Majapahit Keris

[kai]

Hello Anthony,

Honestly speaking, I am still confuse about how Majapahit keris looks like, till now.

Most of us are wondering, I guess.

From statues and bas relief, it stands to reason that the keris buda (and possibly its ancestor, too) was at least well-known and very likely in active use by the ruling elite throughout (almost all of) the classical period. It’s the “modern“ keris which seems to make a really late appearance based on the extremely scant evidence.

I always have impression it has less pamor, dark iron etc.

These features most commonly referred to in (pseudo) tangguh probably are mainly due to extensive erosion of the keris blade and subsequent exposure of the slorok.

As Alan already mentioned, it hasn’t been established whether blades classified as Majapahit really originate from that era. Even if partly true, each member of nobility must have hoarded thousands of keris to account for the number of examples nowadays claimed to be Mojo...

The earliest well-preserved modern keris are documented from European collections since the later 16th century. It seems quite possible that a small fraction of these may date to the late Mojo period. However, this could only be substantiated by destructive sampling and C14 analysis; any recycling of old steel might confound the results though.

Below link is just a sample

Considering the ambiguous blumbangan, I‘d suggest that this is not the best candidate for a textbook example unless one subscribes to a very neoliberal tangguh approach...

Regards,
Kai