Sundaland is in the tropics, surrounded by oceans, and within the Ring of Fire. Benefitting from the heavy precipitation, volcanic deposits in Sundaland develop into some of the richest forestry and agricultural lands, and developed into some of the richest fauna on Earth. The vast majority of scholars accept that every living human being is descended from a small group in Africa, who then dispersed into the wider world. Archaeological and fossil evidence support an early migration of modern humans left Africa and followed the coastlines of Africa, Arabia, India and Sundaland. After migrating from the semi-deserted savannas of Africa, man first found a place in Sundaland where food was abundant and it was there that they left huntergatherer culture and invented farming, agriculture, trading and civilization, which made humanity first flourished. All this took place during the Last Glacial period.
Dhani Irwanto
Sundaland is a bio-geographical region of Southeastern Asia which encompasses the Sunda Shelf, the part of the Asian continental shelf that was exposed during the Last Ice Age. It included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of Kalimantan, Java and Sumatera, and their surrounding islands.
The sea levels continued to rise gradually to peak levels about 5,500 years ago, causing land loss on tropical coasts with flat continental shelves. Cracks in the earth’s crust as the weight of the ice shifted to the seas set off catastrophic events compounded by earthquakes, volcano eruptions, super waves and floods drowned the coastal cultures and all the flat continental shelves of Southeast Asia, and wiped out many populations. As the sea rolled in, there was a mass migration from the sinking continent. Genetic studies show that there has been a sharp decline in the population of the world, and population turnovers from Southeast, East and South Asia to Europe, Near East and the Caucasus beginning at the the end of the Younger Dryas period. The Younger Dryas disasters are also documented as legends, myths or tales in almost every region on Earth, observable with tremendous similarities. They are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into Bronze Age and Neolithic prehistory. The overwhelming consistency among legends and myths of flood and the repopulation of man from a flood hero similar to the Noah Flood are found in distant parts of the Earth. The myths similar to the Garden of Eden, Paradise or Divine Land echo among the populations around the world. Memories of their origin are documented in their legends, such as the stories of Atlantis, Neserser, Land of Punt, Land of Ophir, Kumari Kandam, Kangdez and Taprobana. Pyramids spread in many parts of the world and emerged separately from one another by oceans who supposedly never discovered each other’s existence. Those indicate that they were derived from a common origin. Further, scholastic belief by etymologists and linguists are positive that all world languages sprang from a common source.
INDONESIA HYDRO™ MEDIA Bukit Golf Riverside II Block B01 No 46 Gunungputri, Bogor Regency West Java 16963, Indonesia
Dhani Irwanto
SUNDALAND TRACING THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATIONS
DHANI IRWANTO
SUNDALAND TRACING THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATIONS
INDONESIA HYDRO™ MEDIA BOGOR, INDONESIA
First published in Indonesia in 2019 by INDONESIA HYDRO™ MEDIA 1 Copyright © Dhani Irwanto 2019 Dhani Irwanto has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owner, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Indonesia. Paperback ISBN 978-602-72449-2-4 Ebook ISBN 978-602-72449-3-1 Printed and bound in Indonesia by INDONESIA HYDRO™ MEDIA Bukit Golf, Riverside II Block B01 No 46 Gunungputri, Bogor Regency West Java 16963 Indonesia
FOR MY CHILDREN HANGGARA SURYA DEWANGGA HANGGITA INDRASARI DEWI
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Contents Introduction 1 Sundaland 6 Flora and fauna 8, Sea surface temperature change 12, Sea level change 13, Topography and bathymetry 15, Present-day features 22. Population Dispersal 33 “Out of Africa” Hypothesis 34, Mount Toba Super-eruption 36, The Drowning of Sundaland 39, Population Dispersal Models 40, The Mysterious Younger Dryas Period 54, Domestications 65, Pyramids Building 74, Riparian Civilizations 77. Austronesian Expansion 79 Language Family 80, Dispersal 82, Traces of Austronesians in the Americas 86, Traces of Austronesians in Africa 100, Traces of Austronesians in East Asia 104, Nusantara 106. Documented Memories 109 Great Flood and the Repopulation of Man 109, Garden of Eden, Paradise 124, Atlantis 137, Neserser 164, Land of Punt 165, The Phoenicians 265, Land of Ophir 270, Kumari Kandam 272, Kangdez 274, Epic of Gilgamesh 277, Lemuria and Mu 280, Taprobana 284, Aurea Chersonesus 334. Reassembling the Potsherds 346 References 351
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Introduction Sundaland is a bio-geographical region of Southeastern Asia which encompasses the Sunda Shelf, the part of the Asian continental shelf that was exposed during the Last Glacial period. The Last Glacial period – popularly known as the Ice Age – was the most recent glacial period within the current Ice Age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 11,600 years ago. It included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of Kalimantan, Java and Sumatera, and their surrounding islands. The eastern boundary of Sundaland is the Wallace Line*, identified by Alfred Russel Wallace as the eastern boundary of the range of Asia’s land mammal fauna, and thus the boundary of the Indomalaya and Australasia ecozones. The islands east of the Wallace line are known as Wallacea, and are considered part of Australasia. It is worth noting that it is now generally accepted that Southeast Asia was the entry point of modern humans from Africa. The name “Sundaland” was first proposed by van Bemmelen in 1949, followed by Katili (1975), Hamilton (1979) and Hutchison (1989), to describe the continental core of Southeast Asia forming the southern part of the Eurasian Plate. Sundaland is bordered to the west, south and east by tectonically active regions characterized by intense seismic and volcanic activities. The tectonically active zone is effectively a mountain belt in the process of formation, and contain many of the features typically thought to be associated with accretionary orogens: there is active subduction, transfer of material at plate boundaries, examples of collision with buoyant feature on oceanic plates, arcs and continents, and abundant magmatism. The present mountain belt is situated at the junction of three major plates: the Eurasian, Indo-Australian and Pacific Plates. It surrounds Sundaland and stretches from Sumatera to The Philippines via eastern Indonesia. It changes character and width from west to east and is composed of different segments or sutures with different characters. The Wallace Line is a faunal boundary line drawn in 1859 by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace that separates the ecozones of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia. West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin is present. Wallace noticed this clear division during his travels through the East Indies in the 19th century. The line runs through Indonesia, between Kalimantan and Sulawesi, and through the Lombok Strait between Bali and Lombok. *
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations During the Last Glacial period, there were several changes between glacier advance and retreat. The maximum extent of glaciation within this period was approximately 21,000 years ago. Scientists consider this Ice Age to be merely the latest glaciation event in a much larger ice age, one that dates back over two million years and has seen multiple glaciations. The Younger Dryas stadial – named after an indicator genus, the alpine-tundra wildflower Dryas octopetala, also referred to as the Big Freeze – was a geologically brief period (1,300 ± 70 years) of cold climatic conditions and drought which occurred between approximately 12,800 and 11,600 years ago. It followed the Bølling-Allerød interstadial (warm period) at the end of the Pleistocene and preceded the preboreal of the early Holocene. Sundaland is in the tropics where most areas are hot year-round, with diurnal variations in temperature exceeding seasonal variations, dominated by changes in precipitation, which are in turn largely influenced by the tropical rain belt or Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a zone of low pressure near the equator – a portion of the Hadley cell* – where the trade winds converge and create heavy convectional precipitation. The northeast and southeast trade winds converge in a low pressure zone. Solar heating in the region forces air to rise through convection which results in a plethora of precipitation. In addition, Sundaland was surrounded by oceans – now called the Indian and Pacific Oceans – resulting in high sea-surface evaporation. Sundaland is within the Ring of Fire, a string of volcanoes and sites of seismic activity, or earthquakes, around the edges of the Pacific Ocean. Sundaland comprises a complex assembly of continental blocks, arc terranes, suture zones and accreted continental crust in a convergent plate boundary formed by tectonic plates crashing into each other, ie the Eurasian, Indo-Australian and Pacific plates. This subduction changes the dense mantle material into buoyant magma, which rises through the crust to the Earth’s surface. Over millions of years, the rising magma creates a series of active volcanoes known as a volcanic arc.
