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Old 28th December 2017, 05:14 PM   #7
kai
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 3,215
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Hello Ian,

Nice - that's a weird piece for sure!

I believe that it's a really far stretch to call this a siraui. Having seen quite some siraui variants, neither the blade, nor the hilt, nor the scabbard does bear any relationship with typical siraui (nor any possibly related blades).


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The sharpened edge is towards the bottom of all the pictures. The hilt is upturned at its end, and the blade is slightly recurved, somewhat like a rencong.
I don't think it's necessarily from Aceh (nor northern Sumatra, that is). I'd need some well-lit close-ups of the pommel and scabbard mouth (preferably from different angles) for gaining a better understanding. How much taper has the back of the blade and far from the hilt does the cutting edge start? An etch might also yield additional info! Dimensions?


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The hilt is polished smooth and I looked at it hard under magnification to see if it might be rhino horn
The macro shot is not good enough to be positive. However, from what can be seen in the pics, I'm fairly sure this is waterbuffalo horn.


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there is a defect at the end of the hilt that suggests it may be made of some type of horn--but I think it is more likely wood.
Is that area cleanly chipped or is there any resin/etc. remaining?

Regards,
Kai
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