[Gustav]

Regarding the age determination of Kerisses: the Keris 1 is donated to the Penn Museum in 1942 - nevertheless it has a blade, which most probably was made in the 1500'ties. Keris 5 came into VKM (then Natural History Museum) at the end of 19th. cent. It has a blade much older then that, we can see that.

Of course is the first mentioning of a Keris in a catalogue of a collection the first graspable point (often very uncertain) in "biography" of that Keris, and it is a very important fact. But it would be quite shortsighted to equate that date to the date of manufacture of Keris. There are a lot of funny descriptions around in Museums on different objects exactly because of that - and because of lacking research.