The Hadley cell, named after George Hadley, is a tropical atmospheric circulation that is defined by the average over longitude, which features rising motion near the equator, poleward flow 10 – 15 kilometers above the surface, descending motion in the subtropics, and equatorward flow near the surface. This circulation is intimately related to the trade winds, tropical rainbelts and hurricanes, subtropical deserts and the jet streams. *
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Benefitting from the heavy precipitation, volcanic deposits in Sundaland develop into some of the richest forestry and agricultural lands on Earth. The ash from the volcanoes can be good because it releases valuable nutrients that will make the soil more fertile. Generally, volcanic soils have dark A horizons, high porosity, low pH and high moisture retention – the most suitable conditions for plant growth. The dark A horizon contains large amounts of organic acids which weather the “fresh” parent material making nutrients available. With the richness of plants, Sundaland also developed into some of the richest fauna on Earth. Large species such as tiger, rhinoceros, orangutan, elephant and leopard exist in the region, which are among almost a thousand mammal species inhabiting this region. Besides those, there are almost a thousand of bird species and more than a thousand of fish species. The vast majority of scholars accept that every living human being is descended from a small group in Africa, who then dispersed into the wider world. Archaeological and fossil evidence support an early migration of modern humans left Africa and followed the coastlines of Africa, Arabia, India and Sundaland. Ideal climatic conditions and natural resources for development were found in Sundaland. After migrating from the semi-deserted savannas of Africa, man first found a place in Sundaland where food was abundant and it was there that they left hunter-gatherer culture and invented farming, agriculture, trading and civilization, which made humanity first flourished. All this took place during the Last Glacial period, where the sea level was as low as 120 meters (400 feet) below the present value that caused a vast land of Sundaland to expose. Sundaland was the widest area to be drowned after the Last Glacial period as the glaciers started to retreat around 19,000 years ago. The sea levels continued to rise gradually to peak levels about 5,500 years ago, causing land loss on tropical coasts with flat continental shelves. Cracks in the earth’s crust as the weight of the ice shifted to the seas set off catastrophic events compounded by earthquakes, volcano eruptions, super waves and floods drowned the coastal cultures and all the flat continental shelves of Southeast Asia, and wiped out many populations. As the sea rolled in, there was a mass migration from the sinking continent.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Younger Dryas period (approximately 12,800 – 11,600 years ago) is one of the most well-known examples of such abrupt change. The prevailing theory of the cause is by significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic “Conveyor”, which circulates warm tropical waters northward, in response to a sudden influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America. Concurring events occurring around this period have been observed, showing that the epoch had inflicted great impact on the planet. The ending time of the Younger Dryas period corresponds to the beginning of the Holocene period which extends to the present time. The Holocene encompasses the growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all its written history, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition toward urban living in the present. In archaeology, the end of Younger Dryas is also the end of Paleolithic and the beginning of Neolithic ages. There has been a sharp decline in the population of the world beginning in the early Holocene, or the end of the Younger Dryas, causing a bottle neck of human population at about mid-Holocene. There were population turnovers from Southeast, East and South Asia to Europe, Near East and the Caucasus, suggesting that the end of the Younger Dryas period caused the refugia of those populations to migrate and establish new civilizations. Establishment of new civilizations around the world with building, farming, tool and weapon technology occurred at nearly coincide with the Younger Dryas period that have been detected through investigations of archaeological sites. The Younger Dryas disasters are also documented as legends, myths or tales in almost every region on Earth, observable with tremendous similarities. They are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into Bronze Age and Neolithic prehistory. The overwhelming consistency among legends and myths of flood and the repopulation of man from a flood hero similar to the Noah Flood are found in distant parts of the Earth. The myths similar to the Garden of Eden, Paradise or Divine Land echo among the populations around the world. Memories of their origin are documented in their legends, such as the stories of Atlantis, Neserser, Land of Punt, Land of Ophir, Kumari Kandam, Kangdez and Taprobana. Those indicate that they were derived from a common origin. Pyramids have been built by civilizations in many parts of the world. For thousands of years, the largest structures on Earth were pyramids. They spread 4
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations from Egypt to America, that emerged separately from one another by oceans who supposedly never discovered each other’s existence. There are no firmly established connections between the different civilizations that built them, but their similarities show that they sprang from a common origin. In addition, there are thousands of spoken languages in the world and most can be traced back in history to show how they are related to each other. Scholastic belief by etymologists and linguists are positive that all world languages sprang from a common source. With a bulk of collected archaeological and genetic studies, as well as legends, myths and tales, the author makes an attempt to reassemble the possible connections of the evidence to obtain the pattern of the population dispersal using a “Potsherd Model”. In the model, various evidence (“sherds”) are reassembled to form the pattern of the population dispersal (“pot”). Missing sherds causes holes on the pot are filled in with hypotheses, in which each hole is connected to the surrounding sherds. With the above piling of evidence, the author concludes to suggest that Sundaland is a strong candidate to trace it as the cradle of civilizations, began from about 50,000 – 70,000 years ago until the massive dispersal around the Younger Dryas period. ***
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Sundaland Sundaland is a bio-geographical region of Southeastern Asia which encompasses the Sunda Shelf, the part of the Asian continental shelf that was exposed during the Last Glacial period. The Last Glacial period – popularly known as the Ice Age – was the most recent glacial period within the current Ice Age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 12,000 years ago. It included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of Kalimantan, Java and Sumatera, and their surrounding islands. The eastern boundary of Sundaland is the Wallace Line*, identified by Alfred Russel Wallace as the eastern boundary of the range of Asia’s land mammal fauna, and thus the boundary of the Indomalaya and Australasia ecozones. The islands east of the Wallace line are known as Wallacea, and are considered part of Australasia. It is worth noting that it is now generally accepted that Southeast Asia was the entry point of modern humans from Africa. The name “Sundaland” was first proposed by van Bemmelen in 1949, followed Figure 1 – Sundaland at the Last Glacial Maximum by Katili (1975), Hamilton period. (1979) and Hutchison (1989), to describe the continental core of Southeast Asia forming the southern part of the Eurasian plate. Sundaland is bordered to the west, south and east by tectonically active region characterized by intense seismicity and volcanic The Wallace Line is a faunal boundary line drawn in 1859 by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace that separates the ecozones of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia. West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin is present. Wallace noticed this clear division during his travels through the East Indies in the 19th century. The line runs through Indonesia, between Kalimantan and Sulawesi, and through the Lombok Strait between Bali and Lombok. *
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations activity. The tectonically active zone is effectively a mountain belt in the process of formation, and contain many of the features typically thought to be associated with accretionary orogens: there is active subduction, transfer of material at plate boundaries, examples of collision with buoyant feature on oceanic plates, arcs and continents, and abundant magmatism. The present orogenic belt is situated at the junction of three major plates: the Eurasian, Indo-Australian and Pacific plates. It surrounds Sundaland and stretches from Sumatera to The Philippines via eastern Indonesia. It changes character and width from west to east and is composed of different segments or sutures with different character. The South China Sea and adjoining landmasses had been investigated by scientists such as Molengraaff and Umbgrove, who had postulated ancient, now submerged drainage systems. These were mapped by Tjia in 1980 and described in greater detail by Emmel and Curray in 1982 complete with river deltas, floodplains and back swamps. The ecology of the exposed Sunda Shelf has been investigated by analyzing cores drilled into the ocean bed. The pollens found in the cores have revealed a complex ecosystem that changed over time. The flooding of Sundaland separated species that had once shared the same environment such as the river threadfin (Polydactylus macrophthalmus, Bleeker 1858) that had once thrived in a river system now called “North Sunda River” or “Molengraaff River”. The fish is now found in the Kapuas River on the island of Kalimantan, and in the Musi and Batanghari rivers in Sumatera. During the Last Glacial period, there were several changes between glacier advance and retreat. The maximum extent of glaciation within this period was approximately 21,000 years ago. Scientists consider this Ice Age to be merely the latest glaciation event in a much larger ice age, one that dates back over two million years and has seen multiple glaciations. While the general pattern of global cooling and glacier advance was similar, local differences in the development of glacier advance and retreat makes it difficult to compare the details from continent to continent. From the point of view of human archaeology, it falls in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. When the glaciation event started, Homo sapiens were confined to Africa and used tools comparable to those used by Neanderthals in Europe and the Levant and by Homo erectus in Asia. Near the end of the event, Homo sapiens spread into Europe, Asia and Australia. The retreat of the glaciers allowed groups of Asians to migrate to the Americas and populate them. 7
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Younger Dryas stadial, also referred to -30 as the Big Freeze, was a -35 geologically brief period -40 (1,300 ± 70 years) of -45 cold climatic conditions -50 and drought which occurred between -55 14 8 22 20 18 16 10 12 approximately 12,800 Age (thousands of years) © 2015, Dhani Irwanto and 11,600 years ago. Figure 2 – Post-Glacial temperature measured from the The Younger Dryas Greenland ice layers (data from Richard B Alley 2000). stadial is thought to have been caused by the collapse of the North American ice sheets, although rival theories have been proposed. It followed the Bølling-Allerød interstadial (warm period) at the end of the Pleistocene and preceded the preboreal of the early Holocene. It is named after an indicator genus, the alpine-tundra wildflower Dryas octopetala. Younger Dryas
Holocene
Allerød
Bølling
Older Dryas
Allerød
Oldest Dryas
Last Glacial Maximum
Mean annual temperature (°C)
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The Dryas stadials were cold periods which interrupted the warming trend since the Last Glacial Maximum 21,000 years ago. The Older Dryas occurred approximately 1,000 years before the Younger Dryas and lasted about 400 years. The Oldest Dryas is dated between approximately 18,000 and 14,700 years ago.
Flora and Fauna In warmer regions of the world, climates at the Last Glacial Maximum were cooler and almost everywhere drier. In extreme cases, such as South Australia and the Sahul, rainfall could be diminished by up to ninety percent from present, with floras diminished to almost the same degree as in glaciated areas of Europe and North America. Even in less affected regions, rainforest cover was greatly diminished, especially in West Africa where a few refugia were surrounded by tropical grassland. The Amazon rainforest was split into two large blocks by extensive savanna, and it is probable that the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia were similarly affected, with deciduous forests expanding in their place except on the east and west extremities of the Sundaland shelf. Only in Central America and the Chocó region of Colombia did tropical rainforests remain substantially intact – probably due to the extraordinarily heavy rainfall of these regions.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Most of the world’s deserts expanded. Exceptions were in what is now the western United States, where changes in the jet stream* brought heavy rain to areas that are now desert and large pluvial lakes formed, the best known being Lake Bonneville in Utah. This also occurred in Afghanistan and Iran where a major lake formed in the Dasht-e Kavir. In Australia, shifting sand dunes covered half the continent, whilst the Chaco and Pampas in South America became similarly dry. Present-day subtropical regions also lost most of their forest cover, notably in eastern Australia, the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, and southern China, where open woodland became dominant due to drier conditions. In northern China – unglaciated despite its cold climate – a mixture of grassland and tundra prevailed, and even here, the northern limit of tree growth was at least Figure 3 – Reconstruction of vegetation cover in the Last twenty degrees farther Glacial Maximum period in Sundaland based on fossil south than today. pollen samples taken from lake and marsh sediments (data from N Ray and JM Adams 2001).
In the period immediately before the Last Glacial Maximum, many areas that became completely barren desert were wetter than they are today, notably in southern Australia, where Aboriginal occupation is believed to coincide with a wet period between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago. During the Last Glacial Maximum, shifts in climate altered the world’s vegetation patterns from what they had been prior to the formation of the ice sheets. However, the types of vegetation present during the glaciation are similar to those found today. Many such trees, mosses, flowering plants, insects, birds, Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow air currents found in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. The main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause, the transition between the troposphere and the stratosphere (where temperature increases with altitude).
