GELAR PAMERAN KERIS NASIONAL 2012 - short review

[satsujinken]

Well ...

the exhibition lasted for three days, from 20/11/2012 to 23/11/2012 in Museum Mpu Tantular, near my home in Sidoarjo

it is said to exhibit more than 600 pieces of tosan aji, as well as 50 blades, which are submitted to the Keris Making competition held in the same museum at 8th May 2012 - Sept 2012.

Blades entered the exhibition comes from 11 state museum, member of Mitra Praja Utama, representatives from 38 cities in Java, Museum Keris in TMII, Museum keris in Purworejo, and Keris's lover communities

It is sad to see that not many people wanted to see keris anymore ... I came this morning and already half of the display has been dismantled ... only about a third is remaining and can be photographed

basically the exhibition consists of 3 venue

- the collector's item venue
- the result from Keris Making Competition
- shops ... (bursa keris)

all blades are displayed in glass case with adequate lighting ... too bad I did not bring any magnifying glass with me ... it will surely be nice to see details of pamor and garap on each keris

the odd thing is they placed a label on each keris, identifying the dhapur, luks, materials used an pamor ... but no tangguh

armed only with phone camera, I took several dozens of pictures ... mostly with what left of the exhibition, several beautiful keris, details of pamor and few pictures of bursa keris - so pardon the image quality

I also took several pics as wallpapers ... :D

anyhow, can someone tell me how to upload 30 - 50 images easily ?
now still resizing the images, so it will be easy to look at ... I took more than 150 pics and this forum only allowed 5 pics in each post

anyone interested in larger quality image, just ask ... will post it or email it in its original size (no too good quality, though) :D

[satsujinken]

winner of keris making competition
by M. Jamil from Sumenep

Dhapur : Jangkung
Pamor : Lar Gangsir Agal
luk : 3

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2nd and 3rd places

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marketplace !! hahahaa ...

too bad I cannot take a lot of pics, as it is impolite to take pics of people's goods for sale without making any purchase :D

[satsujinken]

back to collector's item

Dhapur : Sempana
Pamor : pulo tirto
meteorite pamor

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pics pics and pics ...

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more pics

and still about 80 - 90 left ...
shall I continue ??

[satsujinken]

last one for today :D

[Rick]

Sweet !
I don't know about anyone else here, but I like looking at nice kerises . :)

[David]

I repeat the SWEET! :)
...and that i also like to look... :shrug: :)

[GIO]

Many thanks for posting. It is really a nice and appreciated gift !

[Battara]

Crazy beautiful stuff!

[Jean]

Beautiful pieces, please show us more! :)

[satsujinken]

glad to see the enthusiasm ... thank you for the appreciation

here's some more

pic 1 - 2
Keris Singo Barong Kilin Kinatah
pamor wos wutah
keris lurus


pic 3 - 4
Keris sardula mangsah kinatah
Pamor wos wutah
luk 7

pic 5 - 6

keris Naga Gajah Lar kinatah
pamor : miji timun
luk : 13

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Keris Wulan Tumanggal Kinatah
pamor : tumpal keli
keris lurus (no luks)

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1 - 2 - 3

keris jalak tilam upih kinatah lung-lungan kamarogan
pamor : wos wutah
keris lurus


4 - 5
keris naga raja lar
forgot to add notes on luks and pamor ... sorry :D
15 luks if I'm not mistaken
and this one is large ... blade length (not including deder) is around 70 cm

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Keris luk 13
Nogo rojo kinatah
pamor : unknown

keris luk 15
Turonggo Dipo Kinatah
If I'm not mistaken, this one made as tribute to Pangeran Diponegoro, a hero against Dutch Occupation
Pamor : wos wutah

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1st keris
tilam upih
pamor : tambal wengkon meteorite


interesting pamor on this one
dhapur brojowellah
anyone know about the pamor ??

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keris jalak ngore
pamor wengkon ?? looked like buntel mayit to me
weird looking keris ...



