A different Pamor which is not folded but pasted

[HughChen]

I have learned that Keris was forged in such a procedure that 2 layers of billet are folded & welded and in the end a core of the blade will be inserted into the middle of the 2 layers from our forum, thanks to Maisey.

Today I discuss with a friend, he told me that this Keris was forged quiet differently. There are only two very thin outside layers of billet which has Pamor are pasted in the thick core.

That explain why some of the pamor was lost. it's becasue the outside layers are very thin.

My friend believes that this is an even older craft for dealing with precious meteorites. He told me that due to the high value of meteoric iron, it was not used in the form of large steel ingots in ancient times, but rather in small pieces.That's why we think this blade is at lest 200 years old.

Do you agree with the former opinion? Wish your valuable opinions, Thanks!

[HughChen]

More pics

[A. G. Maisey]

These two keris have the same type of pamor, that is, "mlumah", or "laying down pamor" this type of pamor is made as I have already described and is placed on either side of the core as I have described, with the layers of material parallel to the core.

The reason that they look so different is because the Bugis(?) style blade has been subjected to minimal carving & the pamor material has not been surface manipulated prior to being carved. The Bali style blade has had the pamor material manipulated by punch work or grinding & has been heavily carved to produce the odo-odo.

Exposure of core in the Bugis blade is minimal, exposure of core in the Bali blade is greater.

The Bali blade looks as if it started with fewer layers of pamor than did the Bugis blade.

The blades were both made using the same basic process, but were subjected to different treatment during that process & came from the forge with different number of pamor layers.

Each blade is a common representative of its type, nothing special, nothing different, same process of manufacture but subjected to different treatment during that manufacture.

As for meteoritic pamor, that subject has been addressed multiple times in this forum, & I really don't feel like ploughing the same field again. Somebody else might like to lay the story out, or even a while spent with the search function might help. Here might be a good place to start:-

https://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?p=207340

I have made a number of blades using meteor as the contrasting material, no keris using meteor, but I did prepare some meteoritic material for another craftsman to produce a couple of keris, the blades I made that included meteoritic material were damascus blades with meteor included to add contrast. Once the meteoritic material is clean there is no difference in welding it than in welding nickel as an inclusion.

In fact, although we talk about the number of layers of pamor material in a keris, these are really nominal layers, we might have done X number of folds & welds, but with each weld we lose some of the material, then when we begin to carve the blade we lose more, so we might have produced a forging that has a nominal 128 layers of pamor, but if we cut it and etch the cut we might find many less than 128 layers, and the number of remaining layers will vary from place to place throughout the length of the billet.

200 years is not particularly old for a keris blade. In fact, very early keris, say, keris that pre-date 1500 usually have quite simple pamor, and the earliest type of keris, the Keris Buda has no pamor at all.

[Gustav]

I completely endorse everything Alan wrote, except for the fact, that Bali/Lombok Keris in question more likely has a Pamor, which is created by twisting a rod, consisting of layers of different metals. In this case on both sides of core there is one such twisted Pamor material rod. In this case it woudn't be Pamor Mlumah, but Pamor Miring or Pamor Puntiran, depending of perspective.

The Odo-Odo quite disturbs the usual impression of this Pamor effect.

Not so often seen in Lombok, quite rare in Bali (in time period from this Keris could come).

[A. G. Maisey]

Pamor miring?

I think not Gustav, but we all can only form our opinions based upon our experience.

[Gustav]

Well, I guess, there apparently should be something besides experience.

[A. G. Maisey]

Totally agreed Gustav, I am well aware that there are lot of people who can form opinions based on absolutely no relevant experience at all.

For instance, many politicians can come up with wonderful opinions based upon what they would like to be the fact, but which is not.

I can understand why you, & perhaps other people as well, might think that this Bali blade has been made with pamor miring, I'll tell you why I believe it to be pamor mlumah.

