Gentlemen, I am truly honoured to have come so far with this thread, thanks to your willingness to supply your valued comments to my questions! I will definitely follow your advice.
I know this thread can't go on forever (!) so I would now ask you to bear with me one more time. This is the final aspect of my Javanese keris, the blade. Afterwards I will retire from this thread and devote much time to digest all your information you have kindly given me.
1 Taking everything you have said into account, I now believe this keris blade was made between 1800 and 1900. Would that be a fair guess?
2 What would the significance/meaning be of the sogokan on the sorsoran of my keris blade? (I have actually read somewhere that some call them blood grooves!)
3 What kind of hardened tool could the empus have used to chisel these magnificent features of the ricikan into the metal of the sorsoran? Surely, a job like this requires high quality tool steel! Was it available in those olden days?
4 I understand the ron dha to be only one single, specific indentation on the greneng. Would I be correct?
5 You have considereed the pamor of my keris to be adeg. Is that pattern only produced by twisting, or might there be another method of creating adeg?
6 Lastly, I have read that the two different "sides" of the sorsoran are called "front" and "rear", but are there not Javanese names that we call those "sides", the kembang kacang side and the pointed greneng side?
THANK YOU!
Johan
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