keris palembang

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Well Gavin, you're not bad.

Got no kewpie dolls to hand out, but for a non-keris sort of bloke that's a real good ten cents worth.

Yes, Surakarta.

If we were to work through the indicators one by one we would see that it agrees very heavily with Surakarta. The only questionable indicator is the blumbangan. Kai tells us it is square, but on my monitor it is just marginally elongated. Camera angles and monitors can distort the exact proportions, and it is not the classic long narrow blumbangan that is typically Surakarta.

But putting that blumbangan to one side, everything else is there, however, it is there in what I would call a "comic book" rendition, as if the maker has heard all about what the Surakarta blade looks like, but maybe is not very familiar with them in his hand.

For a Surakarta blade, I could not consider this blade to be high quality work, there is too much variation in the ron dha sections of the greneng. These ron dha are definitely Surakarta and are primary indicators, once we see this ron dha form we then begin to look for something that will tell us that the keris cannot be Surakarta, something that will without argument eliminate Surakarta. In this keris there is no negative indicator that will positively eliminate Surakarta.

The variation that is very obvious in the ron dha sections possibly indicates that there will be considerable variation in placement and execution of the features on opposite faces of the blade. High quality workmanship demands that the features perfectly echo each other on each blade face. Perfect means exactly that:- perfect. Almost perfect is not good enough in this case.

I believe this keris was made in Sumatera, but that does not make it Tangguh Palembang or Tangguh Jambi. However, the entire ensemble is a very nice example of a Palembang keris.

If it were mine I would not change a thing on it, everything hangs together nicely exactly as it is.

There are solid cultural reasons, apart from personal preferences, why men choose to wear humble clothing and non-ostentatious accoutrements, and when such a nice example as this comes our way it is perhaps a little arrogant of somebody who is not a part of the originating culture to take it upon himself to override the taste of the previous owner.

This thread might be of interest:-

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=GINJEI

Gavin, your comments on the overall form of the blade are quite perceptive, a Surakarta blade should ideally have a defined "chest" on the front edge, and on the back edge and placed a little lower, more towards the gonjo, there should be a defined swelling that is the "back". It is not so much a narrowing in the centre but a swelling that protrudes beyond the line of the edge, front higher, back lower.

Thanks Alan,

Your posts are very educational. The last paragraph above again helped me understand more on the subtleties, thank you for the perspective.

A lot of it all eludes me but every now and then I grasp a little. I can't claim any real credit or knowledge though. You proposed a question, I hit the books. I really wish I could read many other languages as it was Haryono Haryoguritno's work Keris Jawa that eventually got me on point, but not until I thumbed through every page a few times did things slot in to place... my kingdom for an English translation!

Gavin

[A. G. Maisey]

Gavin, when I asked that question I had in my mind that all anybody who could see needed to do was open up "Keris Jawa" and have a bit of a browse.

It is very seldom that we can give a halfway decent opinion of a keris classification from a photo. Segaluh is about the only one I can think of where just about anybody should get it. But with this Surakarta keris, probably made in Palembang, it was just so obvious that I was certain somebody would get it, and it is a really interesting blade. Worth the time to consider the nature of keris coming out of Sumatra.

Actually the very best book for any beginner in keris is not Haryoguritno, you need a pretty decent level of knowledge to sort the wheat from the chaff. The best beginner's book on Javanese keris is Garrett & Bronwen Solyom's "World of the Javanese Keris". If you want to understand keris, that's where you start.

When considering keris books written by Indonesians it is always worth remembering that the motivation for writing these books should not ever be considered to be the same as the motivation for somebody who is not Indonesian to write such a book.

Garrett & Bronwen's book was written purely to provide solid knowledge to people who lacked that knowledge. It has no error.

[kai]

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

[Jean]

Originally Posted by kai

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.

Just for reference, pics of the sorsoran of a blade possibly originating from Banten and dating from the 17th century, before and after the warangan treatment.
Regards