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Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey
Post #10
For the overall keris I’d be happy with just “Jawa”. The wrongko could be anywhere, it doesn’t look like Surakarta work, but it could be, just not under direct kraton influence. Could be East Jawa, could be anywhere in between.
But the blade is a pretty nice example of an older “everyman’s” keris.
The more I look at it the more Pajajaran seems likely, but if it truly is classifiable as Pjjrn., it is in remarkably good condition; it might be a Gresik copy of Pjjrn. You can usually pick Gresik by the pamor which has a greasy feel to it, it doesn’t grip your finger tips like most other pamor does, even though it might be quite worn.
The big fat-like exposure of pamor, the long gandhik, whispy kembang kacang, gonjo style, luk style:- to my eye everything about this blade looks Pjjrn., which of course places it as a West Jawa blade, and in the corresponding period, you could say north coast, so I guess a lot of people would give it as Cirebon these days.
Cirebon has become a popular classification in recent years, but in Solo 30 years ago I never heard it mentioned. At that time it seemed that the focus of all the truly knowledgeable people was on the classic descent of kingdoms classifications(tangguhs) along with the well known copies of these, so mostly if something didn’t quite fit into the guidelines based on Pangeran Wijil’s “Turun Temuruning Para Empu Tanah Jawi” a blade got classified as “diluar Jawa” (outside Jawa) and pretty much disregarded or devalued. Possibly not a logical approach, but we need to remember that everything about keris in Central Jawa is part of a culturally based belief system, if something is outside the culture, it doesn’t count.
A good tell for Pajajaran is the edge of the pamor where it meets the steel core. In a genuine Pjjrn. blade there will be a microscopic separation of steel core and pamor. I use a 3X loupe to see this, its not really possible to see it with the naked eye --- well, its not possible for me, for some others it might be.
I’d be happy with a generic “Jawa” classification for this keris; I’m very tempted to give the blade as Pajaran, but I could not do this unless I handled it.
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