Achim Weihrauch's thesis available for download!
 

Achim Weihrauch
Ursprung und Entwicklungsgeschichte des indonesischen Kris. Historische und metallurgische Untersuchungen.
[Origin and development/evolution of the Indonesian keris. Historical and metallurgical studies.]
Basel, 2001.

This is a Ph.D. dissertation in German; 480 pages with a lot of interesting pics!

The writing style is academic and may be tough to read if your German is not top notch. I've tried some online translators but none seemed to work reasonably well, even when breaking up complex sentences. If you want to dig into the text, it might be worth to install a professional translating program (some offer a free demo) and also replace the inevitable mess-ups throughout the document (e. g. the plural "krise" equals the German word for crisis).

Regards,
Kai

Thanks Kai. Time to brush up on my high school German. ;)

Thanks a lot Kai! I really appreciate it. :)

Not easy read but interesting nevertheless. :o

Thank you!

This is a remarkable work, and includes many pictures of fabulous keris and hilts, some from private owners, and even a few (from auction catalogues etc.) whose present location is not known, so that even if one's German is not up to dealing with the text, it is well worth looking at for the pictures alone. The plates follow after the end of the text. The substantial captions (which are scattered through the main text, for the first group of photographs) may be worth putting into a translation website, to give some idea of the items, even if the main text may be too complex for translating websites.

It may save readers a bit of time to have the page numbers where the captions are printed:
Pl. 1-54, and (relating to 'Metallurgische Untersuchungen'), pl. A1-A73, the latter including many microphotographs and graphs. Plates described, pp. 29-30 (pl. 1-7), 48 (pl. 8-10), 59 (pl. 11-12), 73-4 (pl. 13-18), 93-4 (pl. 19-24), 111 (pl. 25-7), 143-6 (pl. 28-40), 168 (pl. 41-4), 196-8 (pl. 45-53), 280 (pl. 54), and 323-40 (pl. A1-A73).

Please let me know of any mistakes I have made in these numbers!

Can't get into the site. Is there another url?

The link given above does work for me, Jose. Maybe it did download the PDF file without opening it?

Regards,
Kai

Here's the next higher level of the website - hope this helps!
http://ificah.de/open-access/

Thanks, Tim!

The last captions: 323-41 (or 323-43 including the last associated table).

Regards,
Kai

Many thanks Kai - have now made a note of this.

All the best, Tim

Thank you Kai - this worked. :)

wohooooo a good literature !!

many thanks

You're welcome, all! Note that I'm only the messenger and not the author nor the online host: Feel free to email IFICAH/AW for praise or comments, too!

BTW, I got some international feedback that an English translation would be more than welcome. Not wanting to promise anything: Can we please have a poll who would be seriously interested to obtain an electronic version in English and possibly how much you'd be ready to spend for it?

Regards,
Kai

I will be interested in a fair translation. The german language is not so much of a problem to me, but what is more important to me is to find the references and pictures placed on the right spot in the text.

The text is called "academic", but i assume that not all the academics have all the books and articles referred to.

If nobody wants to make a translation, i can do the best i can, but.... my English is far from perfect.
How about copyright? Will that be allowed and fair to the author?