B and I visited this museum on our own early in our stay here. Fun fact: If you travel by taxi to get to this museum, you should tell the taxi driver to take you to the Museum Gajah. Gajah means elephant and there is a giant elephant statue in front of the museum. You might get a blank look if you ask for the Museum Nasional. Recently my Explorer group visited the museum for a special tour so I signed up. A member of my group has graduated from the museum tour guide program so she and a friend tag-teamed and gave us a tour of a few parts of the museum in English. That was a big help as many of the signs are in Bahasa Indonesia.
A few interesting tidbits from our introduction:
The first Europeans to arrive here were Portuguese.
Run Island (now part of the Banda Islands) was traded by the British to the Dutch for Manhattan Island in the New World. An island- island trade. In the 17th c nutmeg and mace grew only in the Banda Islands, and in particular on Run Island. The Dutch really wanted to have a monopoly on the plants on the Island. It turned out, though, that a person or (persons) brought plants from the Island to new locations elsewhere while the trade was going on. No monopoly !
Borobodur "Temple" (dating to 8th or 9th c) which is located in Central Java is really not a temple. Didn't know that. It is considered a Buddhist teaching site/relic. The purpose is to achieve enlightenment as you travel round and round the square, multi-level site. On the lowest level are a lot of vices you are expected to give up along the way (most of the lowest level was covered at one point so as not to give ideas to the Islamic peoples. [Lt. Governor of Java(1811-1816) Stamford Raffles uncovered it the site in the first place. It was known to exist but had become hidden by the jungle for centuries.]
When B and I visited the museum I don't think we made it to the 4th floor, but this was very interesting— the Treasury Room is on the 4th floor. This large area contains treasures from two tremendous discoveries and probably some other stuff. One discovery was in 1881(Muteran, E. Java) and the other in 1990 (Wonoboyo,Central Java). The Wonoboyo find is more impressive in beauty, technical skill and quality. The amount of gold recovered here in three large containers was 66 pounds of pure gold and a little bit of silver. There were over 6000 gold and silver coins and 1000 ceremonial objects. Experts believe this find was a gold worker site. Many of the objects seem to be "in progress." Due to the specific layer of volcanic ash it is thought that Mt. Merapi started to erupt. The goldsmiths placed their works into Montebans (giant Chinese ceramic containers), sealed them, and buried them hoping to protect the treasures. They remained untouched until 1990. The gold buried at this site is believed to have been entombed in the late 9th or early 10th centuries.
No photos are allowed in this room even though signs all over the rest of the museum say photography is allowed. I had already taken a photo of a sign before the guard stopped someone else taking treasury shots, so I took no pictures. However, I found this photo on the internet. It's just a sample of the treasures from the Wonoboyo site.
What is truly unique, especially with the Wonoboyo treasures, is that when the discovery was initially made at this site (during drainage construction, or field work) the work was stopped. The workers contacted the owners who called in experts and everything was saved and went into safe hands. Traditionally anything discovered is kept by the discover or immediately traded or sold. Most things are lost.
The various Muteran objects date to between the 10th and 14th c.They are from a mix of time periods and were possibly collected by different people over time.
We also learned about something called "ship's cloths." Ships began to visit these waters a long, long time ago. Images of ships appear in wall hangings or seating mats. Ship's cloths were very important in the life of traditional societies in the Lampung region (Sumatra). These sacred cloths were often associated with death and afterlife due to the ship's symbolism as a form of transition— life to death. They are also seen at births and weddings. This one is very rare and is perhaps the most important item in the museum's collections. It would have been displayed on the wall at very special events. What's most interesting is that it is done in beads and is finely crafted.
Historically homes had a special room called "Pasren" with a special bed, not for sleeping but for praying to the Goddess of Rice Dewi Sri. Wedding ceremonies were held in these rooms so that the Goddess Dewi Sri would bless their life.
I mentioned montebons earlier.These are the large terra cotta pots. Originally these containers were the property of ships and used to transport goods. They would be emptied on delivery and returned to the ships. At some point folks began to keep the containers. Manufacturers in China discovered there was a market for the pots beyond just shippers and began to sell them directly.
There were two types of montebans. Containers 2, 3 or even 5 foot tall with little hoops on the outside near the top opening would have a wooden lid held in place by tie-downs passing through the loops. The other type of monteban had a wooden lid that somehow fit into place inside the top of the lid.