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations shelled mollusks and mammals are examples. N Ray and JM Adams (2001) has conducted studies that much of Siberia and central Asia was desert-like, but with some large areas of steppe-tundra (rather resembling semi-desert in most areas). China had relatively little tree cover. The vegetation resembled dry steppe in northern China, with scattered areas of trees in the uplands across southern China (in a predominantly grassland lowland landscape). Japan had an open woodland cover. In Southeast Asia, there was much more open grassland and dry forest than at present. Vegetation in Sundaland during the Last Glacial Maximum (approximately 21,000 years ago) consists of tropical rain forests, monsoon or dry forests, tropical woodlands, tropical grassland and montane tropical forest. Cannon et al (2009) have conducted research on the distribution of vegetation in Sundaland during the Last Glacial Maximum using explicit spatial model coupled with the evidence of geography, paleoclimatology and geology. The vegetation is divided into three types, namely coastal/swamp, lowland and highland evergreen rainforests. Coastal/swamp evergreen rainforests experienced the most dynamic biogeographic history of the 3 forest types examined. At the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum, when sea levels fell below the shelf margin, mangroves were restricted to a very narrow belt along coastlines. However, many coastal swamp taxa would have maintained widespread inland distributions on poorly drained interfluves on watershed or kerapah peats, and in kerangas vegetation*, which share many taxa with coastal peat swamp forests. As the shelf began to flood, especially from 11,000 to 9,000 years ago, the coastal/swamp evergreen rainforests would have experienced a dramatic but relatively brief expansion. Since about 8,000 years ago, coastal forests have roughly remained in their present positions, with the extent of mangroves, freshwater alluvial and peatswamps being determined by the patterns of progradation of individual river deltas following the Holocene transgression. The coastal/swamp evergreen The word kerangas, which means “land which cannot grow rice”, came from the Iban language in Kalimantan. Heath forests occur on acidic sandy soils that are the result of the area’s siliceous parent rocks. Permanently waterlogged heath forests are known as kerapah forests. The sandy soil of the heath forest are often lacking in nutrients; it is generally considered that nitrogen is the nutrient which is most lacking for plant growth in these forests. This is in contrast to many other lowland rain forests where phosphorus is considered to be lacking. A more recent hypothesis, proposed by Proctor (1999), is that these forests are growing on soils which are highly acidic, such that hydrogen ion toxicity prevents the growth of non-adapted species.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations rainforests also experienced a sudden and complete geographic relocation over hundreds of kilometers during the flooding, as the coastline retreated quickly across the shelf, coupled with an equally dramatic change in core area from minimal at the Last Glacial Maximum to maximal at the time of the flooding of Sundaland.
Figure 4 – Vegetation map of Sundaland at the Last Glacial Maximum based on historical data from Bird et al (2005) with several adjustments, for open (left) and closed (right) corridors (Cannon et al 2009).
The total area and core area of the lowland evergreen rainforests were substantially greater than current conditions through the vast majority of the last glacial cycle, with the presence of an open corridor of seasonal forest having relatively little impact. The total area and core area of the highland evergreen rainforests experienced a gradual upward trend through the last glacial cycle, with a fairly dramatic peak at the Last Glacial Maximum. In general, the distribution of the highland evergreen rainforests was very sensitive to the interaction between temperature change and vegetation lapse rate. Some mammals also went extinct around the world during this time but it is clear that they did live during the Last Glacial period. Mammoths, mastodons, long-horned bisons, saber-toothed cats and giant ground sloths are among these. Human history also began in the Pleistocene and we were heavily impacted by the last glaciation. Most importantly, the drop in sea level aided in our movement from Asia into North America as the landmass connecting the two areas in the Alaska’s Bering Straight (Beringia) surfaced to act as a bridge. 11
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Sea Surface Temperature Change Gagan et al in 2004 reconstructed the post-glacial temperature history, relative to late 20th century values, in the Indo-Pacific region during the last 20,000 years using foraminiferal Mg/Ca, alkenone, and coral Sr/Ca thermometry. Foraminiferal Mg/Ca suggests that the near equatorial portion of the warm pool cooled by 2 – 4 °C during the Last Glacial Maximum. Interestingly, it shows a rapid rise to early Holocene sea surface temperatures which were as warm as modern values. Comparisons of Mg/Ca and 18O* measured in the same foraminifers clearly indicate that the rise in sea surface temperature led deglaciation by 3,000 years (Lea et al 2000, Stott et al 2002). In general, the results of alkenone unsaturation paleo-temperature estimates for the IndoPacific region are consistent with the 3 °C cooling during the Last Glacial Maximum indicated by foraminiferal Mg/Ca. Like the foraminiferal Mg/Ca, the alkenone records show sea surface Figure 5 – Comparison of reconstructed sea surface temperatures within 1 °C temperatures, relative to late 20th century values, in the Indo- of modern values by the Pacific region during the last 20,000 years using foraminiferal early Holocene. Mg/Ca, alkenone, andcoral Sr/Ca thermometry (Gagan et al 2004).
Revised coral Sr/Ca estimates of post glacial sea surface temperatures using a single Sr/Ca shows a clearer picture emerges for the Southern Hemisphere portion of the IndoPacific region. The Vanuatu coral sea surface temperature estimates for the early * δ18O or delta-O-18 is a measure of the ratio of stable isotopes 18O:16O (oxygen18:oxygen-16) commonly used as a measure of the temperature of precipitation, as a measure of groundwater/mineral interactions, as an indicator of processes that show isotopic fractionation, like methanogenesis.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Holocene indicates cooling of 1 – 3 °C. New coral Sr/Ca records from Alor, southeast Indonesia, show that sea surface temperatures reached modern values by 8,500 years, in good agreement with the Mg/Ca and alkenones. This generally warm period is interrupted by a brief cold-spike centered on 8,100 years (Gagan, unpublished data in Gagan et al 2004). Mid-Holocene sea surface temperatures in Indonesia (Sumba) fall within 0.5 °C of modern values, whereas corals from the inshore Great Barrier Reef, Australia, indicate sea surface temperatures ~1 °C warmer than the present. The sea surface temperature in Sundaland region during the Last Glacial Maximum (about 21,000 years ago) was approximately 3 – 4 °C below the present-day temperature.
Sea Level Change Fleming et al (1998), Fleming (2000) and Milne et al (2005) collected data from various reports and adjusted them for subsequent vertical geologic motions, primarily those associated with post-glacial continental and hydroisostatic rebound. The first refers to deformations caused by the weight of continental ice sheets pressing down on the land, the latter refers to uplift in coastal areas resulting from the increased weight of water associated with rising sea levels. It should be noted that because of the latter effect and associated uplift, many islands, especially in the Pacific, exhibited higher local sea levels in the mid Holocene than they do today. Uncertainty about the magnitude of these corrections is the dominant uncertainty in many measurements of sea level change.
Figure 6 – Post-Glacial sea level (Fleming et al 1998, Fleming 2000 and Milne et al 2005, image created by Robert A Rohde 2009).
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The black curve on Figure 6 is based on minimizing the sum of squares error weighted distance between this curve and the plotted data. It was constructed by adjusting a number of specified tie points, typically placed every 1,000 years but at times adjusted for sparse or rapidly varying data. A small number of extreme outliers were dropped.
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations It should be noted that some authors propose the existence of significant shortterm fluctuations in sea level such that the sea level curve might oscillate up and down about this ~1000 years mean state. Others dispute this and argue that sea level change has largely been a smooth and gradual process. However, at least one episode of rapid deglaciation, known as Meltwater Pulse 1A*, is agreed upon and indicated on the plot. A variety of other accelerated periods of deglaciation have been proposed (ie MWP-1B, 2, 3, 4), but it is unclear if these actually occurred or merely reflect misinterpretation of difficult measurements. No other events are evident in the data presented above. The lowest point of sea level during the last glaciation is not well constrained by observations (shown here as a dashed curve), but is generally argued to be approximately 130 ± 10 meters below present sea level and to have occurred at approximately 22 ± 3 thousand years ago. The time of lowest sea level is more or less equivalent to the last glacial maximum. Prior to this time, ice sheets were still increasing in size so that sea level was decreasing almost continuously over a period of approximately 100,000 years. Observations made by Kurt Lambeck et al in 2014 shows the major cause of sea-level change during ice ages is the exchange of water between ice and ocean and the planet’s dynamic response to the changing surface load. Inversion of around 1,000 observations for the past 35,000 years from localities far from former ice margins has provided new constraints on the fluctuation of ice volume in this interval. The key results are as follow. A rapid final fall in global sea level of about 40 m in less than 2,000 years at the onset of the glacial maximum about 30,000 year before present. 2. A slow fall to -134 m from 29,000 to 21,000 years ago with a maximum grounded ice volume of about 52 million km3 greater than today. 3. After an initial short duration rapid rise and a short interval of nearconstant sea level, the main phase of deglaciation occurred from around 16,500 years ago to about 8,200 years ago at an average rate of rise of 12 1.
Meltwater Pulse 1A was a considerable post-glacial sea level rise of about 20 m in less than 500 years, perhaps just 200 years. The sea level is estimated to have risen at a rate of 37 to 65 mm/yr – the pulse was much larger than current sea level rise, which has been judged to be in the region of 2 to 3 mm/yr. The meltwater event occurred in a period of rapid climate change when the Holocene glacial retreat was going on during the end of the last ice age. Several researchers have narrowed the period of the pulse to between 13,000 and 14,600 years ago. The pulse is framed historically between the Bølling-Allerød (B-A) interstadial and the Antarctic Cold Reversal/Older Dryas events.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations m per 1,000 years punctuated by periods of greater, particularly at 14,500 to 14,000 years ago at more than 40 mm per year, and lesser, from 12,500 to 11,500 years ago (Younger Dryas), rates. 4. No evidence for a global rapid rise event at around 11,300 years ago. 5. A progressive decrease in the rate of rise from around 8,200 to around 2,500 years ago, after which ocean volumes remained nearly constant until the renewed sea-level rise at 100 – 150 years ago, with no evidence of oscillations exceeding 15 – 20 cm in time intervals more than 200 years Figure 7 – Depth-age relationship of all data with 2σ error estimates (Lambeck et al 2014). from 6,000 to 150 years ago. The sea level in the Last Glacial Maximum (about 21,000 years ago) was approximately 130 meters below the present-day sea level.
