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Originally Posted by kai
I'd love to hear some reasons for this estimate - I tried to give some reasoning for my suggestion.  |
Mike, to build a little bit further on the reasoning Kai suggested for his later dating please have a look at this classic example of an archaic kris that was posted elsewhere on this forum.
You wrote:
It [h]as more in common with my archaic pieces then it has differences.
Well, that is probably true of any Moro kris, but let's look and what the differences are which lead me to believe the dating of your kris is not so close to these "archaic" styles.
Most of these "archaic" keris (certainly there are exceptions) have rather slow and wide luks or waves. They have a tendency to have 5-7 luks as in the example below and often the blade straightens out as it nears the tip. Yours has quite a lot of waves (i think i count 19) and they are very quick and shallow that run right to the very tip of the blade.
As you can also see (and know if you have examples of these in your collection), these older keris tend to have a rather full set of carved features on the blade. We have what would be called sogokan on a Javanese keris as well as another flame shaped carving around the sogokan. The lines that run down the blade again peaking in a flame shaped motif is also a common element of "archaic" blades. Often the area inside these lines display a twisted core when etched. Your blade displays none of this.
Archaic kris also don't tend to have a center ridge, what would be called ada-ada in Java, but if i am not mistaken yours does.
Your blade also seems to have darkened just around the edges when lightly etched in a manner that i have seen time and time again on late 19th century kris.
Kai has already mentioned the position of the angled slant on the gangya. In these older kris that slant takes place further to the back of the gangya and is therefore shorter or they sometimes run straight across with not slant up. Yours looks more like it is on later kris.
Kai also mentioned the hilt and kakatu pommel, which seem to be a later style. Though we can't count too much on that since this hilt could very well be replacement, factored in with the other points it does carry some weight.
Yes, i do realize that you weren't saying your kris was as old as these archaic kris, but i am afraid i am not seeing the similarities of which you speak and think what we are seeing here is pretty much in line with what we would expect from the second half of the 19th century.
Like Kai i would also be interested in what you were told in your further consultations. Change our minds. Better, more detailed photos might help.
It's a nice kris, but i don't see it as a transitional blade from the archaic style.
