Javanese keris / reshaped or not.

[asomotif]

I bougth this javanese keris last weekend and looking better at the blade I wonder if this shape is all original ?

[Henk]

I see what you mean. It looks indeed reshaped. How does the blade fit in the scabbard?

[asomotif]

Hi Henk,

The fit is perfect considering the age of the scabbard.

[Rick]

Let's consider that it was a cultural practice to smooth out really ragged edges on an old keris .

This work was only supposed to be done by a very talented keris maker .

So it could have been done some time ago or fairly recently . :)

I do not posess the knowledge to judge either way . :shrug:

[asomotif]

Dear Rick,

Yes I realise that smoothing out the edges could have been a good reason.
But in its present state the blade has a set of "shoulders".
I wonder if this is something that is good craftsmanship, or maybe this set of shoulders is not OK ?

I have tried to give my impression in drawing of wrong (red) and right(green).
As you can see, I am a total dummy with the "paint" program. :shrug:

[Rick]

Yes, it looks to me like these 'shoulders continued down the blade to some degree; possibly when new, all the way .
Age and warangan, then smoothing has removed them .
Or .........

[asomotif]

Or .........

Dear Rick,
Yes, the "or" version concerns me.
Maybe someone deliberately made the blade narrow.
That is why I posted the piece here, hoping that someone can give me a clue by there/his/hers knowledge of dapurs.

I will try to make some better pictures with daylight.
Maybe that can shed somelight into it :)

[Gustav]

Probably there is a possibility this keris had have pudak sategal? (but most probably, with this dapur, not)

(Then, this have nothing to do with Javanese keris, you can see something similar in "Keris di Lombok" on page 184)

[A. G. Maisey]

Gustav, I think that blade in Djelengga has probably also had its edges cleaned up. I don't know of any standard dhapur in either Javanese or Balinese keris that have this shoulder.

I also do not think that we are looking at remnant pudak setegal, because pudak setegal are usually found on blades with kembang kacang --- but if we are diluar Pakem, anything is possible.



I believe that the m'ranggi who cleaned up this blade left the shoulders in the blade to avoid the very time consuming work that would have been involved if he had gone any further into the sorsoran. Maybe he was working on a budget, maybe the value of the blade was not sufficient to justify the work involved in reshaping the sorsoran, maybe he didn't have a sufficient level of skill to go any further. I don't know the base reason why he stopped where he did, but I do know that to go any further would involve a lot of skill and a lot of time.