Topography and Bathymetry Present-day topographic and bathymetric data covering the Sunda Shelf in geographic projection (latitude and longitude) were extracted by the author from the GTOPO30 elevation grids published by USGS*. GTOPO30 refers to 30-arc second (approximately 0.9 km near equator) horizontal latitude and longitude spatial resolution of digital elevation model (DEM) file format. Other similar grids like GEBCO_8 published by IHO† and IOC/UNESCO‡, and ETOPO1
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. † The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is an inter-governmental organization representing the hydrographic community. ‡ The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC/UNESCO) was established by resolution 2.31 adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO. The IOC assists governments to address their individual and collective ocean and coastal management needs. *
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations published by NOAA* are also used as references. A color scheme is applied to the DEM in which areas below certain sea level are represented by blue colors so that the coastlines at a certain period can be easily identified. Green colors are applied for the areas above certain sea level and below the present-day sea level, and color gradients are applied for the areas above them. Several assumptions are made in the analytical procedures (Sathiamurthy et al 2006). First, it is assumed that the current topography and bathymetry of the region approximate the physiography that existed during the span of time from 21,000 years ago to present. However, because sedimentation and scouring processes have affected the bathymetry of the Sunda Shelf over the last 21,000 years (Schimanski and Stattegger 2005), we know that this is only an approximation. Thus, it should be emphasized that the depth and geometry of the Sunda Shelf and the existing present-day submerged depressions do not reflect past conditions precisely. Second, it is assumed that the present-day sea bed are likely to have existed during the Last Glacial Maximum and have not resulted from seabed scouring by currents, limestone solution, or tectonic movement-possibilities that were pointed out by Umbgrove (1949) as perhaps taking place during early PostPleistocene transgression. In the case of tectonic movement, Geyh et al (1979) mentioned that the Sumatera Strait was tectonically stable at least during the Holocene. Furthermore, Tjia et al (1983), state that the Sunda Shelf has been largely tectonically stable since the beginning of the Tertiary. Nevertheless, Tjia et al (1983) indicated that sea level rise in this region may be attributed to a combination of actual sea level rise and vertical crust movement. Hill (1968) in reference to earlier work done by Umbgrove (1949), suggested the possibility of limestone solution as a mode of depression formation (as in the case of the Lumut pit off the coast of Perak, Malaysia), and gave an alternative explanation, which was of tectonic origin. Sea bed sedimentation data are rarely available but approximation of sedimentation process is made in generating the topographic and bathymetric regional map of Sundaland. In similar conditions, other processes like littoral drift, delta formation, meandering, river regime change and river bed movement are also approximated and incorporated on the maps. Ancient lakes are The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations reconstructed from the DEM and any geological history that exist. Small and insignificant islands are removed. Along with the topographic and bathymetric map, shorelines at certain sea water levels, ground surface slope, river watersheds and flow pattern of rivers are also generated and place them in different layers.
a
b
c
d
e
f
Figure 8 – Estimates of sea level in Sundaland and its surroundings in the Last Glacial period generated by the author: (a) 20,000, (b) 16,000, (c) 12,000, (d) 10,000, (e) 8,000 and (f) 6,000 years ago.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 9 – A map showing the Sundaland around the Last Glacial Maximum (about 21,000 years ago) from GTOPO30 elevation grids published by USGS (Irwanto 2015). The sea water level was around 120 meter below the present-day sea water level. The flow pattern of the rivers below the present-day sea water level is generated using the same grids and approximations of sea sedimentation, littoral drift, delta formation, meandering, river regime change and river bed movement. The present-day inland rivers are combined. The colors other than blue represent the ground levels. The thin red lines are the present-day shorelines.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 10 – A map showing the Sundaland around the Younger Dryas (12,800 – 11,600 years ago) using the same method as in the previous figure (Irwanto 2015). The sea water level was around 60 meter below the present-day sea water level.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 11 – A map showing the Sundaland ground slope around the Last Glacial Maximum (about 21,000 years ago) using the same method as in the previous figures (Irwanto 2015). 1% slope and flatter (light green color) are highlighted to show the widely spread plains in the Sundaland. Dark green color represents slopes steeper than 1%.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
2 3
5 4
1
1
2
4
5
3
Figure 12 – A map showing the Sundaland major watersheds around the Last Glacial Maximum (about 21,000 years ago) using the same method as in the previous figures (Irwanto 2015). River names are given referring to the sea, strait, gulf, island or present day river names occupied by the watersheds.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Present-day Features Tectonic Framework Sundaland comprises a complex assembly of continental blocks, arc terranes, suture zones and accreted continental crust. The principal continental blocks that form the core of Sundaland and their volcanic arc terranes have been identified and established over the last two decades.
Figure 13 – Main active faults in Sundaland at the zone of convergence of the plates of Sunda, Eurasia, Philippines, India and Australia. Smaller plates of Timor and Banda Sea (part of Sunda), Maluku (part of Philippines) and Andaman (part of Eurasia) are also shown. Large arrows represent absolute motions of plates. Triangles are the volcanoes.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Earthquakes The subduction of the Indo-Australian Plate beneath a block of the Eurasian Plate is associated with numerous earthquakes. Several of these earthquakes are notable for their size.
Figure 14 – Plots of major earthquake occurrences ever recorded and their intensities in Mw scales*. Note that Sundaland is encircled by earthquake prone lines. Data source: USGS.
* Moment Magnitude (M ) is a scale of earthquake in terms of the energy released, w which is equal to the rigidity of the Earth multiplied by the average amount of slip on the fault and the size of the area that slipped.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Tsunamis A tsunami is a series of waves generated by an impulsive disturbance in the ocean or in a small, connected body of water. As the tsunami approaches the coastline, the wave energy is compressed into a much shorter distance, creating potentially large destructive waves.
Figure 15 – Plots of tsunami sources ever recorded and their created water heights. Note that tsunamis occurred frequently in Banda Sea and Sulawesi Sea that could affect the inner islands. Data source: NOAA.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Volcano Eruptions A volcano is a rupture on the crust of a planetary mass object, such as the Earth, which allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. Volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging.
Figure 16 – Plots of volcano eruptions ever known and their Volcanic Explosivity Indices (VEI)*. Note for large scale Tambora eruption in 1815 and frequent Krakatau eruptions being the largest in 1883. Data source: NOAA.
Volcano eruption is scaled in Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) determined by its volume of products, eruption cloud height and qualitative observations values.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel and hail.
Figure 17 – A map showing the average annual precipitation in millimeters. Note that Kalimantan Island is mostly precipitous. Data source: WorldClim*.
WorldClim is a set of global climate layers (climate grids) with a spatial resolution of about 1 square kilometer developed by RJ Hijmans, SE Cameron, JL Parra, PG Jones and A Jarvis (2005).
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Temperature Although air temperature changes little from season to season or from one region to the next, cooler temperatures prevail at higher elevations. In general, temperatures drop approximately 1 °C per 90-meter increase in elevation from sea level.
Figure 18 – A map showing the average temperature in °C. Note that the plains in Sundaland have relatively warm temperature around 30 °C. Data source: WorldClim.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Land Cover
Figure 19 – A map showing the land cover in 2009. Note that most of the large islands are covered mostly by broadleaf forest, grassland and cropland. Data source and copyright of the land cover: ESA and UC Louvain.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Flora Sundaland holds about 25,000 different species of plants. 15,000 of them are endemic to this region and cannot be found anywhere else. At least 117 plant genera are endemic in this biodiversity hotspot. 59 of them are found in Kalimantan and 17 in Sumatera. Unique plants from this region are similar to ones from the Asian continent, mentioning rafflesia (Rafflesia arnoldii), the pitcher plants and Javanese edelweiss (Anaphalis javanica) as examples.
Figure 21 – Rafflesia flower (Rafflesia arnoldii). Source: Wikimedia Commons, by ma_suska.
Figure 21 – Javanese edelweiss (Anaphalis javanica). Photo by the author.
Scyphostegiaceae is a plant family represented by a single species, Scyphostegia borneensis, which is endemic to Kalimantan. Another 155 species of Dipterocarpus are also endemic to this island. Kalimantan also has more than 2,000 species of orchids. The forests in Sumatera include more than 100 species of Dipterocarpus; nearly a dozen of them are endemic to this island. Java has about 270 endemic orchid species.
Figure 22 – Melati (Jasminum sambac). Source: Wikimedia Commons, by Fanghong.
Melati (Jasminum sambac), a small white flower with a sweet fragrance, is the national flower of Indonesia, together with anggrek bulan (Phalaenopsis amabilis) and padma raksasa rafflesia (Rafflesia arnoldii). All three were chosen on World Environment Day on 5 June 1990 by President Soeharto. On the other occasion, bunga bangkai (Titan arum) was also added as puspa langka (rare flowers) together with rafflesia.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Fauna Sundaland fauna share similar characteristics with the mainland Asian fauna. During the Ice Age, lower sea levels connected the Asian continent with the western Indonesian archipelago. This enabled animals from the Asian mainland to migrate over dry land to Sundaland. As a result, large species such as tiger, rhinoceros, orangutan, elephant and leopard exist in this region. The Makassar Strait, between Kalimantan and Sulawesi, and the Lombok Strait, between Bali and Lombok, are the deep-water Wallace Line separators, marking the limit of the Sundaland region.
Figure 23 – Kalimantan orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Sundaland has a total of 381 mammal species, of which 173 are endemic to this region. Two species of orangutans, Kalimantan orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and Sumateran orangutans (Pongo abelii) are listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list. Other mammals, such as the Kalimantan proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), the Sumateran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) and the Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus), are also seriously threatened.
According to the Conservation International*, a 771 bird species are found in Sundaland, 146 of them are endemic to the region. Java and Bali have at least 20 endemic species, including the Bali starling (Leucopsar rothschildi) and the Javan plover (Charadrius javanicus). 449 species in 125 genera of reptiles are estimated to live in Sundaland. 249 species and 24 genera are endemic. Three reptile families are endemic to this region: Anomochilidae, Xenophidiidae and Lanthanotidae, the last represented by the Kalimantan earless monitor (Lanthanotus borneensis), a rare and little-known lizard. Around 242 species of amphibians in 41 genera live in this region. 172 species of them, including caecilians, and six genera are endemic. Around 1000 fish species are known to live in the rivers, lakes, and swamps of Sundaland. Kalimantan has about 430 species, with 164 of them considered endemic. Sumatera has 270 species, 42 of which are endemic. The golden arowana (Scleropages formosus) originates from this region. Around 200 new species of fish have been identified in the last ten years. Conservation International (CI) is an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The organization’s intent is to protect nature.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Mineral Resources
Figure 24 – A map showing identified locations of mineral resources, especially silver (Ag), gold (Au), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), tin (Sn) and zinc (Zn). Some minerals are in the same locations as the others so they are overlaid and not shown on the figure. Note that Kalimantan Island is rich for gold while Malay Peninsula, Bangka Island and Belitung Island are rich for tin. Copper, lead and zinc are spotted and scattered. Data sources: USGS and various.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Pre-historic Remains Pre-history refers to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. Pre-historic remains presented here may consist of human skeleton, potteries, metal works, cave painting, burial sites, stone tools, megalithic stones and step pyramids.