1) if we look carefully at the white lines of contrasting pamor material what we can see is that those lines flow lengthwise along the blade, where a line of white pamor curves, that curve has been caused by the contour of the blade that was created by carving and by hot work manipulation, it has not been caused by twisting.
When a layered bar is twisted, the lines of pamor form angles across the blade, they do not form straight layers of pamor that flow along the blade. You can see this yourself if you select one of the short, straight lines of white pamor, and then move to the other side of the odo-odo and see where that same layer of pamor emerges from the black iron. We can often follow the same line of white pamor along the length of the blade, periodically interrupted where it is covered by black iron.

2) in some places in the body of the blade we can see a continuous exposure of white pamor material, this is pretty obvious on top of, & along, the odo-odo. This feature will not be found in a pamor that has been created by twisting.

3) this particular variation of wos wutah (beras wutah, wosing wutah) is pamor wusing wutah gedhegan, it is only one of the many known variations of wos wutah used in Balinese keris.

4) I have seen this pamor being made, not once, but several times, the contorted lines of pamor are created by surface manipulation, ie, punching and/or filing, this surface manipulation is further altered when the blade is carved.

If we just look at a finished blade it is often extremely difficult to understand how it has been made & how the pamor pattern has been created, but if we have seen enough of that type of blade, and have had the experience of seeing it made, & of making similar patterns ourselves, then it is relatively easy to understand the process that created it.

This difficulty in understanding is not limited to people living outside the areas where we find an active keris culture, there are many people living in keris culture areas who have not the vaguest idea of how a craftsman works, and in reality, the only way to gain that understanding is to learn how to do it yourself. I did not learn to make keris because I wanted to earn my living as a keris maker, my own profession pays very much better than making blades. I spent many years and a great deal of money in learning how to make keris because I wanted to fully understand how this was done. Back in the 1970's & before, the whole thing was still one big, unsolved mystery, and for many people , it still is.

There is a book named "Keris Bali", the author is Ida Bagus Dibia, it was published in 1995. I.B. Dibia was a serious, educated, Balinese gentleman with lengthy & strong interest in keris.

I will not comment on his writings, but I do recommend that if ever you get the opportunity to read this book, then you must do so. The knowledge you will gain from reading this book --- it is tri-lingual, Indonesian, French, English --- will give you some understanding of how far generally available keris knowledge & understanding has progressed in the last 30 years.

For those people who have a good understanding of keris manufacture, a reading of Groneman's "The Javanese Keris" will also demonstrate just how little was understood in the past.

Of course the generalised use of the internet has contributed greatly to this, hours & even days spent in public libraries & museums have now been pruned to asking Dr. Google a few pointed questions.

[JustYS]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

3) this particular variation of wos wutah (beras wutah, wosing wutah) is pamor wusing wutah gedhegan, it is only one of the many known variations of wos wutah used in Balinese keris.

Hi Alan, could you please kindly explain the term gedhegan?

I have heard the term Gedhagan used by Indonesian dealers to describe pamor that gives illusion that the blade surface is not flat depending on the angle (looks like relief) whereas in reality it is flat.

Looking at the keris in question it does not give this visual illusion so it is either my source is wrong or it can have different meaning?

Thank you.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yohan, I have not heard either gedhagen or gedhegan used to describe the type of blade surface you describe, in Solo we call it "nginden" , I personally translate "nginden" as "chatoyant" but I do not know the Javanese meaning except as applied to keris pamor.

In Javanese the word "gedheg" refers to a panel of woven bambu, it can be a fence or a wall made of this. I do not know if the word exists in Balinese, perhaps this variation of wos wutah is being likened to woven bambu, or maybe just the strips of bambu that are woven, but if it is, I cannot see it.

You undoubtedly know the batik motif "nam gedheg", nam refers to the weave, you add gedheg & you have woven bambu. This same motif is used for other art works also, it is a well known pendok motif.

Getting back to the pamor motif, I think 99% of keris people would call this simply wos wutah, there are a very great number of variations of wos wutah pamor, & as far as i can see, nobody knows them all, can identify them all, or consistently name them. I picked up the "gedeghan" addition to the wos wutah from a gentleman I used to know in Solo, he was older than me, he knew more than I did, I figured he was probably right.

