Thread: keris palembang
View Single Post
Old 23rd August 2020, 06:20 PM   #34
kai
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 3,213
Post

Hello all,

Apologies for not responding in a timely manner - I’ve been too busy to catch up earlier.

Looking at the pics again, it’s well possible that I was far out in the left field, especially with bringing Madura into the discussion: The overview pic seems to be taken at an angle (blade tilted to the right) which results in some distortion; wide-eye lenses (mobile phones) tend to distort images even further. When looking at pics, I try to mentally correct for such distortions - this time I got stuck though.

However, if I go from the pics (especially the close-up of the base of the blade and this photographic representation is all we can go by on this forum), this blumbangan still seems to be very close to square. Whenever I measure from the enlarged close-up, I obtain a ratio of height/width very close to 1 (i.e. square shape), about 1.02 (range 1.075-0.966). [A standing brick would be expected to have a ratio well above 1, a lying brick well below 1.]

Alan, I’m sure, when assessing a keris blade, you go by a mental image (i.e. general impression) of the proportions rather than actual measurements; however, could you narrow down which measurements may be most suited though, please? (E.g. length of the left edge of the blumbangan and possibly shortest connection between upper left corner of blumbangan to centerline of the blade? Or does this connection need to be perpendicular to the ada-ada/janur or even perpendicular to the left edge of the blumbangan?)

It’s my understanding that the proportion of the blumbangan is of quite some importance; at least it is one of the least likely features to change after manufacture.

Greneng resembling this style are seen in keris from early European Kunstkammer collections, too. These may well hark back to Majapahit styles (if not originating from this era which seems less likely for most of these blades). Thus, this ron dha style is not restricted to Surakarta either.

I have absolutely no problems to accept your line of reasoning for the small keris Palembang shown by John in the thread referenced earlier (post #7) - you already mentioned the close relationship to Surakarta style back then (post #23 in the older thread).

With the current example, there seems to be too much conflicting evidence (ron dha, blumbangan, blade shape) to reach a safe conclusion in my very humble opinion. Perhaps you can tell us more about weighting possibly incongruous features, Alan? Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Kai
kai is offline   Reply With Quote