Figure 25 – A map showing the locations of pre-historic remains. Note that the remains are densely found in Java, Bali, southern Sumatera, southern Sulawesi and southern Kalimantan. No undersea remain has been investigated. Data sources: various, collected by the author.
***
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Population Dispersal Many studies have used genetic data from populations today to learn about the peopling of the globe and subsequent adaptation to local conditions and to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the human species by considering how global patterns of human variation could be produced given different evolutionary scenarios. Available fossil, archeological and climatic data offer many hypotheses, and as such genetics, with the advent of genotyping and sequencing techniques and an increase in the availability of ancient samples, offers another important tool for testing theories relating to modern human history. A largely accepted theory argues that every living human being is descended from a small group in Africa, who then dispersed into the wider world. There were two possible routes (not mutually exclusive) at the time: a northern route, through Egypt and Sinai, and a southern route, through Ethiopia, the Bab el Mandeb Strait, and the Arabian Peninsula. Most of the scholars accepted that genetic, climatic and archaeological evidence suggests a single southern exit of modern humans from Africa to Sundaland. A series of founding bottlenecks characterized rapid migration around the Indian Ocean coast to Kalimantan and Bali at the tip of the Sunda Shelf. Then, a sea-level low stand permitted multiple colonization of the Sahul, followed by prolonged isolation until the Post-glacial period, during which maritime gene flow from Island Southeast Asia recommenced. There are two conflicting proposals about the timing of the exit of the first humans out of Africa. The first claims that the Eurasian dispersal took place around 50,000 – 60,000 years ago, reaching Australia by 45,000 – 50,000 years ago. The second posits that there was a much earlier exodus around 100,000 – 130,000 years ago, prior to the eruption of Mount Toba in Northern Sumatera dated to 74,000 years ago. According to the previous theory, the ancestors of the modern day Austronesian-speaking populations of the Southeast Asian archipelago and adjacent regions are believed to have migrated southward, from the East Asia mainland to Taiwan, and then to the rest of Maritime Southeast Asia (Bellwood and Dizon, 2005). However, recent finding points to the now-submerged Sundaland as the possible cradle of Asian population. 33
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
“Out of Africa” Hypothesis The “Out of Africa” or “African Replacement” hypothesis is a theory that argues that every living human being (Homo sapiens) is descended from a small group in Africa, who then dispersed into the wider world displacing earlier forms such as Neanderthals* and Denisovans†. Early major proponents of this theory were led by Chris Stringer. The “Out of Africa” theory was bolstered in the late 1980s by research on mitochondrial DNA studies by Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking and Allan Wilson which suggested that all humans ultimately descended from one female in Africa. Scholars largely agree that our modern species originated in east Africa by 195,000 – 160,000 years ago. Recent evidence has shown that the migration out of Africa was happened in multiple waves. The number and timing of the waves is still being debated. The earliest known pathway “Out of Africa” probably occurred between 130,000 – 115,000 years ago, along the Nile Corridor and into the Levant, evidenced by Middle Paleolithic sites at Qazfeh and Skhul. That migration (sometimes confusingly called “Out of Africa 2” because it was discovered more recently than the next) is generally regarded as a “failed dispersal”, because only a handful of Homo sapiens sites have been identified as being this old outside of Africa. However, stone tools thought to be associated with modern humans have been found embedded in the volcanic ash of Mount Toba, provides clear evidence that modern humans had reached Southeast Asia before the Toba eruption more than 74,000 years ago. The stone tools discovered in the Neanderthals were a species or subspecies of archaic human, in the genus Homo. Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000 years ago. They were closely related to modern humans, sharing 99.7% of DNA. Remains left by Neanderthals include bone and stone tools, which are found in Eurasia, from Western Europe to Central and Northern Asia. Neanderthals are generally classified by paleontologists as the species Homo neanderthalensis, having separated from the Homo sapiens lineage 600,000 years ago, but a minority consider them to be a subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis). † Denisovans is an extinct species or subspecies of human in the genus Homo. Pending its status as either species or subspecies it currently carries the temporary name Homo sp. Altai, and Homo sapiens ssp. Denisova. In March 2010, scientists announced the discovery of a finger bone fragment of a juvenile female who lived about 41,000 years ago, found in the remote Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, a cave that has also been inhabited by Neanderthals and modern humans. Two teeth belonging to different members of the same population have since been reported. In November 2015, a tooth fossil containing DNA was reported to have been found and studied. A bone needle dated to 50,000 years ago was discovered at the archaeological site in 2016 and is described as the oldest needle known. *
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations archeological site of Jebel Faya (present-day United Arab Emirates) and the Nubian complex of Dhofar (present-day Oman) have provided further support for an early migration via Arabia. The recent discovery of human teeth from Fuyan Cave in Daoxian, southern China, dated to 80,000 – 120,000 years ago, a premolar from Punung Cave, Java, dated on faunal grounds to 80,000 – 126,000 years ago, a human foot bone from Callao Cave, northern Philippines, dated to ca 67,000 years ago, and fossil human teeth from Lidahair Cave, Sumatera, dated to 63,000 – 73,000 years ago support the pre-Toba dispersal throughout Asia. A later pulse from northern Africa occurred from about 65,000 – 40,000 years ago, through Arabia: that one, scholars believe, eventually led to the human colonization of Europe and Asia, and the eventual replacement of Neanderthals in Europe. The fact that these two pulses occurred in the past are largely undebated today. A third, and increasingly convincing, human migration is the southern dispersal hypothesis, which argues that an additional wave of colonization occurred between those two better-known pulses. Growing archaeological and genetic evidence supports the existence of this earlier southern route into South Asia. Over the past decade or so, evidence has been piling up that although pretty much all paleontologists agree that humans did evolve in Africa and move out from there, they met other human species – specifically Denisovans and Neanderthals – as they moved out into the world. All living humans are still one species – but it is now undeniable that they share differing levels of admixture of species which developed and died out in Eurasia. Those species are no longer survived – except as tiny pieces of DNA. The Southern Dispersal Route refers to a theory that an early migration of modern humans left Africa and followed the coastlines of Africa, Arabia, India and Sundaland, arriving in Australia and Melanesia at least as early as 65,000 years ago. Most versions of the southern dispersal hypothesis suggests that modern humans with a generalized subsistence strategy based on hunting and gathering coastal resources (shellfish, fish, sea lions and rodents, as well as bovids and antelope), left Africa between 130,000 and 70,000 years ago, and traveled along the coasts of Arabia, India and Sundaland, arriving in Australia by 50,000 – 65,000 years ago. The notion that humans frequently used coastal areas as pathways of migration was developed by Carl Sauer in the 1950s. Coastal movement is part of other 35
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations migration theories including the original out of Africa and the Pacific coastal migration colonizing the Americas ca 15,000 years ago. Archaeological and fossil evidence supporting the Southern Dispersal Route includes similarities in stone tools and symbolic behaviors at several archaeological sites throughout the world.
Figure 26 – Southern Dispersal Route with archaeological and fossil evidence.
Further, the presence of other humans sharing planet Earth at the same time as the migrations out of Africa (Neanderthals, Homo erectus, Denisovans, Homo floresiensis, Homo heidelbergensis), and the amount of interaction Homo sapiens had with them during their sojourns is still widely debated.