As I was just now writing this a thought occurred to me, I've just checked "Keris Bali", the Neka book, the text was written by Basuki Yuwono, who is Javanese and he uses a lot of Javanese terms in his writing, if we go to page 97, we can find an example of wos wutah gedhegan, bottom line of pics, last on right.

[JustYS]

Thank you Alan, the woven bamboo surely helps.

Perhaps it was I who misunderstood, what I saw from my source was pamor wos wutah/pedaringan Kebak which has several letter X along the blade and he called it pamor wos wutah/pedaringan kebak gedhagan and it also has this nginden effect. Probably what he meant by gedhagan was the letter X that can be seen as woven pattern.

[A. G. Maisey]

Maybe.

[Gustav]

Alan, thank you for giving me the honour of a detailed response, which I much appreciate.

I don't think the matter here is as simple as manipulated Wos Wutah.

In the picture with three blue arrows we see a feature, which is one of characteristic patterns for a twisted bar, under the left arrow; under this and both other arrows we see the white Pamor lines crossing the Odo-Odo to the other half of blade, an indication for a twisted bar.

Another such feature we see in the second picture with a single red arrow, which is marking it. At this place too the feature runs over Odo-Odo.

I have not worked with metal, but I have played a lot with two colored plasticine, and so I know as well as you, that besides other quite differently looking phases of a twisted bar (depending how much we take off of it), there is one phase, where a straight line runs through in the middle between the semicircles. In this phase it is possible to have a straight white line running on top of Odo-Odo.

The features we are used to see on blades with twisted bar Pamor will be very difficult to see on a Bali/Lombok blade with Odo-Odo; and it also seems to me, that the approach doing such pattern is different from, let's say, Java. Almost none effort is made to keep the pattern technically recognizeable. It somehow is enough, if "it's there". On the blade Hugh presented, which is an antique blade, the Pamor surely has been further disturbed through Sangling, traces of which we see in the horizontal picture by Hugh.

I happen to be a custodian of an antique Lombok blade with a twisted bar Pamor. The Pamor is a mess, it is clearly recogniseable at the base, in the middle it still displays some phases of a twisted bar appearance, and gets almost completely lost in a Wos Wutah like appearance above the middle (partly, because the bar surely wasn't twisted until the end, partly because of forging out the bar). Added three pictures of it around the middle and abowe it.

I did read Ida Bagus Dibia's book about ten years ago, and haven't had a wish to read it again since then.

[A. G. Maisey]

Gustav, I thank you for your explanation.

I have no wish at all to try to convince you that you should adopt my opinion, my own opinion has been been formed by own experience, your opinion has been formed by your experience.

For the people I have known who made this pamor motif, an example of which is present in the blade under discussion, it was just a wos wutah variation. For me it is a wos wutah variation.

You see it as something different, I don't have a problem with that. My intent is not & never has been to convince everybody that my own opinion is always right, I simply share my experience with others in the hope that a bridge might be built between those who do possess knowledge & those who do not.

Let's just let it rest.

Just a quick after thought.

Gustav, could I suggest that you get hold of the book written by Jim Hrisoulas: "The Master Bladesmith"?

For somebody who wishes to gain an understanding of pattern welding, this is a good place to start.

[Gustav]

Alan, thank you. Yes, that book is on my wishlist for some time now.

I have read almost everything by Sachse, I have had frequent discussions with a smith here, who works with pattern welding techniques, and he is good in what he does, I have played with plasticine. I have been to many museum magazines since Dresden (which visit I will never forget) and my home is a library. This is from where I come.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Gustav, I thank you for your explanation.

I have no wish at all to try to convince you that you should adopt my opinion, my own opinion has been been formed by own experience, your opinion has been formed by your experience.

For the people I have known who made this pamor motif, an example of which is present in the blade under discussion, it was just a wos wutah variation. For me it is a wos wutah variation.

You see it as something different, I don't have a problem with that. My intent is not & never has been to convince everybody that my own opinion is always right, I simply share my experience with others in the hope that a bridge might be built between those who do possess knowledge & those who do not.

