Gustav's Discovery

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you very much Rasdan, we now have some idea of the background of the keris that appears to be the best presented example of this variant element.

An excellent contribution to this investigation. Again I thank you.

My inclination is to disregard the hilt and scabbard, and even the gonjo, and just focus on the body of the keris. We still have no usable provenance, but at least we now know that there is no usable provenance.

My current opinion is that we have a North Coast Jawa blade, possibly able to be categorised as Banten. I may be wrong, but for the moment that is where my thoughts will start.

Anything in a European collection can only be dated as before the date that it was first catalogued. There can be assumed provenance for a period before this, such as we have with the kerises in the Bargello that came from the Medicis, but prior to a catalogue date, we're really only guessing.

You have raised the question as to whether we have an artistic contribution to keris design, or whether we have a socio-religious contribution to design, that is to say, do we have art, or do we have symbolism that can be tied to belief?

Certainly, after Islam much of the Hindu-Buddhist symbolism was corrupted and often interpreted in a different way to the way in which it was understood as a Hindu-Buddhist icon. Of course, this probably occurred even before Islamic domination also, so the question is always there:- art or symbol?

Then again, as in Western artistic traditions we can have art and symbol:- elements of a work of art that are most certainly artistic elements can very often be interpreted also as symbols, and carry a message that can only be read by those people who have been educated in this symbolism.

At the moment we have a few keris with examples of a design element that has not previously been commented upon by people who are qualified to do so.

Actually, that's all we have.

But from my perspective this is more than enough to commence a determined effort to try to align this new element --- for the sake of convenience, let's call it Gustav's Element --- yes, let's try to align Gustav's Element with known forms from old Jawa, say, pre-1700 Jawa.

I at least intend to follow this route. A few months, or years of keeping this form as a template in my mind may some day result in a match with something. There is no hurry, we have a form, let's see if we can find out what that form is.

The last thing we need is to get bogged down with non-productive quibbling.

[Gustav]

Alan, I checked my outgoing mails, and see, that I actually have sent you a mail about that Keris with the link to Penn Museum back in 06.11.2012. We had a correspondence about it and spoke about "three prong Ron Dha".

[A. G. Maisey]

Please accept my most sincere apologies for my lapse in memory Gustav.Its only 5 years ago, and I really should have remembered. I guess it slipped my mind because of all that has happened since that time. In fact, in view of the fact that I average around 20 emails each day, and some of those emails generate multiple exchanges as well as phone conversations about keris, the forum discussions, catalogues, appraisals & etc, I might not even remember a discussion about this unusual feature if it had only happened last month.

It is possible that in 2012 I was using yahoo, and for the last few years I've been using AOL, in any case, I need to clean out my old emails every 12 months or so, so I would not have a copy either in yahoo or AOL.

But that doesn't matter, it seems you have a copy, so if we came up with anything worthwhile back in 2012, throw it into the mix.

[Gustav]

Alan, here it is:

Yes, I also immediately thought about this different Ron Dha. A kris in Sweden, collected before 1676 (Jensen, page 85) also has a similar RD, and also one of the Keris in Munich, which is not depicted at Jensen.

Would you see some similarity between the (third) element of this RD, the nearest one to Gonjo, and the feature, much bigger of course, yet at the same place on some Megantoro's (the best one depicted at Bezemer)?

Regards,
Gustav



Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 10:52:27 -0800
From: alanmaisey@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Kinatah
To: gustavfriedrich@hotmail.com

Thank you very much for that Gustav. No, not eye candy, but a very nice old keris. Possibly back into the 1500's. Do you remember the keris that had a three prong "ron dha"? Not like a normal ron dha, but a different type of embellishment. This one has something similar.

Thanks,

Alan.

From: gustav friedrichsohn <gustavfriedrich@hotmail.com>
To: "alanmaisey@yahoo.com" <alanmaisey@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 7, 2012 1:06 AM
Subject: Kinatah

Goodday Alan,

I hope you are going well with your article.