Keris tilam sari pamengkang jagad
pamor satriya pinayungan meteorite


Keris lurus
dhapur sineba
pamor : mrutu sewu meteorite

[satsujinken]

still plenty of pics ... hope I can add more today
if not, maybe tomorrow :D
hope y'all like it

[satsujinken]

additional :D

Kolo Mino keris, with 25 luks
pamor wos wutah


the other one is old bethok keris

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keris luk 15 dhapur setan kober (rare dhapur)
with ilining warih pamor

the other should be

Keris dhapur Naga Gajah pamor ganggang kanyut

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last one for today

old bethok pandito kembar keris (keris sajen ?)

who can tell me what pamor on this keris ??? :D :D :D

[David]

the odd thing is they placed a label on each keris, identifying the dhapur, luks, materials used an pamor ... but no tangguh
Nice to see such beautiful work. It could be that they did not both with tangguh since so many of these are contemporary creations... :shrug:

[Jean]

Nice to see such beautiful work. It could be that they did not both with tangguh since so many of these are contemporary creations... :shrug:

I agree with David that the organizers were wise and honest by not specifying the tangguh of these krisses :D . For instance the kris bethok putut kembar shown on the last pictures is not old IMO (sharp edges, no wear, priests carving in modern style, new pamor creation, hilt style, etc). But I also agree that many pieces are beautiful and nicely made although too precious for my taste :)
Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

When a tangguh is nominated for something, it is very often an opinion, sometimes just about everybody will agree with the opinion, other times nobody except the person who gave the tangguh will ever have heard of it.

Some people interpret tangguh as "style", other people interpret it as "period", or "era".

I feel that possibly the organisers of this exhibition were wise to avoid offering information on tangguh. At other exhibitions I have seen very recent keris identified as "Mataram" and Majapahit" & etc.

[Battara]

Some of these pamor patterns are nice and tight - I like that!

[satsujinken]

there are couple more ... and several random pics ...
do you guys want to see it ? :D

[satsujinken]

I agree with David that the organizers were wise and honest by not specifying the tangguh of these krisses :D . For instance the kris bethok putut kembar shown on the last pictures is not old IMO (sharp edges, no wear, priests carving in modern style, new pamor creation, hilt style, etc). But I also agree that many pieces are beautiful and nicely made although too precious for my taste :)
Regards

I guess so, and other stereotype, which stated that kamardikan keris is bad and lack supernatural powers, thus considered as junk blades ...

whilst I consider keris as art object and deserved to be preserved for future generations


When a tangguh is nominated for something, it is very often an opinion, sometimes just about everybody will agree with the opinion, other times nobody except the person who gave the tangguh will ever have heard of it.

Some people interpret tangguh as "style", other people interpret it as "period", or "era".

I feel that possibly the organisers of this exhibition were wise to avoid offering information on tangguh. At other exhibitions I have seen very recent keris identified as "Mataram" and Majapahit" & etc.

I myself never bother about tangguh as I found it too confusing and even an expert here can and will still make mistakes in terms of tangguh ...

I just enjoy the blade ... :D

Nice to see such beautiful work. It could be that they did not both with tangguh since so many of these are contemporary creations... :shrug:

yeah, agree with that ... many are new keris, and several are oversized ones :D

too bad that representatives from Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi and Sumatra already dismantling their exhibit during my visit ...

[A. G. Maisey]

I don't think that tangguh itself is so confusing, once we understand the indicators and the parameters that must be applied, as well as the founding logic of tangguh, it is not at all confusing, but it is very true that people are often confused by some of the opinions offered.

As I have commented previously, more than once, at the present time everybody wants to stick a tangguh on everything, and this is not at all what the system was originally designed to do.

[satsujinken]

I don't think that tangguh itself is so confusing, once we understand the indicators and the parameters that must be applied, as well as the founding logic of tangguh, it is not at all confusing, but it is very true that people are often confused by some of the opinions offered.

As I have commented previously, more than once, at the present time everybody wants to stick a tangguh on everything, and this is not at all what the system was originally designed to do.

I have seen many-many times, what we called "experts" failed to date already known old-keris

on one occasion, one "expert" from Malang is being shown 5 betok keris and he is told in the beginning of the "game" that from 5 keris presented, 2 are original and 3 are fake ... and he failed to point the original one.