Let's just let it rest.

Just a quick after thought.

Gustav, could I suggest that you get hold of the book written by Jim Hrisoulas: "The Master Bladesmith"?

For somebody who wishes to gain an understanding of pattern welding, this is a good place to start.

There are so many professional terms which cannot be found in dictionnary and even the Chat GTP cannot understand. It's very kind of you who can help to explian those terms for new-leaner. Thank you!
1、mlumah
2、Miring
3、Puntiran
4、Odo-Odo
5、wos wutah (beras wutah, wosing wutah)
6、wusing wutah gedhegan
7、nginden chatoyant
8、woven bambu wos wutah
9、atik motif "nam gedheg"

In fact there are much more words I have difficulty in understanding, but I think it's not good to rasit too many quesions at once, and I assume if anyone can help me with above, then maybe other terms will be easy to understand. Thanks!

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for your further comments Gustav, & I'm pleased that you have mentioned this. I had considered putting up something like the below images previously, but I did not, because I thought it would not be fitting if you did not have the background to understand what you were looking at, but I now understand that you are familiar with Sache so I think others might benefit from this present post.

I'm still not interested in trying to convince you that my opinion is correct & that yours is not, I respect your unfettered right to hold your own opinion, & I do understand how you have come to hold this opinion, however, I feel that others who are perhaps not as well informed as you are might benefit from what I have posted here.

The drawings of a twisted bar at various stages of its reduction to its center, & the caption that goes with the drawings, are from Sache's book "Damascus steel", you would be familiar with this, but many other keris people would not be.

I started doing forge work in about 1978-1980, by 1982 I had found a teacher, I first made a dagger with pamor construction in about 1983, & immediately after the dagger I made a pretty funny looking little keris. By 1988-1990 I was doing the sort of pattern welding that is demonstrated in the Sache drawings, it was all damascus work. I did try several times to apply twisted bar as pamor, but I was never very successful, however, my twisted bar damascus blades were more than acceptable. I sold most of my damascus work to other makers to be turned into knives & daggers.

The teacher I found in 1982 was Gordon Blackwell, he taught me to forge weld, but I taught myself to forge weld high carbon steel & nickel & to combine these materials into a single billet.

I found another couple of teachers in Solo, my principle teacher was Empu Suparman Supowijoyo, my long-time friend Empu Pauzan Pusposukadgo also taught me, but only by observation & his explanations, I never worked under Pak Pauzan's instruction. In addition to this I have observed the work of four or five other pande keris in Central Jawa, and four or five pande keris in Bali.

All of this Javanese/Balinese teaching & observation was between 1980 & 2023. I stopped doing forge work in about 1995 when I moved to a new house and got so busy with other things that I never got back to serious forging. I currently have only a small hand blown farrier's forge, & the only forge work I have done in recent years is heat treatment of blades I made in the past, and teaching of a few people who wanted to learn basic forge procedures.

The big difference in working with damascus & working with pamor blades that have a laminated steel core, is that with the pamor blade you have only a comparatively thin layer of contrasting material and you need to forge out the entire blade to its intended length without deforming the pamor pattern, then when you are doing the cold work, you need to be extremely careful not to cut all the way through the pamor and expose the solid black of the core. If we use the construction method of an inserted edge, rather than an enclosed core we can avoid that core exposure problem, but I don't think Javanese makers have used the inserted edge since about 1700, & not all makers used it then.

If we look at the Sache drawings we can see that only a very few layers of contrasting material have been used, & enclosed by thicker layers of homogeneous material. By the time that we have reduced the fully twisted bar to somewhere near its center we have removed all the closely spaced outer layers, & come down to the more widely spaced inner layers, as can be seen in illustrations J & K of the Sache drawings. In these J & K illustrations we can see an almost straight line of homogeneous material running through the center of the bar, in damascus with few layers in the original material, it is possible to achieve something more or less like this, but in pamor where we begin with only a tiny amount of contrasting material it is virtually impossible to produce a continuous line of the white contrasting nickelous material.

