Thank you very much Rasdan, we now have some idea of the background of the keris that appears to be the best presented example of this variant element.
An excellent contribution to this investigation. Again I thank you.
My inclination is to disregard the hilt and scabbard, and even the gonjo, and just focus on the body of the keris. We still have no usable provenance, but at least we now know that there is no usable provenance.
My current opinion is that we have a North Coast Jawa blade, possibly able to be categorised as Banten. I may be wrong, but for the moment that is where my thoughts will start.
Anything in a European collection can only be dated as before the date that it was first catalogued. There can be assumed provenance for a period before this, such as we have with the kerises in the Bargello that came from the Medicis, but prior to a catalogue date, we're really only guessing.
You have raised the question as to whether we have an artistic contribution to keris design, or whether we have a socio-religious contribution to design, that is to say, do we have art, or do we have symbolism that can be tied to belief?
Certainly, after Islam much of the Hindu-Buddhist symbolism was corrupted and often interpreted in a different way to the way in which it was understood as a Hindu-Buddhist icon. Of course, this probably occurred even before Islamic domination also, so the question is always there:- art or symbol?
Then again, as in Western artistic traditions we can have art and symbol:- elements of a work of art that are most certainly artistic elements can very often be interpreted also as symbols, and carry a message that can only be read by those people who have been educated in this symbolism.
At the moment we have a few keris with examples of a design element that has not previously been commented upon by people who are qualified to do so.
Actually, that's all we have.
But from my perspective this is more than enough to commence a determined effort to try to align this new element --- for the sake of convenience, let's call it Gustav's Element --- yes, let's try to align Gustav's Element with known forms from old Jawa, say, pre-1700 Jawa.
I at least intend to follow this route. A few months, or years of keeping this form as a template in my mind may some day result in a match with something. There is no hurry, we have a form, let's see if we can find out what that form is.
The last thing we need is to get bogged down with non-productive quibbling.
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