Keris Measurement

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks David.This method is fairly well known and fairly wide spread, and appears in a number of different versions. The measurement is done along the centre of the blade.

Martin Kerner took one version of this method and created an interesting theory around it. Some of this theory does not stand close examination, but other parts of it are, I believe, touching on one of the great unknowns of keris symbolism. Regretably, I don't think Martin realised this.Using the method as a base, he used mathematics to express the form of a keris and analysed his results statistically.Martin's work has been much undervalued by many people, and this is simply because they do not understand the ground breaking work he did. Some of his interpretations were a little difficult to accept, principally because of his lack of practical and cultural knowledge, but the analytical work he did I consider to be brilliant.I believe that in time Martin Kerner will be honoured as a man who showed us where the door was, even though he himself could not open it.

Several years ago I measured over two hundred keris using the variation of this method that occurs in Bali and is reported in "Keris Bali".This was the same version that Martin Kerner drew upon. The results were fairly consistent, but the remarkable thing was that very good quality, old , Javanese and Balinese keris produced a remarkably consistent result.

When I asked this question I was rather hoping that perhaps somebody may have stumbled across some obscure method of measurement that was not well known, but that could be correlated to the existing well known ones.