These illustrations are related to European working capabilities, they do not reflect the capabilities & technology of Javanese and Balinese smiths. Nor do they reflect my own capabilities. All the forge work I did in Australia was done without a striker & without a machine hammer, and on a relatively small forge. In Jawa & Bali the forges are even smaller & more limited than what I used.

In reality this beautifully crafted twisted bar in the illustrations is not representative of what can be produced by the vast bulk of smiths in Jawa & Bali. In addition, working with pamor we use very thin pieces of contrasting material ie, nickel or meteoritic material, a piece of the contrasting material used in most keris would be no thicker than a piece of newspaper, I used to forge out the nickel or cleaned meteor until holes appeared in it. The traditional method of welding meteorite used in Jawa is to enclose tiny pieces of meteorite in an iron envelope & then run that envelope through anything up to 7 or 8 folds, the number depending upon the number of welds needed to clean the material, this envelope process results in extremely thin layers of contrasting material.

So with the Sache illustrations we have an example that is entirely different to what we work with in pamor production for a keris, with pamor we have a greater number of layers, and those layers are much thinner.

Now have a look at the photos of keris blade section. The blade I have used for an example is one that was made by Pande Keris Yohannes Yantono, I prepared the meteoritic material for use in this blade and it was given to Yantono as a very small billet, he forged it to paper thinness before combining with iron and producing a pamor billet that contained a nominal 128 layers of contrasting material. The pamor motif is Wiji Timun, & this was produced by surface manipulation.

If we look at indentations that form the motif we can see the same flow pattern in the pamor that can also be observed in the Sache illustrations J & K, but the flow pattern in the keris pamor is comprised of very many more layers than in the J & K illustrations.

In the keris blade we can also see in the image of the sorsoran where the pamor has been totally cut through during the carving & the black core has been exposed. If we look at the other image of blade section we can see a small section of blade where the top of the odo-odo has come very close to exposure but still retains a few specks of contrasting meteoritic material. Looking closely at the continuity of contrasting material in this keris blade it is not difficult to see where the layers continue from one side of the odo-odo to the other. These layers are much finer than in the illustrations, or in the keris shown in post #2, but the flow is quite easy to see.

The major indicator of a blade that has been made using a twisted bar is that close examination will almost invariably reveal some weld joints where the twists have united during production. I have run the photos of the keris under discussion through Photoshop examination & I cannot find any of these weld joints, however, weld joints might be present and only detectable under microscopic examination, if this were proven to be so, then my opinion that this blade under discussion is a mlumah pamor would be wrong.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

These two keris have the same type of pamor, that is, "mlumah", or "laying down pamor" this type of pamor is made as I have already described and is placed on either side of the core as I have described, with the layers of material parallel to the core.

The reason that they look so different is because the Bugis(?) style blade has been subjected to minimal carving & the pamor material has not been surface manipulated prior to being carved. The Bali style blade has had the pamor material manipulated by punch work or grinding & has been heavily carved to produce the odo-odo.

Exposure of core in the Bugis blade is minimal, exposure of core in the Bali blade is greater.

The Bali blade looks as if it started with fewer layers of pamor than did the Bugis blade.

The blades were both made using the same basic process, but were subjected to different treatment during that process & came from the forge with different number of pamor layers.

Each blade is a common representative of its type, nothing special, nothing different, same process of manufacture but subjected to different treatment during that manufacture.

As for meteoritic pamor, that subject has been addressed multiple times in this forum, & I really don't feel like ploughing the same field again. Somebody else might like to lay the story out, or even a while spent with the search function might help. Here might be a good place to start:-

https://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?p=207340

I have made a number of blades using meteor as the contrasting material, no keris using meteor, but I did prepare some meteoritic material for another craftsman to produce a couple of keris, the blades I made that included meteoritic material were damascus blades with meteor included to add contrast. Once the meteoritic material is clean there is no difference in welding it than in welding nickel as an inclusion.

