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Originally Posted by Mans
I just thought that the Hanuman smiles not like this one 
But, what ever it was, This hilt is very impressive, isn't it ? |
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that ALL the hilts displayed in this thread have been impressive.
Still, i'm not sure i even see the smile on this one the way that you do and i think we would need more angles and better pictures to ever begin to come to any real conclusions here.
Thanks for the links to all those beautiful keris. I would like to point out the difficulty in using these keris in comparision to keris which have been in collections for as long as the ones in Jensen's book have. The examples you display show the wear and erosion of centuries of acid baths and staining, while Jensen's examples are pristine as if recently made, having not received such treatment. Certainly many of the blades you show were once much more robust with the ricikan more intact and better developed. These blades would have once been polished in the way Balinese keris typically are, but that look went out of style in Jawa and the rough etch appearance came into mode. So comparisons are tough. Therefore, i think i'll sit on the fence awhile on this one. With one low quality photo of only a part of the blade we really don't have enough information to argue about. I suppose that even if this blade were collected in Northern Jawa it could still have had a Balinese origin. But i have seen Javanese blades of similar character. I wouldn't bet the farm either way.