I myself have already asked and shared opinions with many person and still thinks that tangguh is somewhat very difficult to discern, a person must have broad knowledge of keris type and characteristics of keris from many areas, possess enough knowledge on metallurgy, have personally handled many many many blades by himself and have direct experience from known master/s to enable himself to provide "non binding" recommendation on how old the blade is

and even then he can still made mistakes :D

so I came to a conclusion that to have more than 80% of success rate on determining the tangguh, we need to dedicate our lives on this subject :D

lastly, can we use radio carbon dating to date a keris ?? I have read several papers that this method can be used to determine age of carbon steel materials down to acceptable level of accuracy

[satsujinken]

additional pics

Keris dhapur sapokal
pamor : jala rante

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Keris Bethok Sepang
(said to be old, but I doubt it :D)


Keris luk 7 Sempana Kinjeng
pamor : wulung (no pamor)

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another interesting pamor

keris luk 9 Sempana
pamor : rambut daradah

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miscellaneous pics

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miscellaneous pics again

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nice pamor

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more pics ... sorry if some photos are doubled

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last one I think :D

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well I believe that's all I managed to capture using my phone-cam

I hope you all enjoyed the show as much as I do :D

and if there's another exhibition nearby, I will surely be glad to document and shared with all of you

thank you, for the appreciation

[A. G. Maisey]

Satsujinken, you have very accurately identified some of the base problems with tangguh, many, if not most people with some understanding of the system almost invariably align tangguh with age. Only in a few instances can this hold true, by and large tangguh does not necessarily align with age. For the group of people who were responsible for the generation of the tangguh system, the objective of the system was not to determine age, most especially was it not to determine age in the context of Western European ideas of historical time. It is probably not possible to truly understand tangguh unless one is able to adopt a mode of thought that comes somewhere close to the mode of thought of 19th century Javanese aristocrats.

Yes, to learn the basics of tangguh one needs firstly a teacher who is widely acknowledged as skilled in the application of the system, secondly one needs a lot of very, very good examples for that teacher to teach from, and thirdly one needs to have handled a very great number of keris over a very long period of time. Not very many people are able to satisfy all these requirements. In fact almost no collectors are able to satisfy these requirements, the real experts in tangguh will always be found amongst dealers, and only those dealers who have had the benefit of long and open instruction from a recognised authority.

I do agree that a great deal of dedication is required in order to gain some understanding of tangguh, and also more than a little money:- no education comes for free.

One of the problems with tangguh rests in the way that most people try to apply their knowledge in order to form an opinion. It is in most cases a matter of "it looks like Mataram, so it must be Mataram", but if you then ask them to indicate the tells that have allowed them to form the opinion that they are looking at a Mataram keris, what you get back is a muddled mish-mash of impressions, rather than the clear, straight forward analysis that should be possible if the keris truly is Mataram. As I said earlier:- everybody wants to hang a tangguh on everything and that is not at all how the system was designed.

Not a lot of people are brave enough to say that there are insufficient tells to permit a nomination of a tangguh, because that might allow people to think that they do not have a good level of knowledge. In fact, the person with a high knowledge of tangguh will have no problem at all in saying that the keris does not display sufficient tells (or indicators) to permit an opinion to be formed. Tangguh was designed to be applied to high quality blades, not pot boilers from village forges, but how often does the average collector get to see very high quality blades? Very, very seldom.

Tangguh does work, and it works well as a system of classification, but only if it is applied by a person with sufficient knowledge and understanding to be able to substantiate his opinion, and to work within the limits of the system.

Incidentally, you've done a great job with the photos, congratulations, and thank you for making these available to us all.

[David]

...lastly, can we use radio carbon dating to date a keris ?? I have read several papers that this method can be used to determine age of carbon steel materials down to acceptable level of accuracy
Carbon dating is a destructive process AFAIK. You would therefore need to damage your blade in order to know the date. Not really a prospect i am willing to consider with my own collection.
I must admit that i do tend to prefer antique keris to new simply because antiquities and past cultures is a strong part of what drives my collecting. I do like to know as much as is possible about my keris historical and i am always pleased when i can place pieces into at least vague eras for time frame purposes. But ultimately i am also pleased simply to be able to enjoy the keris for it's appearances as a weapon/artform. Certainly i would never damage a blade just so i could accurately date it. :)

[Battara]

All these new keris examples have provoked a question for me:

In 100 years how will the keris evolve? What forms will we see in the future?

