How many Kris's are made of Indian steel?

A. G. Maisey · 20th January 2008, 08:13 PM

This is a matter of some interest to me, Jens, but the question you have raised is probably impossible to answer.

In what I have written below, I am assuming that the Indian steel to which you refer is wootz, however, I do find the quoted passage somewhat confusing, because in one breath the author refers to "Masulipatam steel", and then he speaks of "---annual production of iron in India---".Indian steel I take to be wootz; Indian iron I would assume to be bloomery iron, but I would equally assume that such Indian bloomery iron would be essentially indistinguishable from any other bloomery iron.

There is a very rare type of pamor, which is really not pamor at all, but metal which displays the characteristics of wootz; it is probably reasonable to assume that keris displaying this type of pamor are constructed from Indian material.

Professor Jerzy Piaskowski of Poland carried out extensive testing of old keris blades, gonjos, and tombak. His metallurgical investigations were directed at discovery of the types of material used in construction of early wesi aji, and the methods used for construction. From all of his testing, only one gonjo was shown to contain wootz.

Looked at from a logical point of view , it would not be desirable, both from the practical and the economic viewpoints , to construct an entire keris blade from wootz, or to use wootz as pamor material in combination with a contrasting material, such as high phosphorus iron, so where wootz was used in a blade, it could be expected to be as the core , only. Detection of wootz used as core material would be extremely difficult, short of metallurgical laboratory testing.

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20th January 2008, 08:13 PM	#2
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,015	This is a matter of some interest to me, Jens, but the question you have raised is probably impossible to answer. In what I have written below, I am assuming that the Indian steel to which you refer is wootz, however, I do find the quoted passage somewhat confusing, because in one breath the author refers to "Masulipatam steel", and then he speaks of "---annual production of iron in India---".Indian steel I take to be wootz; Indian iron I would assume to be bloomery iron, but I would equally assume that such Indian bloomery iron would be essentially indistinguishable from any other bloomery iron. There is a very rare type of pamor, which is really not pamor at all, but metal which displays the characteristics of wootz; it is probably reasonable to assume that keris displaying this type of pamor are constructed from Indian material. Professor Jerzy Piaskowski of Poland carried out extensive testing of old keris blades, gonjos, and tombak. His metallurgical investigations were directed at discovery of the types of material used in construction of early wesi aji, and the methods used for construction. From all of his testing, only one gonjo was shown to contain wootz. Looked at from a logical point of view , it would not be desirable, both from the practical and the economic viewpoints , to construct an entire keris blade from wootz, or to use wootz as pamor material in combination with a contrasting material, such as high phosphorus iron, so where wootz was used in a blade, it could be expected to be as the core , only. Detection of wootz used as core material would be extremely difficult, short of metallurgical laboratory testing.