Thread: Keris Coteng
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Old 13th June 2015, 05:20 AM   #41
BluErf
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Singapore
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Good authentic cotengs! Glad you went to the right dealer and bought the right stuff. Well done!

The age of these kerises are very difficult to ascertain. They are probably pre-20th century, but even then, hard to be sure.

I have the idea that silver covered coteng are generally younger than the old plainer wooden ones. Tajongs and cotengs are related, and at some point shared a common ancestor. However, they evolved along their own paths and became distinct subforms. Hence, nit all cotengs are older than every tajong you see.

In terms of upper limits on age, the earliest coteng/tajong specimens found are probably around 2-300yrs old. So the proto-coteng probably came to the north Malay peninsula region around 16th-17th century. That's just theory though.
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