Lew Waldman's Ethnographic Arms & Armour Collection Archive


142 - Balinese Keris Sword with Mechanical Damascus Blade

The hilt and blade are almost 22 inches in length together with the blade being 17 3/16 inches in length. The wooden hilt is fairly round in cross section with a shallow ridge on the same side as the narrow side of the ganja (cross piece at the base of the blade). The grip is wrapped with woven dark brown cord; Lew's notes indicate that the cord is woven of human hair. The mendak (transition collar between hilt and blade) is composed of yellow-orange metal with granulated balls and set with 6 pale blue stones. The serpentine blade is formed of layered contrasting steels that have been manipulated to form a repeating pattern. As usual, there are scattered small imperfections in the welds between layers and some shallow old rust spots. Lew dated this as circa 1850 to 1870. The scabbard did not come to Lew with the Keris and is clearly quite new and not the work of an experienced Balinese scabbard maker, but it protects the blade and is not unattractive.





Return to item index page