East Java has landscapes to challenge the adventurous, cultural riches to dazzle the curiousndash;and one magic mountain that harbors a great storehouse of ancient arts and mysteries. Duncan Graham reports from Trawas in the Majapahit heartlands.
On Jan. 17, Nigel Bullough tumbled down a ravine. It was a defining though agonizing moment in the explorer’s 44-year career in Indonesia.
The British-born historian, who uses the nom d’archeologie Hadi Sidomulyo, was seeking centuries-old sites on East Java’s Mount Penanggungan when he fell.
He was saved when his camera strap snagged the shrubbery. But his left arm was jerked from its socket and the bone fractured.
It took his friends five hours to get him down the mountain, and a further hour’s slow drive over rough roads to reach a police hospital. A surgeon dashed in from afar in the early hours.
“The treatment was excellent,” Sidomulyo said more than six months after the accident. “My arm is almost back to normal. The mountain had opened up and given us so much. It briefly revealed its secrets and now it was time to close. And next day it started to rain.
“Penanggungan was telling me that it was time to sit down and work on our discoveries.”
These discoveries have been extraordinary. More than 130 previously uncharted sites have been found by Sidomulyo and his colleagues, including Malang State University lecturer Ismail Lutfi.
The private University of Surabaya (Ubaya) funded the explorers, even though it has no archaeology faculty. However, Ubaya does have the 40-hectare Ubaya Training Center (UTC), with on-site accommodation in the lush foothills fronting Penanggungan where scholars can stay.
Former rector Anton Prijatno is now chair of the Ubaya Foundation raising funds for the bush campus. He was friends with the late pioneering conservationist Suryo Prawiroatmodjo, who lived near the mountain and knew it well. “I was drawn by his love of nature and culture,” Prijatno said. “I was concerned with the way young people in the cities were losing contact with their rural roots.
“We want visitors to come here and learn about our history, to draw the values of honesty, conservation and community living from the past. Archaeology isn’t just for expertsndash;it should be for the public.”
If Prijatno and his colleagues can get watchful locals to appreciate the importance of the riches in their midst, they’ll be more likely to protect than plunder. Late last century, Penanggungan was gouged by gangs beheading statues. As museum curators like to sayndash;heritage is identity, so such thefts hurt all in the nation and beyond.
In the UTC’s basement are photos taken by explorers last century and over the past four years. The Ubaya team has discovered cave hermitages, terraced sanctuaries and maybe an offering table, hundreds of ancient Chinese coins and copious shards of pottery.
mountain in 2015. Locals think it was from a lightning strike, which adds to the supernatural explanations for much that involves Penanggungan.
Flames stripped the dense bush that shrouded sites probably unseen for half a millennium. They also disclosed well-built tracks which zigzagged up the steep slopes once trodden by sandaled pilgrims and barefoot artisans.
Commented Lutfi: “Our work has shown that worship on Penanggungan had a much more sophisticated infrastructure than previously imagined.”
Next could be excavations; the mountain has more secrets to unveil, particularly if an old settlement site can be found. New discoveries could fill the hollows in Java’s history.
At a UTC summer school organized by Singapore’s Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, Sidomulyo addressed museum curators and historians from Asia, Europe, Indonesia and the US.
He told them East Java had preserved “an historical record from the pre-Islamic period that is about four times as long as its western neighbor”, meaning Central Java, long considered the core of ancient Javanese culture.
Lutfi is an epigraphist, a code breaker whose singular skills have helped assemble parts of the historical jigsaw. The craftsmen who built the temples and shrines that dot the landscape sometimes marked their handiwork by applying complex codes and the Saka calendar.
This starts from 78AD and is used in Indiandash;the source of Java’s pre-Islamic culture and religions. These included Buddhism, which seemed to co-exist with the worship of Shiva, the faiths at times mingling their architecture.
“Some sites use chronograms,” said Lutfi, studying a curious engraving. “In my opinion this is a sengkalan memet in Javanese. I see a Naga (deity in the form of a snake) priest biting his tail. In Javanese this is naga resi anahut iku, which also means 8731.
“In the Saka system this must be read in reverse as 1378, which is 1456 AD.”
Majapahit was the powerful dynasty that ruled much of Java and nearby lands from its center at Trowulan on the rich floodplains of the Brantas River for about 250 years. Everything ended in the 16th century when the royals fled to Bali and Islam became the dominant faith.
Much of the known history of the empire comes from the 1365 epic poem Nagarakretagama written on lontar leaves. It tells of temples, places, events and the wanderings of King Hayam Wurukndash;proving that President Joko Widodo’s blusukan walkabouts have a backstory.
So far, however, nothing has been discovered to confirm the stories of Ken Angrok, the 13th century king famous in boys’ comic books for his derring-do, dexterity with the kris (Javanese dagger) and Shakespearean treachery.
The legend that sustained much of Majapahit worship had the holy Mt. Mahameru hauled from India to nail Java into the world, what one academic labeled the “sacred geography” linking Indonesia with India. The biggest lump became Semeru (3,676 meters), the highest peak in Java. The rest became Pawitra, now known as Penanggungan. At only 1,653 meters it’s a pimple but dominates the landscape south of Surabaya.
It has a vintage volcano silhouette but is classified as dead, unlike its still puffing colleagues nearby. It is also dry, which is curious as the mountain once bristled with traffic. Perhaps creeks ran when the climate was wetter. Maybe water was carried to the stone carvers and hermits in cavesndash;which could explain the pottery shards.
The most accessible site is also the oldest discovered so far. The date prominent on the back wall of the Jolotundo bathing pool is Saka 899, or 977 AD. It was probably built to honor the ancestor of King Udayana, father of Airlangga. It was first recorded by Europeans in 1815 when the British ruled the Dutch East Indies and started seeking lost temples.
Despite its great cultural and historical importance, Jolotundo is used more like a fun park and backdrop for picnickers’ selfies. The staff are bored and uninformed. Metal signs do nothing for the ambience. One tells visitors to be respectful. Few are.
It’s the same at Candi Jawi, about 10 kilometers further down the hill, a curious mix of a Hindu base topped by a Buddhist stupa. It was built by King Kertanagara in the late 13th century, later damaged by earthquakes, a lightning strike and vandalism.
After a restoration, it’s a favorite place for couples canoodling on its high platforms. A large glass-fronted information board is empty. A jumble of carved stones lies outside a lavatory. Others are behind bars. Their crime? Not fitting into the government’s ideas of tourists only wanting poolside drinks in five-star resorts.
