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Old 9th August 2014, 10:32 AM   #1
Gustav
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Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 1,192
Default Keris Malela Unduk Unduk

Dear All,

there are some pictures of beautiful Keris Malela from Malay Peninsula, especially in old UBB Forum, yet none of older Keris Unduk Unduk. The post of Dave Henkel in this old thread

http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001573.html

is the only information available to me about this quite fancy form of Keris. As mentioned in that thread, old pre-WWII examples are very rare, during the last years I have seen only one old Keris Unduk Unduk for sale in Europe.

This one is only of average quality, yet it could be pre-WWII indeed. Like almost all new ones, the other old Keris Unduk Unduk I have seen had Sogokan going until the tip of blade - the maker of my blade apparently didn't want to take the risk, as he was clearly struggling with the shape of Luk (they are not so well done one should expect on a Keris Malela coming from Terengganu) and the carving of Ricikan. The pierced-through parts of Greneng and Jenggot (are they perhaps symbolising foam of sea ?) are quite well done - on many contemporary examples they look somewhat awkward.

The sheath, Pipit Teleng hilt and Pendokok are all Terengganu. Interesting to note, this form of Pendokok still has exactly eight petals, referring to lotus as a seet of a deity.
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Last edited by Gustav; 9th August 2014 at 12:00 PM.
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