Author’s Note | Revisited, September 2026
I originally published the following short piece on Facebook on 5 July 2025.
It was written in response to claims that the keris was traditionally designed or measured according to the Golden Ratio.
My reaction was deliberately sharp.
Looking at it again, I still stand by the central challenge:
If we claim that traditional keris makers intentionally designed the keris according to the Golden Ratio, where is the evidence?
But I would frame the question more carefully today.
There really are traditional systems for measuring the keris.
There is also modern academic research attempting to identify Fibonacci and mathematical patterns in keris forms.
Those deserve to be acknowledged.
The problem begins when three very different propositions are treated as though they were the same:
- A keris can be mathematically analysed.
- Measurements taken from a keris may approximate mathematical ratios, including ratios associated with Fibonacci numbers or the Golden Ratio.
- Traditional keris makers intentionally designed the keris using the Golden Ratio.
The first is obviously true.
The second can be tested.
The third is a historical claim.
And historical claims require historical evidence.
That distinction is the centre of this Revisited essay.
Part I | The Original Post
Originally published on Facebook, 2025
Sudah-sudahlah tu khayal…
Kata pergi kursus sukat keris guna kaedah Golden Ratio.
Bila diminta terangkan, sah-sah mu tak faham pun apa sebenarnya Golden Ratio tu.
Kalau sampai hari ni pun masih tak boleh jelaskan apa itu Golden Ratio dengan mudah dan tepat, tak payah nak sembang keris kita konon-konon dibina ikut sukatan matematik Eropah kuno.
Benda asas pun kabur, tapi tiba-tiba yakin sangat, keris ada phi, ada spiral, ada “harmoni sejagat”…
Padahal bila ditanya nak ukur kat mana, terus senyap, atau tunjuk gambar rajah spiral terap keris kat atas.
Waduuuh….
Golden Ratio tu nombor je. Phi. 1.618…
Ada formula. Ada sejarah. Ada cara kira.
Kalau tak boleh terang konsep tu pada budak umur 10 tahun, maksudnya kita sendiri pun tak faham, cuma ulang-ulang cerita yang sedap dengar.
Sekali tengok spiral terus cakap:
“Ha! Tengok ni!”
Itu bukan bukti.
Itu ilusi.
Macam cakap:
“Matahari terbit sebab aku bangun pagi.”
Nak hormat warisan?
Hormat fakta dulu.
Nak jadi pewaris seni?
Jangan jadi penyebar khayalan.
Part II | Revisiting the Argument
First, What Exactly Is the Golden Ratio?
My original statement that the Golden Ratio is “nombor je” was rhetorically convenient but mathematically incomplete.
The Golden Ratio is a particular relationship between two quantities.
If a line is divided into a longer part, a, and a shorter part, b, the Golden Ratio occurs when:
(a + b) / a = a / b
The resulting number is:
φ = (1 + √5) / 2
or approximately:
1.6180339887…
The concept has a genuine mathematical history.
Euclid described what we now call the Golden Ratio as division in “extreme and mean ratio” in Elements. The mathematics is therefore ancient.
But something else needs to be emphasised.
Euclid did not present this ratio as some universal mystical law of beauty.
The enormous cultural mythology subsequently built around the Golden Ratio is a different matter.
Modern scholarship has questioned many popular claims that φ secretly determines supposedly perfect human faces, great artworks and famous ancient monuments.
Even the familiar claim that the Parthenon was deliberately designed around the Golden Ratio has been challenged because simply drawing golden rectangles over photographs is not evidence of intentional ancient design.
That problem is directly relevant to the keris.
Finding a Pattern Is Not the Same as Explaining Its Origin
Imagine I photograph a keris.
I place a Golden Spiral over it.
I enlarge the spiral.
Rotate it slightly.
Move it upwards.
Then sideways.
Eventually some portion of the spiral follows part of the blade.
What have I demonstrated?
Very little.
I have demonstrated that I can fit a mathematical construction onto a complex shape.
I have not demonstrated that the person who made the keris used that mathematical construction.
This is the fundamental problem with many Golden Ratio claims.
The investigation begins with the desired answer:
φ must be there.
Then measurements are searched until something approximately resembling 1.618 appears.
That reverses the proper method.
The better question is:
What proportional system does the evidence reveal when we examine the keris without deciding the answer beforehand?
But Keris Really Were Measured
This is where my original Facebook post needs more context.
Traditional keris cultures absolutely did contain systems of measurement.
Historical ethnographic records document several of them.
