Jens, I would like to expand just a little on the nature of research by providing a brief outline of my own history in gaining an understanding of my specific interest.
My collecting was started at age 12 with the gift of a small collection.
My early research was focused not on keris, but rather on the society, culture, art of Jawa. This focus was driven by educational requirements.
I was about 20 years old before I even knew that Stone existed:- bought a copy, read it. In fact I wore it out.
Before the 1980's there were not many books about keris, but what there was in English and in Indonesian, I acquired and read.
In 1980 I was accepted by Empu Suparman as his student. Empu Suparman at that time was the designated empu of the Karaton Surakarta. I continued as Empu Suparman's student until his passing in 1995. Prior to acceptance by Empu Suparman, I had already begun to experiment with the forging and carving of the keris.
Commencing in 1976 and continuing through to April of this year I have spent between 2 and 4 months every year in Indonesia, and most of the time I have spent in Jawa, Bali and Madura has been given over to visiting historic sites, and gathering information that in one way or another concerns the keris.
Also commencing in the 1980's, books of various qualities about the keris have frequently appeared. I have acquired many, if not most of these books, but regrettably I consider that all these books are deficient in some respects. "The World of the Javanese Keris" by Garrett and Bronwen Solyom remains the only keris book that I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Since about 1990 I have given a lot of attention to the old Javanese literature. I have been somewhat handicapped with this aspect of research because I have only been able to read those texts which have been romanised, and are available in English, Indonesian, or Javanese.
A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to be able to examine and photograph some of the earliest keris to enter Europe; these keris are retained in the collections of several major European museums.
In short my understanding of the idea of "research" is to access every possible avenue that may contain even a snippet of information that concerns the keris of Jawa. Once the information has been collected it is then subjected to a process of logical analysis and conclusions can then be drawn.
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