In fact, although we talk about the number of layers of pamor material in a keris, these are really nominal layers, we might have done X number of folds & welds, but with each weld we lose some of the material, then when we begin to carve the blade we lose more, so we might have produced a forging that has a nominal 128 layers of pamor, but if we cut it and etch the cut we might find many less than 128 layers, and the number of remaining layers will vary from place to place throughout the length of the billet.

200 years is not particularly old for a keris blade. In fact, very early keris, say, keris that pre-date 1500 usually have quite simple pamor, and the earliest type of keris, the Keris Buda has no pamor at all.

Hi, Alan, thank you for your explanation. But, if it's layers of billet parallel to the core being carved to form the odo-odo, wouldn't the apparence looks like this picture（it's a Damascus steel known for it's folded lines ）?

For folded steel with many layers, if we cut a section or a bevel, we will be able to see many parallel lines because the steel block is folded in multiple layers, and the welded lines can be seen in the bevel or cut surface. But this keris does not show these layered features in the odo-odo and the bevel caused by the slotted middle. So, I guess, is this keris carved first, including the formation of odo-odo, the groove of the sword, and then welded with a thin layer of Palmer?

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

The big difference in working with damascus & working with pamor blades that have a laminated steel core, is that with the pamor blade you have only a comparatively thin layer of contrasting material and you need to forge out the entire blade to its intended length without deforming the pamor pattern, then when you are doing the cold work, you need to be extremely careful not to cut all the way through the pamor and expose the solid black of the core. If we use the construction method of an inserted edge, rather than an enclosed core we can avoid that core exposure problem, but I don't think Javanese makers have used the inserted edge since about 1700, & not all makers used it then.

Hello，Alan. I think maybe that's what we mean. My friend hold the belief that this keris's pamor represent some old craftsmanship which should be from 17th-18th century.

[JustYS]

Thank you Alan and Gustav for your ongoing discussion, very appreciate it.

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

The major indicator of a blade that has been made using a twisted bar is that close examination will almost invariably reveal some weld joints where the twists have united during production. I have run the photos of the keris under discussion through Photoshop examination & I cannot find any of these weld joints, however, weld joints might be present and only detectable under microscopic examination, if this were proven to be so, then my opinion that this blade under discussion is a mlumah pamor would be wrong.

Hi Alan,

I apologize in advance for my simplistic (probably ignorant) question:

Is this an example of the evidence of weld joints.
If yes does this mean that the pamor of this keris has been made using a twisted bar?

Thank you.

[Gustav]

This is not a joint between two twists, this is a joint line between two twisted bars.

[Gustav]

Just a few observations using one picture.

In the overall view picture of the blade I have marked 4 places, where we see, how the frequencies of segments (defined by gedhegan work or by twists, or by whatewer) are becoming wider towards the middle (and afterwards even more wider toward the tip, outside this picture).

This is not a picture we would expect to have of a Gedhegan work, which is done on a cold blade already forged out, and where the frequency between places, where surface is manupulated, is kept more even,- or would be even reversed - with bigger spacings on Sorsoran, becoming narrower up the blade.

On a blade made with a Pamor of twisted bar(s) we would normally have that, what is the case here - narrow frequency on Sorsoran, which becomes bigger and bigger up the blade - because the Pamor is forged out together with the hot blade. Of course an experienced smith, or let's say, smith, who cares about an "as eaven as possible" appearance of a twisted bar Pamor, works against this occurence - to have a pattern with more eaven frequencies.

I also don't see classic twist joint features on this blade, but there are at least two places in this one picture, where it comes quite close to these (marked by blue arrows in the cutout pictures; the pictures with blue marked areas show the borders between possible twists, in this case the narrow frequencies close the base of blade). As I have said, Odo-Odo can disturb the appearance of a twisted bar heavily, as does Sangling here and there - the thinness of Pamor layers in this case goes into a small part of a millimeter at some places.

[A. G. Maisey]

Gustav before I try to understand how to respond to your most recent post I need to know what you mean by "gedhegan work". The root is "gedheg", or "gedeg", or "gedek". In Bahasa Indonesia this is a panel of woven bambu, in Javanese it also means this, but it also means to shake your head when you disagree with something, and it means to collaborate. The meanings are of course contextual.