Ivor H. N. Evans recorded a Pahang method in which the length of a keris blade was taken using a strip of pandanus leaf. The strip was folded and subsequently used to measure parts of the blade while a sequence of words was recited.
G. M. Laidlaw recorded another method involving the blade’s length, midpoint and blade widths. The sequence:
Gunong, Runtoh, Madu, Segara
was applied during measurement, with particular outcomes interpreted as auspicious.
H. G. Keith recorded related keris-measurement practices from North Borneo.
G. C. Woolley likewise observed that numerous methods existed for measuring kerises to determine whether a particular blade was considered auspicious, either generally or in relation to a particular owner or purpose.
These records are important.
They tell us something that should not be dismissed:
measurement was genuinely part of keris culture.
But look carefully at what the evidence demonstrates.
These documented methods involve such things as:
- blade length
- blade width
- midpoint and fractional positions
- strips of leaf
- thumbs or fingers
- repeated verbal formulae
- auspicious and inauspicious outcomes
- relationships between a keris and its owner
That is evidence for traditional keris measurement systems.
It is not automatically evidence for the Golden Ratio.
Those are different claims.
Traditional Mathematics Does Not Need a Greek Passport
There is another problem with my original post.
I referred dismissively to the keris supposedly being designed according to “sukatan matematik Eropah kuno”.
I would remove that formulation today.
The important question is not whether the Golden Ratio is European.
Mathematics does not belong permanently to a civilisation simply because a surviving textual description comes from that civilisation.
More importantly, Southeast Asian craftsmen did not need Euclid in order to understand proportion.
Traditional craftspeople can develop highly sophisticated proportional systems through geometry, repeated practice, bodily measurement, templates, inherited conventions and accumulated workshop knowledge without expressing those relationships using modern mathematical notation.
So the intellectually responsible position is not:
“Our ancestors couldn’t possibly have understood sophisticated proportion.”
Of course they could.
The question is:
Which proportional systems did they actually use?
That is an historical and ethnographic question.
And we should investigate it on its own terms.
Then There Is the 2020 Keris Study
There is an important piece of research that I would now acknowledge explicitly.
In 2020, Shahriman Zainal Abidin, Rusmadiah Anwar and Wan Nuraini Rahim published:
“The Presence of Fibonacci Sequence in Malaysia Keris Design Related to Elements of Art and Principles of Design.”
The article appeared in the Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal.
The researchers applied a Fibonacci-sequence spiral as a form-analysis instrument to Malaysian keris designs and concluded that Fibonacci-sequence components were significantly present in their analysis.
That study exists.
It is peer-reviewed.
It should not be pretended away merely because its conclusion may support something resembling the claim I criticised.
But we must ask precisely what it demonstrates.
The researchers applied a modern analytical framework based on Fibonacci geometry to keris forms.
That can potentially demonstrate that keris shapes correspond with particular mathematical patterns.
It does not, by itself, establish the historical proposition that traditional keris makers consciously used Fibonacci numbers or φ when designing those kerises.
These are different research questions.
One asks:
Can this object be described using this mathematical model?
The other asks:
Did the maker use this mathematical model to create the object?
A modern researcher discovering a pattern does not automatically establish historical intentionality.
Fibonacci Is Also Not Simply Another Name for the Golden Ratio
There is another common source of confusion.
The Fibonacci sequence is:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34…
Each number is produced by adding the previous two.
Ratios between successive Fibonacci numbers approach φ as the sequence progresses.
For example:
13 ÷ 8 = 1.625
21 ÷ 13 ≈ 1.615
34 ÷ 21 ≈ 1.619
They converge towards approximately 1.618.
This mathematical relationship is real.
But it does not follow that finding something resembling a Fibonacci spiral in an artefact proves that its maker deliberately calculated φ.
Again:
mathematical correspondence is not automatically historical causation.
Modern Researchers Have Applied Golden-Ratio Methods to Keris Design
The Golden Ratio has also been explicitly applied to keris-related design in modern academic work.
A 2019 UiTM thesis by Nur Izzati Mahyudin and Aidatul Anisa Saiful Zamri used the Golden Ratio, Golden Triangle and Golden Spiral in the mathematical design and evaluation of keris hilts using B-spline methods.
That is perfectly legitimate modern design research.
But notice the direction of reasoning.
The researchers are applying Golden Ratio concepts to keris-hilt design.
That is not the same thing as demonstrating that historical hilt carvers themselves used φ.
This distinction is extremely important.
A twenty-first-century mathematical method applied successfully to a traditional object does not automatically become evidence for the historical method used to manufacture that object.
