In Jawa people tend to regard wear to the back of the head as a sure sign of age in a figural hilt, and the corresponding part of other hilts is normally the place they look at if trying to guess at age of a hilt.
I tend to agree with this, but I also recognise that protruding parts of a figural hilt face do mostly show wear on older hilts.
As to material, yes, it might be rhino horn --- it does look like it in the photo --- but I've seen this same sort of grained surface in hilts that were taken as kerbau (water buffalo) horn, ones that were old and dried out. I might even have an example at home, I'll see if I can find one in a couple of weeks.
Gustav, could you please expand on the these comments in your post #6 :-
1) there are some indicators, which are typical for early figural hilts and doesn't appear on later Pasisir figural hilts, and this particular hilt has many of them
2) One of the keys is the symbolism within the Tumpal, and the state of development of the reversed Tumpal under the feet of the figure
3) Also modern replicas of these hilts mostly fail in reproduction of one very important feature
Thanks
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