I have looked at Haryoguritno and he gives "gedhagen" a meaning that agrees with what JustYS has said some salesmen use to refer to "nginden" work. However, this is not a usage I have encountered in Solo.

So could you please confirm that by "gedhagen" you mean what I know as "nginden" and what I refer to in English as "chatoyant", that is that a basic but dense wos wutah pamor is indented or cut in a series of straight lines and then forged flat, the result being to create a series of lines in the pamor that are shadow-like?

Thanks.

[A. G. Maisey]

JustYS, it is as Gustav has said, two twisted bars welded together.

[A. G. Maisey]

HughChen, in your post #17 the pattern in the blade shown was made in the same way that the pattern in my example of the Yantono blade was made, and how the pattern in the blade under discussion was made --- although Gustav disagrees with this.

The difference is in the number of contrasting layers, the blade geometry, the craftsman. In all blade work there can be very many variables, and each variable can affect the finished result, things that have been created in essentially the same way can finish with a totally different appearance.

In most cases the craftsmen who work in the field understand the variables & the results, but in the absence of lengthy specialised training the untrained observer will almost invariably be confused. I guess the same is true in many fields.

In respect of your post #18, do you mean that your friend thought that the Bali blade could have has an inserted edge? I don't believe this blade does have an inserted edge, & I have not yet encountered a Balinese blade that has used this method of construction. The only blades i have found this inserted edge in have been Javanese, mostly from Mataram.

In post #17 you have proposed an impossible method of manufacture, absolutely, totally impossible. The layers in pamor & in damascus are always there, but they vary in number, style, placement, thickness, execution, style, material. Very many variations, & really, I doubt that it is even possible for an untrained person to understand the variations. It is difficult enough for a trained person to understand them sometimes.

[Gustav]

Alan,

with "Gedhegan work" I mean the process for creating Pamor Wusing Wutah Gedhegan.

Sorry, the Pamor on this blade cannot be Wusing Wutah Gedhegan, and one of the indicators are the Pamor lines running diagonally over the central ridge of the blade. The other reason I tried describe in my previous post.

[A. G. Maisey]

Which blade Gustav, the original Bali blade in post #1?

Actually, the meaning that Haryoguritno gives "gedhagen" (not gedheghan", this is a different word, not a variant spelling) is quite different to the meaning given by Basuki Yuwono and by my Solo informant.

Standard Javanese terminology for the Solo reflective pamor is "nginden".

In a Bali wosing wutah gedhegen we are talking about a wos wutah variation that has upright strips , uncontrolled and something like adeg in appearence, but not in construction.

However, if you mean that the pamor in the Bali blade in post #1 cannot have been created from a random pattern pamor with surface manipulation, this assumption is very wrong. The carving of a blade with unevenly distributed layers of pamor will of course create the effect we see in this blade, of a continuation of the same line of pamor across the top of the odo-odo, those layers of pamor run side to side and the layers do not maintain even thickness during forging.

Gustav, it is pretty much as I said to HughChen in my post #24, there are far too many variables to get accurate answers from a finished blade, especially so if we have not had the requisite training in pattern welding. We can guess, but even to guess & with the right training & experience it is not easy in all cases.

[Gustav]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

However, if you mean that the pamor in the Bali blade in post #1 cannot have been created from a random pattern pamor with surface manipulation, this assumption is very wrong. The carving of a blade with unevenly distributed layers of pamor will of course create the effect we see in this blade, of a continuation of the same line of pamor across the top of the odo-odo, those layers of pamor run side to side and the layers do not maintain even thickness during forging.

Alan, I think we got stuck again. In my #12 I attached a picture of this blade (of course I am speaking about the blade of Hugh), where pamor lines run diagonally across the odo-odo, a feature, which would be compatible with pamor made of twisted bar. In #21 there is a picture, where pamor lines cross the odo-odo just above the poyuhan, and are those of a twisted bar. Those lines are not compatible with pamor mlumah, even manipulated.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Gustav, I did misunderstand the part of the blade and the characteristic you were referring to.

