A Very Old Kris

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by David

It's fine to use the general terminology of "kalis" to describe all these weapons, but when you use the term in that way, all "Kris" might be "kalis", but clearly not all "kalis" are "kris".

David, yes, agreed. Not all kalis are kris. And just to clarify, all of the kalises I'm presenting here are of the pre-kris variety. And so I can even concede that the Bohol kalis is still a kalis, and not a kris (yet), given the qualifications we have made on what defines a kris.

Originally Posted by David

Miguel, thanks for all these diagrams and research. These gold hilts are indeed quite interesting and beautiful. However, from what i can see in the diagram you presented in post #15, these hilts clearly were not attached to the weapons that we consider to be kris today. Different types of weapons use different types of tangs for different reasons. Indonesian keris still use a round tang because it is a stabbing weapon, not the slashing weapon that the Moro kris developed into, so the stability that the rectangular tang offers along with the asang-asang is not necessary. So i am not sure that we can use the evidence presented here to make a case for a evolution in these kalis forms from round to hexangular to square or rectangular tangs that we see in Moro kris since we are looking at completely different weapons.

Thanks for making all these observations. My only point was that as far as ancient kalises are concerned (that is, i'm not referring to krises as they have not been born yet during that time), we can see that very early on the tang quickly evolved from the round tang to the rectangular tang as early as the 10th to 13th century AD.

Thus it should not come as a surprise that the Bohol kalis (10th to 15th century AD) already sported the rectangular tang.

I also understand that all I've said somewhat invalidates a theory on Moro krises that goes like this:

1. all kerises (i.e., the Indonesian kind) have round tangs
2. said Javenese kerises are the ancestors of all kerises and krises
3. krises (i.e., the Moro kind) have rectangular tangs
4. krises came after the kerises
5. thus, the missing link between kerises and krises ought to be krises with round tangs.

However, as we've seen, the rectangular tang came about very early on, on kalises -- as early as 10th to 13th century AD.

And given that what I regard as the proto-kris (the Bohol kalis) also had the rectangular tang (as can be expected given the trend), then I think we can make an extrapolation, by saying that all krises from Day 1 had the rectangular tang.

Which leads us back to Ron's very old kris with a round tang that defied the trend. Well, I'm still scratching my head on that one. Can it be that the smith was Indonesian? Could the prematurely broken 'elephant trunk' be another sign that the smith was not that familiar with the finer points of making a Moro kris? Just thinking out loud ...