[A. G. Maisey]

The keris has continuously evolved since it first appeared on the scene over 1000 years ago. It is unlikely that it was called a keris back then, but it did possess sufficient of the characteristics of what was later called the keris for it to be recogniseable as one.

From about 1300 through to probably as recently as 1970 or so, the evolution of the keris expressed itself as the periodic appearance of new dhapurs and new pamors, as well as changes to its socio-religious status.

In the early 1980's when the Anak-anak ASKI came on the scene and began to produce new keris dhapurs as works of art, this development came under a lot of fire from the Surakarta traditionalists. The attitude was that if a keris did not conform to an already established dhapur, then it was not a keris. A work of art it might be, even a great work of art, but it could not be a keris.

The reasoning behind this attitude was that the only person who had the authority to approve any new dhapur was the ruler, and in the minds of the Surakarta elite, the only ruler who could possess this authority was the Susuhunan of Surakarta, who was the ruler of the senior branch of the House of Mataram. This attitude can of course generate argument with supporters of other royal houses, so we'll take it as read that there is room for disagreement with this stance.

So those early attempts at keris blade art were to a very great degree regarded as illegitimate.

But in recent years a new wind has blown through the keris world in Indonesia. In line with changes in the political atmosphere, Jack is now as good as his master --- well, almost as good, at least in the eyes of the younger generation, so royal endorsement of dhapurs no longer seems to be necessary.

The hard-core Kejawen traditionalists will undoubtedly continue to adopt the attitude that a dhapur needs to be legitimated by the Ruler before it can be regarded as a proper keris. I must admit, I'm a bit inclined this way myself. There is a lot of ticky-tacky bling out there with new and recent keris creations, it is quite difficult to find good taste and genuine quality, rather than something that just looks great in a photo. I personally much prefer excellence of execution within already established parameters, and my personal guideline is that I will only ever spend money on keris that comply with this.

If we examine Indonesian, and most particularly Javanese social patterns, we find that the society as a whole, and also segments of the society, tend to go through "seasons", where something will become overwhelmingly popular for a while, and then sink into obscurity. I have seen the rise of the keris from virtual obscurity in Jawa during the late 1960's, to become a major art movement at the present time. Based upon what we can observe in the past in this society, I am inclined to believe that right at this moment we are at a tipping point where keris will gradually begin to slide back into obscurity in Indonesia. They will once again become the province of only a few really dedicated and culture conscious people, as they were prior to the explosion of the last few years. From my personal point of view, this is not such a bad thing. When the truth of the keris is finally revealed I believe most culturally aware people will concur with my opinion that there is too much commercialism and too much intensity in the present keris culture.

So, future development?

Probably even more extreme forms, more and more artistic enhancement, and eventually a changing of the seasons.

[satsujinken]

Carbon dating is a destructive process AFAIK. You would therefore need to damage your blade in order to know the date. Not really a prospect i am willing to consider with my own collection.
I must admit that i do tend to prefer antique keris to new simply because antiquities and past cultures is a strong part of what drives my collecting. I do like to know as much as is possible about my keris historical and i am always pleased when i can place pieces into at least vague eras for time frame purposes. But ultimately i am also pleased simply to be able to enjoy the keris for it's appearances as a weapon/artform. Certainly i would never damage a blade just so i could accurately date it. :)

I read a bit about radio carbon dating and yes, it is a destructive in terms of small parts must be chiseled out from the blade and destroyed in the process of dating

however, the amount of materials used in this process is now less than 1 g per sample, and even small flake can be used

I am thinking about chiseling small bit of the pesi ... :D
but once more, the obstacle on this method is in its cost ... the cost of doing the test is around 250 - 750 USD per sample ...

