "shoulders" of the hilt are slightly asymmetrical. Thanks in advance for any help and clarity the group wants to give.

-IP




Attachment 240079

[A. G. Maisey]

The dress is certainly Jogja, I'm away from my references at the moment so I cannot give the wanda of the hilt.

The wood in the wrongko is definitely not burl teak (jati gembol). I cannot ID it from the photos, but it is a low quality material.

The pendok motif might be an alas-alasan one, but there are insufficient detailed photos for me to give an opinion.

I need to get on to a decent computer & monitor to comment on the mendak.

The blade has the pawakan --- overall visual impression --- of a typical Jogja blade, but if I look at details it has a hint of Madura. Possibly this Madura impression might come from photo distortion --- angles --- I'd need to handle it to be certain.

I reckon 99.9% of keris literate people would place this keris, including blade, slap dab in the middle of Jogja.

That name "Jogja" is interesting.
This city is named after Ayodhya, the place where Rama (of Ramayana fame) was born, in Jawa this became Ngayogyakarta, sometimes pronounced Ngayogyokerto or Ngayodyokerto, & commonly abbreviated to Ngayogyo/Ngayodyo until today.

The official spelling is Yogyakarta, abbreviated to Yogya or just Yog.

The spelling of all variations of the name of this city can vary, both as to vowels & consonants, this is just one of the idiosyncrasies resulting from the fact that Javanese is not a standardised language.

[David]

Nice score. I might have even been willing to pay the price of 2 or 3 pizzas.
Just goes to show that such deals still exist. No, this is not a keris of particularly high quality, but it ain't junk either. I certainly wouldn't leave it behind at that price either.

[A. G. Maisey]

Here are a couple of examples of burl teak/jati gembol.

[Pendita65]

Mr. Maisey,

what a beautiful grain and color of the Teak Burl.

thnx for sharing.

regards, Martin

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you Martin, yes, they're not too bad, I agree.

A bit difficult to get this now though.

[Interested Party]

Thank you Mr. Maisey. I appreciate the feedback. I see the difference in the quality of the wood you posted. What are the features of the blade that you would regard as Madura? The pendok only has birds. Can a motif be alas alasan without elephants?

Finally what kind of person would have used this keris? What does it say about a person socially?

David, I do love deals. They are not abundant these days.

How long does it take for a stain to wear off through cleaning, oiling, and wear?

[A. G. Maisey]

There are a number of little things in this blade that i would accept in a lower quality Madura blade, but the principal thing that causes Madura to enter my mind is the angle of the gandhik, however, this could simply be because of the angle at which it was taken. For all practical purposes it is Jogja.

"Alas-alasan" means "like a forest" "alas" is "forest", so in an alas-alasan motif we expect to see the animals of the forest, not just birds, not necessarily elephants.

In the social scale it is an everyman's keris.

The photo is of a blade that was last stained some time before 1700, it entered the collection of a European museum before 1700. But if you stain a blade this morning & cut up tomatoes with it this afternoon, tomorrow most of the stain will be gone. How long a blade stain lasts depends entirely upon circumstances.