[alexish]

Dear collectors,

my sincerest apologies for re-opening this new thread on an old subject. For the sake of completeness, I just feel compelled to post pictures of my newly commissioned piece. Of course, it will be criticized for being a modern fantasy piece along the lines of the fantasy barbarian swords of the Kult of Athena. But, the point I want to make is how easily medieval Norse motifs can easily be mistaken as local Indonesian to the untrained eye, even by native Indonesians themselves. I have actually shown pictures of this new 'Norse' sarung to some local Indonesian collectors, and many of them seem to think of it as a variant of Madurese-style sarung. I think because the Norse and various Indonesian cultures are sea-faring, it is thus not surprising that there are many similarities in carved motifs of these cultures on opposite ends of the world.