Those diagonal lines shown in the post #12 pic can easily be created by surface manipulation, or even by irregular striking on a native style anvil, or where stones were used instead of an anvil & hammer, or by use of an old & abused European anvil. We are not dealing with European standards.

As recently as the early 1990's, I saw a pande besi who was working on the outskirts of Karangpandan --- slopes of Mt. Lawu --- who was using stones as both hammer & anvil, his wife & daughter were his strikers.

The technology that existed & still exists in some parts of Jawa & Bali, & certainly in other parts of Indonesia, can be pretty primitive, & very often the results are not predictable. When I visited Pande Made Wija ( Pande Ketut Mudra's father) in 1982 his forge was just a shallow depression in the ground, & side blown from an ububan, his fire bed was no more than 5 or 6 inches deep.

In your post #21, the pic of the sorsoran that has a square enclosing some circles and some wavy lines that run across the blade. The lines across the blade can be created by upsetting & also by addition of extra material during the forging process, if for example we add that extra material at about fold 2 or 3 or 4, there will be no weld joint seen in the finished job.

The circles can be created by punch work.

The blade section enclosed by the square & directly above the poyuhan displays characteristics that can most definitely be created in a m'lumah base by manipulation.

These things that I have mentioned, I myself have done, not working in pamor, but working in damascus.

We can hypothesise as much as we like, but Gustav, I've done this sort of work, & I've seen it done, and based upon what I can see, and ignoring what I cannot see, there is nothing in this pamor motif that cannot be done by manipulation & addition. But still, I have no problem with you continuing to hold your own opinion.

I said some time back, that I do understand why you or somebody else might think that the motif is the result of miring work, but when I see something that has the characteristics of work that I've done myself, its a bit difficult for me to accept that it was not done in a similar way. Having said that, I do acknowledge that there could be a number of different approaches to creating the same finished job from a m'lumah billet, without going to the expense of miring work --- & the creation of pamor miring is very expensive.

With a lot of the pamor work & keris work that still comes out of Jawa & Madura --- I am not mentioning Bali & this is intentional --- it is not really possible to understand how something has been done unless we have observed it being done.

[Gustav]

Alan, thank you for your elaborated response, I much appreciate it.

[A. G. Maisey]

HughChen, nearly all old keris words in Jawa are Javanese, not Indonesian.

Bahasa Indonesia is actually a Malay dialect, or maybe "Malay based" might be more correct. When we find Malay terms used with Javanese keris, usually those terms are a recent addition to the keris vocabulary.

However, the words used for keris are not set in stone. Terms & understandings vary from place to place & from time to time. To understand all the terms we probably need a good understanding of Javanese & Bahasa Indonesia, & the ability to work with half a dozen other languages or dialects.

Javanese itself is not a standardised language & it has three major levels of language, and more than 8 other levels that are only used in certain places and for certain occasions.


1、mlumah --- laying down, face up

2、Miring --- slanting, at an angle

3、Puntiran --- twisted

4、Odo-Odo --- central rib of a blade

5、wos wutah (beras wutah, wosing/wusing wutah) --- beras(wos)uncooked rice, wutah= spilled, scattered

6、wusing wutah gedhegan--- wusing wutah= Balinese term for wos wutah, gedhegan= like a panel of woven bambu (root word is gedeg/gedheg)

7、nginden = i do not know a dictionary translation for this word, nor if it has any other use apart from being a keris related word I understand it as "reflective" or "chatoyant", "chatoyant" is from the French, it means "like the eye of a cat"

8、woven = English word, bambu = bamboo, wos wutah= as above

9、Batik = traditional Javanese cloth, motif "nam gedheg" = name of a batik motif that resembles woven bambu --- it actually does not, but if you use your artistic imagination you can see the resemblance. Many different ways to interpret this motif, some do look like woven bambu, most do not.

This might be useful:-
http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/keris-glossary