perhaps some of the oldest and most valuable blade can be tested and verified on its age

on other side, this method does have its flaws ... so basically it is back to the owner of the blade itself

regarding my opinion, I would rather spend USD 250 on a nice keris or nice dinner than throw it away to check the age of just one blade :D

[satsujinken]

Satsujinken, you have very accurately identified some of the base problems with tangguh, many, if not most people with some understanding of the system almost invariably align tangguh with age. Only in a few instances can this hold true, by and large tangguh does not necessarily align with age. For the group of people who were responsible for the generation of the tangguh system, the objective of the system was not to determine age, most especially was it not to determine age in the context of Western European ideas of historical time. It is probably not possible to truly understand tangguh unless one is able to adopt a mode of thought that comes somewhere close to the mode of thought of 19th century Javanese aristocrats.

Yes, to learn the basics of tangguh one needs firstly a teacher who is widely acknowledged as skilled in the application of the system, secondly one needs a lot of very, very good examples for that teacher to teach from, and thirdly one needs to have handled a very great number of keris over a very long period of time. Not very many people are able to satisfy all these requirements. In fact almost no collectors are able to satisfy these requirements, the real experts in tangguh will always be found amongst dealers, and only those dealers who have had the benefit of long and open instruction from a recognised authority.

I do agree that a great deal of dedication is required in order to gain some understanding of tangguh, and also more than a little money:- no education comes for free.

One of the problems with tangguh rests in the way that most people try to apply their knowledge in order to form an opinion. It is in most cases a matter of "it looks like Mataram, so it must be Mataram", but if you then ask them to indicate the tells that have allowed them to form the opinion that they are looking at a Mataram keris, what you get back is a muddled mish-mash of impressions, rather than the clear, straight forward analysis that should be possible if the keris truly is Mataram. As I said earlier:- everybody wants to hang a tangguh on everything and that is not at all how the system was designed.

Not a lot of people are brave enough to say that there are insufficient tells to permit a nomination of a tangguh, because that might allow people to think that they do not have a good level of knowledge. In fact, the person with a high knowledge of tangguh will have no problem at all in saying that the keris does not display sufficient tells (or indicators) to permit an opinion to be formed. Tangguh was designed to be applied to high quality blades, not pot boilers from village forges, but how often does the average collector get to see very high quality blades? Very, very seldom.

Tangguh does work, and it works well as a system of classification, but only if it is applied by a person with sufficient knowledge and understanding to be able to substantiate his opinion, and to work within the limits of the system.

Incidentally, you've done a great job with the photos, congratulations, and thank you for making these available to us all.

thank you :D

and like I said before, considering expert in your calibre is getting rarer, Indonesian government should provide you with Living National Treasure title ... and perhaps opening an institute on subject of tosan aji :D

[A. G. Maisey]

My understanding of carbon dating is very limited, but I think it can only be used on organic substances, in addition to this, the time span involved with the keris is probably too small for carbon dating to be useful, then there are the technical problems involving contamination and the assumptions involving rate of decay. I doubt that carbon dating would be of any use for keris blades, and even if it were, I doubt that it would be relevant. To know the age of any particular keris might satisfy curiosity but that's about all.

[satsujinken]

My understanding of carbon dating is very limited, but I think it can only be used on organic substances, in addition to this, the time span involved with the keris is probably too small for carbon dating to be useful, then there are the technical problems involving contamination and the assumptions involving rate of decay. I doubt that carbon dating would be of any use for keris blades, and even if it were, I doubt that it would be relevant. To know the age of any particular keris might satisfy curiosity but that's about all.


regarding radio carbon dating, I got most of my information from here :

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0305/Cook-0305.html

it can be relevant, but not without flaws ... :D

but I am agree with you, that it will only satisfy curiosity and nothing else

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for that Satsu.

As I said, I know very little about this, and after doing a bit of googleizing, I understand even less.

I read some sites , that appear to be academically based and they tell me that radio carbon dating applies to organic substances, but then I read others that refer to radio carbon dating of iron.

I accept that iron can be carbon dated. I don't think I need to know more than that, this is not my area of interest.

[Jean]

Thank you Satsu for the very interesting article about C14 dating of iron artefacts and I will immediately submit my 100,000$ Singosari blades to the age test :D