Mount Toba Super-eruption At about 74,000 years ago, Mount Toba at the present location of Lake Toba on the island of Sumatera erupted in a massive explosion, pumped massive amounts of sun-shrouding ash and gases into the atmosphere. The supereruption has multiple effects on the biosphere. Sulfur dioxide combines with water vapor to form sulfuric acid particles that scatter, reflect and absorb sunlight. The planet’s surface cools, the stratosphere heats, photosynthesis is reduced. A phase of dramatic global cooling ensued, evidenced by a 6-year global winter. Scientists have long debated just how extensive and enduring those effects were. One study, for example, suggested the Toba blast spawned a thousand-year ice age that only some 10,000 individuals survived. Another has 36
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations found evidence of humans thriving in relatively nearby India shortly after the eruption. This Toba super-eruption was the last and largest of four eruptions of Toba during the Quaternary period and the biggest volcanic blast on Earth in the past 2.5 million years. It had an estimated volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 8 (the maximum), or a magnitude ≥ M8. Researchers estimate some 2,000 – 3,000 cubic kilometers (480 – 720 cubic miles) of rock and ash – based on dense-rock equivalent (DRE) estimates of eruptive volume – were ejected from the volcano when it exploded. Toba’s erupted mass deposited an ash layer about 15 centimeters (6 inches) thick over the whole of South Asia. A blanket of volcanic ash was also deposited over the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and South China Sea. Deep-sea cores retrieved from the South China Sea have extended the known reach of the eruption, suggesting that the 2,800 cubic kilometers (670 cubic miles) calculation of the erupted mass is a minimum value or even an underestimation. The Toba eruption apparently coincided with the onset of the Last Glacial period. Michael R Rampino and Stephen Self (1993) argue that the eruption caused a brief, dramatic cooling or “volcanic winter”, which resulted in a drop of the global mean surface temperature by 3 – 5 °C (37 – 41 °F) and accelerated the transition from warm to cold temperatures of the last glacial cycle. Evidence from Greenland ice cores indicates a 1,000-year period of low δ18O and increased dust deposition immediately following the eruption. The eruption may have caused this 1,000-year period of cooler temperatures (stadial), two centuries of which could be accounted for by the persistence of the Toba stratospheric loading. Rampino and Self (1992) believe that global cooling was already underway at the time of the eruption, but that the process was slow; the youngest Toba tuff may have provided the extra ‘kick’ that caused the climate system to switch from warm to cold states. Although Clive Oppenheimer (2002) rejects the hypothesis that the eruption triggered the last glaciation, he agrees that it may have been responsible for a millennium of cool climate prior to the 19th Dansgaard-Oeschger event*. Scientists agree that a super-eruption of the scale at Toba must have led to very extensive ash-fall layers and injection of noxious gases into the atmosphere, with worldwide effects on climate and weather (Self and Blake 2008). In addition, the Dansgaard-Oeschger events (often abbreviated D-O events) are rapid climate fluctuations that occurred 25 times during the last glacial period.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Greenland ice core data display an abrupt climate change around this time (Zielinski et al 1996), but there is no consensus that the eruption directly generated the 1,000-year cold period seen in Greenland or triggered the last glaciation. In 2013, a finding of a microscopic layer of glassy volcanic ash in sediments of Lake Malawi in East Africa was reported by archaeologists led by Christine Lane from University of Oxford. It definitively linked the ash to the 74,000-year-old Toba super-eruption, but found no change in fossil type close to the ash layer that would be expected following a severe volcanic winter, concluding that the super-eruption did not significantly alter the climate of East Africa. A study of climate of East Africa by Lily J Jackson et al in 2015 supported Lane’s conclusion. The Toba eruption has been linked to a genetic bottleneck in human evolution about 50,000 years ago, which may have resulted from a severe reduction in the size of the total human population due to the effects of the eruption on the global climate. According to the genetic bottleneck theory, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, human populations sharply decreased to 3,000 – 10,000 surviving individuals. It is supported by genetic evidence suggesting that today’s humans are descended from a very small population of between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago. Proponents of the genetic bottleneck theory suggest that the Toba eruption resulted in a global ecological disaster, including destruction of vegetation along with severe drought in the tropical rainforest belt and in monsoonal regions. For example, a 10-year volcanic winter triggered by the eruption could have largely destroyed the food sources of humans and caused a severe reduction in population sizes. These environmental changes may have generated population bottlenecks in many species, including hominids; this in turn may have accelerated differentiation from within the smaller human population. Therefore, the genetic differences among modern humans may reflect changes within the last 70,000 years, rather than gradual differentiation over hundreds of thousands of years. Other research has cast doubt on a link between Toba and a genetic bottleneck. For example, ancient stone tools in southern India were found above and below a thick layer of ash from the Toba eruption and were very similar across these layers, suggesting that the dust clouds from the eruption did not wipe out this local population. Additional archaeological evidence from Southern and 38
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Northern India also suggests a lack of evidence for effects of the eruption on local populations. However, evidence from pollen analysis has suggested prolonged deforestation in South Asia, and some researchers have suggested that the Toba eruption may have forced humans to adopt new adaptive strategies, which may have permitted them to replace Neanderthals and other archaic human species. This has been challenged by evidence for the presence of Neanderthals in Europe and Homo floresiensis in Southeast Asia who survived the eruption by 50,000 and 60,000 years, respectively.
The Drowning of Sundaland The glaciers started to retreat and the meltwater from the ice sheets flowed into the oceans around 19,000 years ago, raising sea levels by more than 120 meters (400 feet) at the end. The sea level rose with several periods of fast spurts. The first such spurt may have started about 19,000 years ago, rising the ocean levels some 10 – 15 meters (33 – 50 feet) in less than 500 years. A more clearlydefined accelerated phase occurred between 14,600 and 13,500 years ago when the sea level increased by some 16 – 24 meters (52 – 79 feet). The rate of sea level rise slowed between 14,000 and 12,000 years ago during the Younger Dryas cold period and was succeeded by another surge 11,600 – 11,000 years ago, when sea level may have jumped by 28 meters (92 feet). A fourth interval of rapid sea level rise occurred 8,200 – 7,600 years ago. By the mid-Holocene period, 6,000 – 5,000 years ago, glacial melting had essentially ceased. Sundaland was the largest area to be drowned after the last Ice Age. The drowning – believed to have been caused by the retreat of the ice sheets in northern Europe, North America and several other regions – caused land loss, no exception the flat continental shelves of Sundaland. The Southwestern part of South China Sea and the Java Sea were created. The Sunda Strait between the islands of Sumatera and Java, and the Bali Strait between the islands of Java and Bali were open about 10,000 years ago, connecting the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean and separating the island of Java from the Asian Mainland. The South China Sea and the Java Sea were connected about 9,000 years ago, separating the island of Kalimantan from the Asian Mainland. The Malaka Strait between the island of Sumatera and the Malay Peninsula was open about 8,000 years ago, connecting the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean and separating the island of Sumatera from the Malay Peninsula in the Asian Mainland. The ice-melt drowned the coastal cultures and wiped out many populations as their land disappeared. Cracks in the earth’s crust as the weight of the ice shifted 39
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations to the seas set off catastrophic events compounded by earthquakes, volcano eruptions, super waves and floods. As the sea rolled in, there was a mass migration from the sinking continent. They then brought their agricultural technology as well as other skills to the new lands.
Population Dispersal Models The population history of modern humans in Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific islands is a highly debated topic. There are two major competing hypotheses. The first “express train” hypothesis (“Out of Taiwan” model) argues for an origin in South China/Taiwan around 5,500 years ago, followed by a ‘‘pulse and pause’’ style expansion through the Pacific into the Philippines and the islands of Southeast Asia, along the coast of Papua and into Oceania. The second ‘‘slow boat’’ hypothesis (“Out of Sundaland” model) argues for a much older origin in the islands of Southeast Asia around 13,000 – 17,000 years ago followed by a two-pronged expansion flowing north into Taiwan, and east into Oceania. The “Out of Taiwan” model proposed by JM Diamond (1988) and Peter Bellwood (1995) is generally more dominant and accepted model of the Neolithic Austronesian migration. This model is based on combined evidence of archaeology and linguistics. The dispersal and expansion of this population from South China/Taiwan to Oceania from 6,000 to 750 years ago due to population pressures from an agricultural economy is the general idea for this model. The “Out of Sundaland” model proposed by Stephen Oppenheimer and Martin Richards (2001) argues that the origin of the Austronesian speakers is in the islands of Southeast Asia base on mitochondrial studies that show high levels of genetic diversity. Detailed analysis of genetic data shows a more complex picture, because the mitochondrial DNA found in Pacific islanders was present in the islands of Southeast Asia at a much earlier period. Recently, some scholarly studies proposed a “Multiple Dispersal” model to suggest that the dispersals into and out of Southeast Asia and the Pacific were through a series of much more complicated events. “Trading Network” Model In 1975, Wilhelm Solheim II proposes the homeland of the Austronesian people (“Nusantao”) in the Neolithic southern Philippine to eastern Indonesia area 40
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations where it spread multi-directionally and up to the north to southern China, based on the pattern of cultural diffusion in the Asia-Pacific region which spread in all directions via some kind of trading network, rather than a series of migrations. He believes that most of the pottery found in Southeast Asia and the Pacific can be traced back to Mainland Southeast Asian Hoabinhian origins – from Lapita in Melanesia to the early pottery of Micronesia. Solheim also considers that some pottery from Melanesia and Micronesia originated from Japan. Solheim labeled these groups part of his Nusantao Maritime Trade and Communication Networks (NMTCN), characterized by their emergence from island and coastal mainland Southeast Asia. In 2010, Min-Sheng Peng et al analyzed mitochondrial DNA control-region and coding-region sequence variations in the Cham and Kinh individuals from Vietnam. Comparing the Chams with other Southeast Asian populations reveals that the Chams had a closer affinity with the Mon-Khmer populations in the Mainland Southeast Asia than with the populations from Island Southeast Asia. Further analyses failed to detect the potential homelands of the Chams in the Island Southeast Asia. Therefore, they suggested that the origin of the Cham was likely a process of assimilation of massive local Mon-Khmer populations accompanied with language shift, thus indicating that the Austronesian diffusion in the Mainland Southeast Asia was mainly mediated by cultural diffusion, an observation in agreement with the hypothesis of the NMTCN. Solheim proposed a ‘Sa Huynh-Kalanay Pottery Tradition’ in his extensive hypothesis of the NMTCN. However, a study by Mariko Yamagata and Hirofumi Matsumura in 2017 demonstrated substantial dissimilarity between the Sa Huynh and Kalanay pottery assemblages. On the other hand, their excavations of the Hoa Diem site in Khanh Hoa Province, Central Vietnam, unearthed large numbers of burial jars and funeral pottery vessels that are strikingly similar to pottery from Kalanay in the Philippines and Samui Island in Thailand – all of which is quite different from Sa Huynh pottery. The date of jar burials with Kalanay type pottery at Hoa Diem is estimated to be in the second and third centuries CE (Iron Age) and thus postdates the Sa Huynh culture. Bio-anthropological analysis using craniometric data also suggests a close affinity of the jar burial people at Hoa Diem to insular Southeast Asians, including populations from Taiwan, Sumatera, Java and the Philippines. This finding confirms the view that the Hoa Diem site marks a colonization of Austronesian speakers, who migrated from somewhere in Island Southeast Asia across the South China Sea and settled in Central Vietnam during the Iron Age. 41
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations “Out of Taiwan” Model The “Out of Taiwan” model was first developed by Peter Bellwood in 1995. This hypothesis is based largely on linguistics, hewing very close to Robert Blust’s model of the history of the Austronesian language family and adding to it archeological data. This model suggests that between 4500 BCE and 4000 BCE, developments in agricultural technology in the Yunnan Plateau in China created pressures which drove certain peoples to migrate to Taiwan. These people either already had or began to develop a unique language of their own, now referred to as Proto-Austronesian. By around 3000 BCE, these groups started differentiating into three or four distinct subcultures.
Figure 27 – Movements of Austronesian-speaking people according to the “Out of Taiwan” model with approximate dates.
