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A keris or kris made from this meteorite.   Iron, ungrouped

TKW 500 kg. Fall not observed. Found 1797, Indonesia.



   

Steve writes:

The Prambanan meteorite fell sometime around 1749, breaking into two pieces (the largest more than one cubic meter in size). Considered a gift from the gods, Sri Paku Buwono III had the smaller piece transported to Surakarta’s Sunanate Palace on February 13, 1784. Almost exactly thirteen years to the day later – on February 12, 1797 – Paku Buwono IV had the larger piece moved to Surakarta’s Kasunanan Palace (near the Hindi Prambanan temple). There it was given the name Kanjeng Kyai Pamor and subsequently used to make keris swords and other aji tosan (historic Javanese weaponry).

The smaller meteorite is thought to have been totally consumed for artifacts; but for the better part of the next century, the larger meteorite continued to serve as a source of metal for special weapons and other significant pieces. Craftsmen would heat the main mass until it was red hot – approximately 900º C – then chisel off pieces to forge into bars. Later, smaller pieces were hot-chiseled off from those larger bars and worked flat to be combined with flat strips of other metals – usually iron or steel – in a Damascus-like process (several of these hot-chiseled fragments appear in collections at Berlin, Bonn, Budapest, Chicago, Greifswald, Hamburg, London, Paris, Stockholm, Strasbourg, Vienna, and Washington).

The keris swords created from the resulting alloy were regarded as sacred personal weapons of great spiritual attachment, and as such they were one of the most valued, revered, and treasured heirlooms to be passed down to Javanese males from generation to generation. The complete keris consisted of an asymmetrical blade, a curved hilt (which was often fashioned in Bali), and a corresponding sheath (sometimes from Madura). Each typically measured 12 to 15 inches in length.

Ceremonial pieces and gifts to dignitaries were also fashioned from the meteorite. These keris swords were typically much more ornate, as they were not designed for use as actual weapons. (As an example, four of the five beautifully finished curved daggers given to the Emperor of Austria in 1907 can still be found in Vienna’s Ethnographical Collection.)

But in the late 1800s, Paku Buwono IX decided to preserve what still remained of the larger meteorite and had a special edifice built for it that was surrounded by a 3 foot high iron fence to protect the meteorite while still allowing for its display. Unfortunately, exposed to the elements for decades, both it and the fence had become severely weathered by the mid-20th century.

I’ve always been drawn to meteorite and tektite artifacts, like my smaller Prambanan spear points featured on 8/17/2017. While I had known of the keris in Photos 1 through 3 for several years, only last month was I finally able to acquire it. This particular one is likely an early ceremonial piece: compared to the rear of the hilt seen in Photo 4, its more ornate front in Photo 5 also has holes that in other similar examples were filled with jewels (possibly robbed from this piece sometime in the past); further, the handles of those intended to be used as weapons were curved downwards toward the edge of the blade to allow holding it much like a pistol, unlike the only lightly curved hilt of this keris that points up and away from the face of the blade, making for a better face-on presentation (and explaining its much simpler back side).