14Story

06 September 2009

Archaeological sites

Shared Cultural Heritage

Contents:  Shared Cultural Heritage  - Introduction  - Collecting within a colonial context  - Scholarly expeditions  - Archaeological sites  - Collectors, officials, missionaries  - Donations  - Military expeditions

Archaeological sites

In Europe during the Renaissance period – roughly speaking the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries – a great interest was developing in Europe’s antique world and in the antiquities that bore concrete witness to that world. At the same time, the Europe of that time saw the emergence of a strong urge to ‘discover’ and – as far as possible – take possession of hitherto unknown continents and regions. A consequence of this passion for exploration and expansion and of the curiosity about the past history of that period, was that people began - on a modest scale -to search for antiquities and treasures in the ‘new’ territories. With this pressing idea in mind, Dutch people also launched into action. This led to archaeological finds, and descriptions of their discoveries in Indonesia. We find one example of a description of archaeological remains in the report by Scippio, dating from 1687, on megalithic remains discovered in the Bogor region of West Java. Another is the description of bronzes and Neolithic stone axes written by Georg Everard Rumphius (1627-1702), published in 1705 in his book D’amboinsche rariteitkamer’ (trans. ‘The Amboinese cabinet of curiosities’). Later, in the eighteenth century, but more especially in the first half of the nineteenth,  the rapidly growing insight and interest in these matters resulted in the discovery, and discussion, of ‘Heathen Temples of an extraordinary size’ such as the ruins of the Loro Jonggrang temple complex at Prambanan in Central Java, or the rubble of the Borobudur in the interior of Kedu to the north-west of Yogyakarta.

Borobudur and the Kedu plain; drawing by Sieburgh (1836-'39)

		At the same time there was an increase in the awareness that these new  discoveries ought to be examined, documented and preserved in as responsible a manner as possible. Here, photography clearly constituted an aid of the greatest importance, especially from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, and particularly in connexion with documentation. As an example, for these reasons the talented artist and photographer Isidoor van Kinsbergen accompanied the archaeologists in their excavations from 1862 onwards, taking fine photographs of the sites and the objects excavated, as well as of the objects being sent to museums. From 1913 on his photographs, together with those taken by the Javanese photographer Kassian Céphas, were to form the core of the photographic collection of the ‘Archaeological Service’ created by the Dutch East Indies government of the time.
Photograph  by Kassian Céphas of the Shiva temple at Prambanan(1889-'90)

In accordance with its status as an official governmental body, the Archaeological Service was given a heavier set of tasks to perform, including the institution of archaeological inventories, the inspection of the condition of historic remains, and the creation of a programme for documenting monuments and objects, and for the protection of historic remains.  A set of legal measures was also created for protecting archaeological and historic remains. Thus in 1931 the government  enacted the Monuments Ordinance.  Sixty years later, in the time of the Indonesian Republic, this regulation was converted into the ‘”Law for the protection of the material cultural heritage’ (Undang-Undang tentang Benda Cagar Budaya). In the meantime this cultural heritage has come to include a great many archaeological sites, great and small, old and new, throughout Indonesia, and a huge number of objects excavated from them over the course of time.

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