Whilst searching the web I found this somewhat mutilated kris, shortened, the Gonjo could be replacement or not. Interesting is the almost perfectly preserved flat Kinatah, which in my eyes strongly resembles the Kinatah of one of the Kerisses in Vienna, collected before 1618.

Do you see some Persian influence in this Kinatah?

Possibly it could be originally intended as 3 Luk blade, which is rare.

I know, you would call this an eye-candy, yet perhaps it could be somewhat interesting for you.

http://www.penn.museum/collections/object/244340

Regards,
Gustav

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks Gustav.

That exchange looks like it went nowhere, however the subject has emerged again, it looks like a few people might be interested, and at the moment this thing fits in well with what I'm thinking about, so maybe we might trawl up an idea or two. Be good if we do.

[Gustav]

Regarding the age determination of Kerisses: the Keris 1 is donated to the Penn Museum in 1942 - nevertheless it has a blade, which most probably was made in the 1500'ties. Keris 5 came into VKM (then Natural History Museum) at the end of 19th. cent. It has a blade much older then that, we can see that.

Of course is the first mentioning of a Keris in a catalogue of a collection the first graspable point (often very uncertain) in "biography" of that Keris, and it is a very important fact. But it would be quite shortsighted to equate that date to the date of manufacture of Keris. There are a lot of funny descriptions around in Museums on different objects exactly because of that - and because of lacking research.

[rasdan]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Thank you very much Rasdan, we now have some idea of the background of the keris that appears to be the best presented example of this variant element.

Thanks Alan. It was just internet "research". Yes, I agree we don't have much to say at the moment about this element.

[Gustav]

Perhaps, because we lack the right understanding of it at the moment?

[A. G. Maisey]

Agreed, not much to say right now, and that is the reason I started this thread, to encourage investigation so that we can say something.

[Johan van Zyl]

So, looking once more at the beautiful old Penn Museum keris in post #31 above, and reading up on all that has been said, I am starting to wonder if that three-pronged Gustav-element maybe still is around, but has been corrupted to such an extent through time that it is not easily recogniseable anymore? Please see the greneng on my Java keris and note the element on the far end of the gonjo, next to the ron dha (to the left of it, at the very end). Recall that the two "wings" on the sides of the thingil in the Gustav-element are not mirror images of one another; they are different. On my keris I think I see the same element: there's the thingil in the centre, and what remains of two side-prongs which slant differently.

I probably am "seeing things" because it is what I WANT to see, but I mention this for any comment you might want to make, even if it is "Whoa, boy!"

Johan

[kai]

Hello Johan,

I probably am "seeing things" because it is what I WANT to see

No worries, at this brainstorming stage all comments may help to spur our thinking. I have been trying to look into this in more detail but still need more time to come up with something reasonable, hopefully.

I guess the part you're highlighting is not an offspring of Gustav's element: The main difference seems to be the wide, rounded gaps (compared to the narrow and acute gaps with GE). I don't think that there's a missing link that will bridge this gap...

We have several clues that may help to verify any working hypothesis:
1. Similar shape of the parts of the element? (Including evolutionary links for any changes.)
2. Positional information - is placement/function basically the same?
3. Rhythm (or language) - does the order of the greneng appear to be correct (or does the hypothesized meaning make any sense)?

It is very possible that the elements (or their parts) do change over time - we should be able to trace them back to the original element though to make a compelling case IMHO.

Regards,
Kai

[Johan van Zyl]

Thank you Kai!

One last uncertainty which is still in my mind while we are on this topic of the greneng, is: how do we differentiate between a greneng element and PART of a greneng element? (You will recall the Gustav element actually consists of three parts - it was described as the "three-pronged element").

While the pic of the Java keris is still directly above, may I use it as an example? As far as I can make out, that greneng has only three elements. Reading from right to left (top to bottom), I see a ron dha on the blade, then another ron dha on the gonjo, and then ONE last element. I am asking if any of you in the know agree with me, or do you discern more than these three elements on this keris?

Johan