At about 2500 BCE, one group of these Austronesian speakers sailed south to the northern island of Luzon in the Philippines and settled there, bringing with them the same set of artifacts and subsistence technology from Taiwan. Through to 1500 BCE, the group spread through the Philippine archipelago southwards, on to Sulawesi, Maluku Islands, northern Kalimantan and eastern Java. From the Halmahera of the Maluku Islands, one branch proceeded east to colonize eastern Melanesia by 1200 BCE. By about 0 CE, the expansion continued on to Polynesia and to the Easter Island by 500 CE. Finally the movement culminated by reaching New Zealand about 1300 CE. Another wave of these Austronesian speakers moved through Kalimantan, Java and Sumatera to the coasts of the Malay Peninsula and southern Vietnam by about 500 BCE and from there they traversed the Bay of Bengal, through to Sri Lanka and even 42
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations southern India with its final expansion to Madagascar by 500 CE. In effect what Bellwood contends is that all the ascendants of Southeast Asians and the peoples of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean passed through the Philippines in waves of migration from 2500 BCE to 500 CE from Taiwan. RD Gray et al in 2009 used lexical data and Bayesian phylogenetic methods to construct a phylogeny of 400 languages. In agreement with the pulse-pause scenario, the language trees place the Austronesian origin in Taiwan approximately 5230 years ago and reveal a series of settlement pauses and expansion pulses linked to technological and social innovations. In 2010, the study by Simon J Greenhill et al using a systematic tree comparison metric to calculate the similarity between the Bayesian phylogenetic trees and the subgroups proposed by historical linguistics, and by re-estimating the age of the Austronesian expansion using only the most robust calibrations suggested that the Austronesian language phylogenies are highly congruent with the traditional subgroupings, and the date estimates are robust even when calculated using a restricted set of historical calibrations. A study by Mark Lipson et al in 2014 using genome-wide data from 56 populations using new methods for tracing ancestral gene flow showed that all sampled Austronesian groups harbor ancestry that is more closely related to aboriginal Taiwanese than to any present-day mainland population. Surprisingly, western Island Southeast Asian populations have also inherited ancestry from a source nested within the variation of present-day populations speaking AustroAsiatic languages, which have historically been nearly exclusive to the mainland. Thus, either there was once a substantial Austro-Asiatic presence in Island Southeast Asia, or Austronesian speakers migrated to and through the mainland, admixing there before continuing to western Indonesia. A study by Chi-Shan Chang et al in 2015 using phylogeography of Pacific paper mulberry points to Taiwan as an Austronesian ancestral homeland. They also provided insights into the dispersal of paper mulberry from South China “into North Taiwan,” the “out of South China–Indochina” expansion to New Guinea, and the geographic origins of post-European introductions of paper mulberry into Oceania. “Out of Sundaland” Model The “Out of Sundaland” model was initially proposed by Stephen Oppenheimer and Martin Richards in 2001. The long-established theory – based on linguistic 43
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations and archaeological evidence – is that the development of rice farming in mainland China spread to Taiwan, where the languages later known as Austronesian developed. From here the population and their language spread outwards throughout the region, some 4,000 years ago. But detailed analysis of genetic data shows a more complex picture, because the mitochondrial DNA found in Pacific islanders was present in the islands of Southeast Asia at a much earlier period, casting doubt on the dominant “Out of Taiwan” model. It is also found that the expansion from Taiwan accounts for only about 20 percent of the population in the region. In his book Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia (1998), Stephen Oppenheimer makes a case that the population migrations were most likely to have been driven by climate change – the effects of the drowning of an ancient continent. Rising sea levels in three massive pulses may have caused flooding and the submerging of Sundaland, creating the Java and the South China Seas and the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia and the Philippines today. The changing sea levels would have caused these humans to move away from their coastal homes and culture, and farther inland throughout Southeast Asia. This forced migration would have caused these humans to adapt to the new forest and mountainous environments, developing farms and domestication, and becoming the predecessors to future human populations in these regions. A study from Leeds University led by Martin Richards in 2008, examining mitochondrial DNA lineages, suggested that a substantial fraction of the mitochondrial DNA lines (inherited by female descendants) have been evolving within islands of Southeast Asia for a much longer period than previously believed, some since modern humans arrived about 50,000 years ago. Population dispersals seem to have occurred at the same time as sea levels rose, which may have resulted in migrations from the islands of Southeast Asia to as far north into Taiwan, east out to Papua and the Pacific, and west to the Southeast Asian mainland – within the last 10,000 years. Again in 2011, their research has found that the link to Taiwan does not stand up to scrutiny. Most previous studies looked at a small piece of mtDNA, but for this research they studied 157 complete mitochondrial genomes in addition to smaller samples from over 4,750 people from across Southeast Asia and Polynesia. In fact, the DNA of current Polynesians can be traced back to migrants from the Asian mainland who had already settled in islands close to Papua some 6,000 – 8,000 years ago. Martin Richards and co-researcher Pedro 44
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Soares, argue that the linguistic and cultural connections are due to smaller migratory movements from Taiwan that did not leave any substantial genetic impact on the pre-existing population. They also found that the expansion from Taiwan accounts for only about 20 percent of the population in the region. Their study of the mtDNA evidence shows the interactions between the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific was far more complex than previous accounts tended to suggest and it paves the way for new theories of the spread of Austronesian languages. In 2009, a research and study by the HUGO PanAsian SNP Consortium, conducted within and between the different populations in the Asian continent, showed that genetic ancestry was highly correlated with ethnic and linguistic groups. There was a clear increase in genetic diversity from northern to southern latitudes.
Figure 28 –Arrows depict the increasing genetic diversification of humans after they migrated eastward along what is now India’s coast and split into numerous genetically distinct groups that moved across Southeast Asia and migrated north into East Asia. Source: HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium.
The study suggested that there was one major inflow of human migration into Asia arising from Southeast Asia, rather than multiple inflows from both southern and northern routes as proposed before. This indicates that Southeast Asia was the major geographic source of East and North Asian populations. East Asians have mainly originated from Southeast Asian populations with minor contributions from Central and South Asian groups. The Taiwan aborigines are derived from Austronesian populations. This stands in contrast to the suggestion that this island served as the ancestral “homeland” for Austronesian speaking populations throughout the Indo-Pacific. In 2012, Jinam et al determined 86 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) complete genome sequences in four indigenous Malaysian populations, together with a 45
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations reanalysis of published autosomal single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)* data of Southeast Asians to test the plausibility and impact of those migration models. The three Austronesian groups (Bidayuh, Selatar and Temuan) showed high frequencies of mtDNA haplogroups, which originated from the Asian mainland 30,000 – 10,000 years ago, but low frequencies of “out of Taiwan” markers. Principal component analysis and phylogenetic analysis using autosomal SNP data indicate a dichotomy between continental and island Austronesian groups. They argue that both the mtDNA and autosomal data suggest an “early train” migration originating from Indochina or South China around the late-Pleistocene to early-Holocene period, which predates, but may not necessarily exclude, the Austronesian expansion. In 2012, Stephen Oppenheimer pointed out that the genetic, climatic and archaeological evidence logically suggests a single southern exit of modern human from Africa to Sundaland. All non-African groups today are descended from this exit, with the exception of some autosomes (7% or less) apparently derived from admixture with several archaic non-African groups. Whether this exit predated the Toba eruption is currently unclear. A series of founding bottlenecks characterized rapid migration around the Indian Ocean coast to
Figure 29 – Map showing single southern route out of Africa and beachcomber arc route from the Red Sea along the Indo-Pacific coast to Australia, including likely extensions to China, Japan and Papua. Vegetation and sea level shown as at Last Glacial Maximum. Source: Oppenheimer 2012.
Autosomal DNA is the 22 pairs of chromosomes that do not contribute to sex. These are inherited exactly equally from both parents and roughly equally from grandparents to about 3x great-grand parents. A single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is a variation in a single nucleotide that occurs at a specific position in the autosomal DNA.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Kalimantan and Bali at the tip of the Sunda Shelf. Then, a sea-level low stand permitted multiple colonization of the Sahul, followed by prolonged isolation until the post-glacial period, during which maritime gene flow from island southeast Asia recommenced. These last migrations were limited into Australia and substantial into Melanesia. Climate and access to fresh water were crucial determinants of routes and dates for windows of opportunity. Brandão et al in 2016 addressed using founder analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control-region sequences to identify major lineage clusters most likely to have dispersed from Taiwan into islands of Southeast Asia, proposing that the dispersal had a relatively minor impact on the extant genetic structure of islands of Southeast Asia, and that the role of agriculture in the expansion of the Austronesian languages was therefore likely to have been correspondingly minor. They showed that, in total, only about 20% of mtDNA lineages in the modern islands of Southeast Asia pool result from the “Out-of-Taiwan” dispersal, with most of the remainder signifying earlier processes, mainly due to sea-level rises after the Last Glacial Maximum. Every one of these founder clusters previously entered Taiwan from China, 6,000 – 7,000 years ago and remained distinct from the indigenous Taiwanese population until after the subsequent dispersal into islands of Southeast Asia. “Multiple Dispersal” Model A study by Farhang Aghakhanian et al in 2015 applying a high-density array genotyping using over 2 million single nucleotide polymorphisms in three major groups of Negrito, Senoi and Proto-Malay suggested that the continuum in divergence time from Negritos to Senoi and Proto-Malay in combination with ancestral markers provides evidences of multiple waves of migration into Southeast Asia starting with the first “Out-of-Africa” dispersals followed by “Early Train” and subsequent Austronesian expansions. This multiple waves of migration into Southeast Asia was supported by Julien Corny et al, through the analysis of dental phenotype shape variation on the basis of very large archaeological samples employing two complementary approaches, phenotypic and recent genomic data, in 2017. Those include initial and Last Glacial Maximum dispersal from the mainland Southeast Asia and through the western route and Neolithic dispersal from the mainland Southeast Asia through Taiwan. In 2016, Pedro Soares et al from the University of Minho in Portugal showed that the dispersal into and out of Southeast Asia was through a series of much 47
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations more complicated events. mtDNA and Y-chromosome found in the Pacific Islands have existed in the islands of Southeast Asia much earlier than 4000 BCE, which raises serious doubt on the theory of “Out-of-Taiwan”. They argue that the landscape and the changing sea level about 11,500 years ago led to a significant expansion from Indonesia 8,000 years ago. This expansion, which is the team’s discovery, showed that the population in the whole of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands share the same mtDNA and Y-chromosome. The results of the study by the team also showed minor wave of migration that may lead to the spread of Austronesian languages.
