[kai]

Hello Neo,

One of the goals is to preserve the historical aspect of certain kerises before it is too late. Let's say you acquired a fine keris from a respectable collector in Indonesia. The keris has the title "Kanjeng Kyahi X". Having done your due dilligence, you verified from independent sources that the kerises indeed came from Prince Y of Keraton Z sometime in the 1970s who gave them to the previous collector before you. Now, having this piece of Java's history in your custody, how would you prove to the future generation that this keris is indeed the "Kanjeng Kyahi X" that was once the possession of Prince Y of Keraton Z?

Well, to prove it beyond reasonable doubt will be pretty tough unless you get a written and signed affidavit from the prince and several unrelated people attending that very ceremony. In most cases, all you can do to establish provenance is to document all information that you've been able to obtain - even with the best intentions this is still very much prone to errors as well as deceit (thus, the age old adage to buy the keris and not the story...). And keep in mind that in our digital age pretty much all documentation can easily be forged (or just get lost). To publish pics of a given keris and related documentation on a site like this may help but this approach would certainly go against Javanese traditions.

Another goal is to provide responsible documentation for authentic pieces to be done by ethical professionals. The ideal goal is to establish something equivalent to Hon'ami family's samurai swords certification in Japan. Good, responsible appraisal of authentic pieces.

Have you checked how well this certification functions and its associated costs? (Keep in mind that due to the bladesmiths' signatures and historical documents, Japanese sword identification is pretty much science as opposed to the tanguh game divided in several schools of thought for keris Jawa alone...)

As others have pointed out, even when limiting the efforts to central Javanese keris, finding a balanced panel of qualified experts without conflicts of interest will be next to impossible and still very much prone to social pressures, especially within Indonesian society.

This initiative is guaranteed to reap bitter response from certain parties, but something has to be done anyway, right now, in order to preserve what we can still save of the keris heritage ... Over time, hopefully, the organization doing the certification will continously improve itself and find better ways to do its preservation mission while dealing properly with external pressures.

Well, most things in life deteriorate rather than improve with time. You'd need to implement (and enforce!) strong evaluation measures to keep and even improve quality. Independant/external evaluation and monitoring that the given feedback gets followed would add another level of complexity, or two...

Obviously tangguh would be a subjective and prone-to-be-inaccurate assessment, so other than tangguh, what other information would you like to see in order to reflect the quality of the keris?

Craftmanship and artistic quality are not easy to judge as already pointed out by Alan and will pose problems with current era craftsmen as well as historic empu regarded as cultural icons.

I for one would be more than happy if the mere age/period of a keris blade as well as that of its fittings could be established by scientific methods. I know that several people are trying to work out time lines by reconstructing the evolution of stylistic features and other approaches. There are also a number of modern technologies which certainly could help to acquire "hard" data that are open to academic discussion (rather than debate of personal opinions however learned these might be). While routine application of these tests might later prove economically feasible (not for the $100 blade though), I haven't been able to figure out how to fund a serious research project necessary for adapting and validating those methods.

We also discussed about possible identification devices to be attached to the keris in order to match it with the certificate. One idea would be to laser-engrave some number on the pesi, but I for one would object to this severely as it is tampering with a historical piece.

For most keris (especially those with pamor) a "passport" with extensive photographic documentation would be completely sufficient to verify identity. However, the problem will be how to avoid forgeries - even the pretty sophisticated passports for humans do get forged. Even when avoiding any papers and aiming at an online system, this will present a serious nightmare regarding data safety (data loss, corruption, hacking, etc.) that most likely will never be feasible except for the very highend keris.

Regards,
Kai