More Recent Ethnomathematics Research Makes the Same Point Interesting
Research has continued.
A 2025 ethnographic study of Keris Kyai Tengara explored geometric transformation concepts such as translation, reflection and dilation.
A 2026 study of keris and pendok at Museum Keris Surakarta identified mathematical concepts including odd numbers, trigonometry, reflection and dilation.
This is valuable research.
The keris is a rich object through which mathematics can be explored.
But again we need to distinguish two statements:
“We can identify mathematical concepts in the keris.”
and
“The historical maker consciously formulated the object using our modern mathematical description.”
The first does not automatically prove the second.
So What Would Actually Demonstrate Historical Use of the Golden Ratio?
Suppose someone wants to make the stronger claim:
Traditional keris makers intentionally constructed kerises according to the Golden Ratio.
Excellent.
Let’s test it.
First, define exactly what is being measured.
Where does measurement begin?
The tip?
The base of the blade?
The ganja?
The pesi?
The widest point?
Which width?
Which length?
Does the hilt count?
Does the sheath count?
How are curved blades measured?
Along the centreline?
Straight from base to tip?
Along one edge?
These choices matter.
Then define the prediction before measuring the objects.
For example:
Blade length divided by maximum blade width should approximate φ within a predefined tolerance.
Then collect an adequate sample.
Not one keris.
Not three convenient examples.
A meaningful sample across regions, periods, dapur, straight and luk blades, and different manufacturing traditions.
Then calculate the results.
And compare them with alternatives.
Why 1.618?
What happens at 1.5?
√2, approximately 1.414?
3:2?
5:3?
Or ratios derived from traditional bodily units?
If φ genuinely dominates the dataset, that would be interesting.
But even then we would have demonstrated a recurring proportional relationship.
We still would not necessarily have demonstrated historical intentionality.
For that, another category of evidence becomes important.
Show Me the Historical Method
The strongest evidence would be documentation from within the craft tradition itself.
A manuscript.
A pakem.
An empu’s instructions.
A documented workshop practice.
An old measuring device.
A consistently transmitted oral method.
A technical description recorded from practising makers.
Something telling us:
Measure this part against that part according to this relationship.
Traditional keris-measurement systems actually demonstrate why this matters.
When Evans recorded the Pahang method, he documented how measurements were physically performed.
When Keith recorded practices from North Borneo, he documented a method.
When Laidlaw described keris measurement, he documented which parts were measured and how.
Whether we interpret those practices today as mathematics, ethnomathematics, divination, cultural measurement or some combination of them, there is evidence connecting people, procedure and object.
That is substantially stronger evidence for historical intentionality than placing a spiral over a photograph.
The Problem of Pattern-Seeking
There is a deeper methodological issue here.
Complex objects contain many possible measurements.
A keris offers enormous freedom:
blade length, several widths, ganja dimensions, luk spacing, hilt dimensions, sheath dimensions, cross-sectional relationships, distances between ricikan, and countless combinations between them.
If I am allowed to choose my measurement points after looking at the numbers, eventually I can probably find something near 1.618.
Then I can draw a Golden Spiral around it.
It may look impressive.
But visually impressive is not the same as statistically meaningful.
The same criticism has been made of Golden Ratio claims concerning famous Western art and architecture.
When researchers begin with φ and search until they find somewhere it fits, coincidence can easily be mistaken for intention.
The keris deserves better methodology than that.
And No, the Golden Ratio Is Not a Universal Law of Beauty
Another part of the mythology surrounding φ is the claim that humans universally perceive it as uniquely beautiful.
The research is much less decisive.
Experimental studies of Golden Ratio aesthetics have produced mixed results.
Some report preferences under particular conditions.
Others find no unique aesthetic advantage over competing proportions.
Research examining cultural differences has also found that preferred proportions can vary.
So claims about some universal “harmoni sejagat” need evidence too.
The Golden Ratio is fascinating mathematics.
It does not need mystical marketing.
What I Would Change From My Original Post
My original post got the most important methodological point right:
A spiral drawn over a keris is not proof that the keris was designed using that spiral.
I still stand firmly behind that.
But I would change several things.
I would no longer say merely:
“Golden Ratio tu nombor je.”
It is a mathematically defined proportional relationship, not simply an arbitrary number.
I would remove the suggestion that sophisticated keris proportion would necessarily represent imported “European mathematics”.
Traditional Southeast Asian craftspeople were perfectly capable of developing sophisticated proportional systems of their own.
I would acknowledge explicitly that documented traditional keris-measurement systems exist.
