Bali or Lombok or ?

[Jean]

Yes it looks like a short Balinese blade.
This rare style of gandik with the long kembang kacang/ cunguh gajah is called "gandik lantang cunguh gajah lantang" (long) according to the book from Neka page 65 and is apparently specific to Bali.

[David]

Originally Posted by Jean

Yes it looks like a short Balinese blade.
This rare style of gandik with the long kembang kacang/ cunguh gajah is called "gandik lantang cunguh gajah lantang" (long) according to the book from Neka page 65 and is apparently specific to Bali.

Thanks Jean. We’re there any photographs of other examples in that book. I don’t own it.

[A. G. Maisey]

I'm inclined to run with Bali, but really, I find a lot of difficulty in labelling Balinese style keris either "Bali" or "Lombok", the Balinese themselves regarded the Lombok colonies as parts of their realm, the parts of Lombok that were not Balinese colonies were populated by people from other places, such as the Bugis & the Sasaks, and sometimes we do find an overlap of indicators so we might decide that a keris that is in essence Balinese, does also tend towards Javanese, but if Javanese, then we need to also consider Blambangan, because there were Balinese living in East Jawa, and Javanese living in West Bali.

A lot of Balinese keris are shorter than the large ones we usually expect to see, in fact, a lot of older Balinese keris were made in East Jawa, and were used by people other than the elites & nobles.

Big keris = Big Man (hierarchically), and there are a whole lot more little people than there were knights & nobles.

[David]

I tend to agree with you on this front Alan, but when i see a blade that falls outside the more common appearance of Bali keris from the period i tend to look for other possible origins. It has little to due with the shorter size and more the odd appearance on the gandik.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes, the form is a bit outside what we expect to encounter, the pamor is also a bit uncommon for a Bali made blade, but all in all, for me, it has the overall appearance of Bali, and I would be reluctant to try to place it elsewhere on the basis of a photo.

[Jean]

I attach the copy of the page in the Neka book.

[David]

Thanks Jean!