Interesting Moro keris I picked up...

[althesmith]

I'm going to have to remake part of the grip on this one- basically half the grip was sawdust and splinters held together by force of persuasion- but I found the blade interesting. It has the traditional file-worked "guard" section forge-welded to the blade, but the blade itself is a triple fullered blade with half-moon marks, more typically associated with North African swords with Solingen trade blades. The blade if this is a Solingen export has been slightly reworked by the smith to a more typical Moro style, and both edges are very sharp with no secondary bevel. Blade is about 20". I'll post pics when I can figure out how to do so on the site.

 

[althesmith]

 

[Triton]

That's bizarre. It does indeed look like a karskara blade that has been turned into a keris blade. I have never heard of such...

 

[J W Bensinger]

That is odd. I think that definitely started life as a kris though-the ganga joint is in the right place and it would have to have been reeeeaally wide to start with if it wasn't made that way

 

[Timo Nieminen]

Looks to me like the base was made as a separate piece, and the main part of the blade forge-welded to it (in a V-shaped joint?).

 

[althesmith]

Looks to me like the base was made as a separate piece, and the main part of the blade forge-welded to it (in a V-shaped joint?).

I'm going to etch things at some point just a bit. It's driving me nuts too. The blade is quite hard, in the Rc 50-plus range.

 

[althesmith]

A possible scenario is a Moro and a Sudanese warrior were both on their Hajj when they met and became good friends. They may have exchanged weapons as a token of their friendship, or perhaps the Sudanese man became ill or got injured on the road and made a gift of his Solingen kaskara to his new friend before he died. When he got back, the Moro had the longer blade cut down and remounted by the local smith as a kris.

 

[Timo Nieminen]

I don't think there is any need to look for possible convoluted scenarios. German trade blades were exported to Asia in large numbers. Many of them stopped in India, but many also continued further east, and many would have been sold in Batavia. More German blades went to Asia not as trade blades but as weapons carried by European traders and colonial forces. Given that there were (and still are) many such German blades in Asia, a local source is much more likely than Africa.

 

[althesmith]

I don't think there is any need to look for possible convoluted scenarios. German trade blades were exported to Asia in large numbers. Many of them stopped in India, but many also continued further east, and many would have been sold in Batavia. More German blades went to Asia not as trade blades but as weapons carried by European traders and colonial forces. Given that there were (and still are) many such German blades in Asia, a local source is much more likely than Africa.

You're probably right, but I spent most of my life living with a writer and have a bit of a romantic imagination. My scenario would make for a better TV series...

 

[horseclover]

Isn't there quite a long discussion on vikingsword regarding the eyelashes (vs European crescent moons) and Muslim iconography? Pacific Muslims anything but unusual?

To expand a bit. These particular crescents different than the sun and moon Solingen blades but more similar in meanings to the eastern uses. I could offer up an old anthropology magazine article on crescents but it might be useless to those that have already made up their minds. Basically put, more eye related than one might think.

Applied to items for protection, in many cultures. Even a horseshoe

Cheers

GC
https://books.google.com/books?id=NsYEAAAAYAAJ
Crescents section extracted below in a pdf