And I would acknowledge the modern academic research that has identified Fibonacci and other mathematical patterns in keris forms.
What I would not do is make the leap from those observations to historical intentionality without evidence.
That remains the crucial issue.
So, Were Kerises Designed According to the Golden Ratio?
Based on the evidence I have examined so far:
It has not been demonstrated.
That is deliberately narrower than saying:
“No keris contains the Golden Ratio.”
Individual kerises may very well contain measurements approximating φ.
A systematic study might even discover recurring proportions close to it.
Modern mathematical analysis can certainly be applied to keris morphology.
But none of those propositions automatically establishes that historical keris makers consciously used φ as a design rule.
Perhaps future evidence will demonstrate that some did.
If so, excellent.
Show the evidence.
I would be happy to revise this essay again.
That is how research is supposed to work.
Final Thoughts
The keris does not become more sophisticated because we attach the Golden Ratio to it.
It was already sophisticated.
Its makers understood material, proportion, balance, forging, aesthetics, symbolism and inherited forms through knowledge traditions developed across generations.
We should be careful not to assume that an artefact becomes intellectually impressive only after we discover a famous mathematical concept inside it.
Perhaps the more interesting research question is not:
“Can we find φ in the keris?”
but:
“How did keris makers themselves understand proportion?”
What did they measure?
What units did they use?
Which relationships mattered?
How were those methods transmitted?
How did they differ between Malay, Javanese, Bugis, Balinese and other keris traditions?
And how much of that knowledge can still be reconstructed from surviving objects, manuscripts, ethnographic accounts and living practitioners?
Those questions could teach us far more about the keris than another Golden Spiral pasted onto a photograph.
So my original challenge remains.
Want to claim the keris was deliberately designed according to the Golden Ratio?
By all means.
Define the measurement.
Show the method.
Test the sample.
Produce the historical evidence.
Until then:
A pattern is an observation.
Intentional design is a historical claim.
Don’t confuse the two.
The internet rewards attention.
History rewards evidence.
Preserve Through Discovery.
References & Further Reading
Abidin, Shahriman Zainal, Rusmadiah Anwar, and Wan Nuraini Rahim. “The Presence of Fibonacci Sequence in Malaysia Keris Design Related to Elements of Art and Principles of Design.” Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal 5, SI3 (2020): 141–147. DOI: 10.21834/ebpj.v5iSI3.2547.
Annastiar, Sabrina, Fabira Chandra, Ufiq Muzaiyanah, Nurul Arfinanti, and Suparni. “Studi Etnografi: Konsep Transformasi Geometri Keris Kyai Tengara.” Jurnal MathEdu (Mathematic Education Journal) 8, no. 3 (2025): 217–225. DOI: 10.37081/mathedu.v8i3.7452.
Evans, Ivor H. N. “Lucky and Unlucky Keris Measurements.” Reprinted in Paul H. Kratoska, ed., The Malay Keris: Artistry in Iron. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020, 195–200.
Keith, H. G. “Keris Measurements from North Borneo.” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 16, no. 1 (1938): 134–136. Reprinted in Paul H. Kratoska, ed., The Malay Keris: Artistry in Iron. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020, 201–204.
Kratoska, Paul H., ed. The Malay Keris: Artistry in Iron. MBRAS Reprints, No. 35. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020.
Laidlaw, G. M. “Some Notes on Kĕris-measurements.” Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 20, no. 1 (1947): 45–46. Reprinted in Paul H. Kratoska, ed., The Malay Keris: Artistry in Iron. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020, 208–209.
Mahyudin, Nur Izzati, and Aidatul Anisa Saiful Zamri. Golden Ratio, Golden Triangle and Golden Spiral of Hilt Keris Designed by Using Extended Cubic B-Spline and λµ-B-Spline. Universiti Teknologi MARA, 2019.
Naini, Farhad B. “The Golden Ratio: Dispelling the Myth.” Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 46 (2024). DOI: 10.1186/s40902-024-00411-2.
Sholehudin, Muchlis Rifai, Sri Rejeki, and Rini Setyaningsih. “Eksplorasi Konsep Matematika pada Keris dan Pendok.” Paedagogie 21, no. 3 (2026): 1909–1924. DOI: 10.31603/paedagogie.213.17140.
Stieger, Stefan, and Viren Swami. “Time to Let Go? No Automatic Aesthetic Preference for the Golden Ratio in Art Pictures.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 9, no. 1 (2015): 91–100.
Woolley, G. C. “Keris Measurements.” Reprinted in Paul H. Kratoska, ed., The Malay Keris: Artistry in Iron. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020, 205–207.