Figure 30 – Outline of maternal lineages involved in the main human migrations in the region of Southeast Asia and Taiwan (Soares et al 2016).
In 2017, Timothy A Jinam et al generated genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism data in the Philippine Negritos and compared them with existing data from other populations. Phylogenetic tree analyses show that Negritos are basal to other East and Southeast Asians, and that they diverged from West Eurasians at least 38,000 years ago. Shared genetic loci between all three Negrito groups could be related to skin pigmentation, height, facial morphology and malarial resistance. These results show the unique status of Negrito groups as descended from the “First Sundaland People”. Truman Simanjuntak in 2017 suggested that new data from various disciplines reveal another probable Neolithic diffusion from Mainland Southeast Asia, probably by Austroasiatic-speaking people. Current dating results indicate this westerly migration route reached western Indonesia earlier than the eastern route migration from Taiwan, thus before 4,000 years ago. The subsequent dispersal of Austronesian-speaking people into the western parts of Indonesia influenced the Neolithic cultures there and resulted in the replacement of the local Austroasiatic languages. 48
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Southeast Asian Ancestry Min-Sheng Peng et al studied a total of 837 M9a'b mitochondrial DNAs pinpointed from over 28,000 subjects residing across East Eurasia in 2011. Based on the updated phylogeny, an extensive phylogeographic analysis was carried out to reveal the differentiation of haplogroup M9a’b and to reconstruct the dispersal histories. Their results indicated that southern China and/or Southeast Asia likely served as the source of some post-Last Glacial Maximum dispersal(s). The detailed dissection of haplogroup M9a’b revealed the existence of an inland dispersal in mainland East Asia during the post-glacial period. It was this dispersal that expanded not only to western China but also to northeast India and the south Himalaya region. A similar phylogeographic distribution pattern was also observed for haplogroup F1c, thus substantiating their proposition. This inland post-glacial dispersal was in agreement with the spread of the Mesolithic culture originating in South China and northern Vietnam. A study by Chuan-Chao Wang and Hui Li in 2013 revealed that the current Y chromosome evidence suggests multiple early migrations of modern humans from Africa via Southeast Asia to East Asia. After the initial settlements, the northward migrations during the Paleolithic Age shaped the genetic structure in East Asia. Subsequently, recent admixtures between Central Asian immigrants and northern East Asians enlarged the genetic divergence between southern and northern East Asia populations. Cultural practices, such as languages, agriculture, military affairs and social prestige, also have impacts on the genetic patterns in East Asia. Four Y chromosome haplogroups C, D, O and N, accounted for more than 90% of the East Asian Y chromosomes, are suggested to have Southeast Asian origins, carried by three waves of migrations. The distributions of western Eurasia specific Y chromosome haplogroups E, G, H, I, J, L, Q, R and T in northwest China reflect the recent gene flows from the west and the probable northern route migration. A west-to-east decline of these western haplogroups was clearly observed. Karafet et al in 2014, through a study of Y-DNA, supported the hypothesis of a Southeast Asian/Oceanian center for the diversification of Oceanian Khaplogroup lineages and underscore the potential importance of Southeast Asia as a source of genetic variation for Eurasian populations. The phylogenetic structure of haplogroup K-M526 shows consecutive branching events (M526, P331 and P295), which appear to have rapidly diversified. With the exception of 49
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations P-P27, all of the descendant lineages are located today in Southeast Asia and Oceania: KM526*, K-P402, K-P261 and NO are the lineages most closely related to haplogroup KP331. K-P397 is the sister lineage of P-P295 and the PP295* lineages are the closest relatives of haplogroup P-P27. This pattern leads to hypothesize a southeastern Asian origin for P-P295 and a later expansion of the ancestor of subhaplogroups R and Q into mainland Asia. Although KFigure 31 – Phylogeny of haplogrup K M526 was previously (Karafet et al 2014). characterized by a single polytomy of eight major branches, the phylogenetic structure of haplogroup KM526 is now resolved into four major subclades (K2a–d). The largest of these subclades, K2b, is divided into two clusters: K2b1 and K2b2. K2b1 combines the previously known haplogroups M, S, K-P60 and K-P79, whereas K2b2 comprises haplogroup P and its subhaplogroups Q and R. Interestingly, the monophyletic group formed by haplogroups R and Q, which make up the majority of paternal lineages in Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, represents the only subclade with K2b that is not geographically restricted to Southeast Asia and Oceania. Estimates of the interval times for the branching events between M9 and P295 point to an initial rapid diversification process of K-M526 that likely occurred in Southeast Asia, with subsequent westward expansions of the ancestors of haplogroups R and Q. More interestingly, ancient DNA evidence suggests that haplogroup R1b – the current dominant lineage in western Europe – did not reach high frequencies until after the European Neolithic period as given in Lacan et al and Pinhasi et al. Previously in 2008, Thomas Gilbert et al studying DNA from 10,800-year-old poop concluded that a group of ancient humans in Oregon has ancestral ties to modern Native Americans. And in 2014, genetic analysis lead by James Chatters linked a 12,000-year-old skeleton found in an underwater cave in Mexico to 50
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations modern Native Americans. Genetic studies have since connected both these ancient and modern humans to ancestral populations in Eurasia. Aleutian Islanders are a notable exception. They descend from a smaller second influx of Eurasians 6,000 years ago that bear a stronger resemblance to modern populations, and some Canadian tribes have been linked to a third wave (Raghavan et al 2014).
Figure 32 – Spread of the descendants of haplogroup K2 (based on Karafet et al 2014, Hammer 2013, Lacan et al 2011, Pinhasi et al 2012).
Molecular anthropological studies of the populations in and around East Asia have resulted in the discovery that most of the Y-chromosome lineages of East Asians came from Southeast Asia. In 2011, Xiaoyun Cai et al presented the Ychromosome data from 1,652 individuals belonging to 47 Mon-Khmer (MK) and Hmong-Mien (HM) speaking populations that are distributed primarily across Southeast Asia and extend into East Asia. Haplogroup O3a3b-M7, which appears mainly in MK and HM, indicates a strong tie between the two groups. The short tandem repeat network of O3a3b-M7 displayed a hierarchical expansion structure (annual ring shape), with MK haplotypes being located at the original point, and the HM and the Tibeto-Burman haplotypes distributed further away from core of the network. Moreover, the East Asian dominant haplogroup O3a3c1-M117 shows a network structure similar to that of O3a3bM7. These patterns indicate an early unidirectional diffusion from Southeast Asia into East Asia, which might have resulted from the genetic drift of East Asian ancestors carrying these two haplogroups through many small bottlenecks formed by the complicated landscape between Southeast Asia and East Asia. The ages of O3a3b-M7 and O3a3c1-M117 were estimated to be approximately 19,000 years, followed by the emergence of the ancestors of HM lineages out of MK and the unidirectional northward migrations into East Asia. 51
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In 2015, two independent teams published their studies in rival scientific journals, Science and Nature, comparing the genetic characteristics of Native American populations with those of populations in other regions of the globe. The articles reached apparently different conclusions, but both suggested that a few present-day indigenous groups in Brazil are related in some way to the peoples of Oceania. In the study published in Science, the group led by biologist Eske Willerslev of the Copenhagen University in Denmark says that the first humans arrived in the Americas in a single migratory wave. They would have left East Asia at some time in the last 23,000 years and reached the New World after spending almost 8,000 years in Beringia, a vast land bridge (underwater today) that connected Siberia in Asia to Alaska in North America. Once this ancestral population arrived in the New World, it separated into two groups about 13,000 years ago: one that is now dispersed across North and South America while the other is restricted to North America. The team does report traces of Australo-Melanesian ancestry in certain populations, including those of the Aleutian islands (off Alaska) and the Surui people of the Brazilian Amazon. But, the traces of Australasian DNA stem from a later migration, around 8,000 years ago, which progressed around the Pacific coast. In the meantime, Harvard Medical School geneticist David Reich and colleagues, focusing more closely on the Australo-Melanesian genes in a study published in Nature, came to a different conclusion: that the DNA had to have arrived in the Americas very long ago and that founding migrations occurred in more than one wave. The most plausible explanation is that Figure 33 – Map of similarities in genes, mutations and random there was a separate pieces of DNA of Central and South American tribes with other groups. Darker colors indicate the strongest affinities. migration from Source: Pontus Skoglund, Harvard Medical School 2015. Australasia, possibly 52
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations around 15,000 years ago. This group was probably more widely dispersed across North America but was eventually pushed out by other native American groups. The team argue that only the arrival of two waves of people with distinct characteristics would help to explain why the Suruí, Karitiana and Xavante and other indigenous groups in Brazil have a genetic similarity to peoples of the South Pacific. Upon arrival, the third wave mixed with the first inhabitants of the continent, leading to the emergence of indigenous groups in Canada. They also proposed one more migratory wave – a fourth, which would have reached South America more than 6,000 years ago – to explain the continent’s ethnic diversity. In addition to the Suruí, who live in the Amazon forest in Pará State, this more recent migration would have given rise to the Karitiana people of Rondonia and the Xavante Indians of the Cerrado in Mato Grosso State. In 2018, a collaborative effort between the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) and Cícero Moraes, a 3D designer based in Brazil produced a digital reconstruction of a face of Eve of Nahron, a hunter-gatherer living almost 14,000 years ago found in an underwater cave in Sistema Naranjal in Yucatán, Mexico. The reconstruction appears to confirm that Eve was a descendant of people living in South Asia and Indonesia, rather than North Asia. It completely dispels the idea that the first humans in America migrated via the Bering Strait after the last Ice Age, some 13,000 years ago. Instead, the discovery supports the theory that people emigrated to the continent in waves – and much earlier than previously thought. A study by Patricia Marrero et al from the University of La Laguna, Spain in 2016 suggests mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup M colonization of India from southeastern Asia, through the Northern Route. The macrohaplogroup M has a historical implantation in West Eurasia, including the Arabian Peninsula. Founder ages of M lineages in India are significantly younger than those in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Near Oceania. Moreover, there is a significant positive correlation between the age of the M haplogroups and its longitudinal geographical distribution. These results point to a colonization of the Indian subcontinent by modern humans carrying M lineages from the east instead the west side. They confirm the existence of a northern route for the mtDNA macrohaplogroup M, previously proposed for the macrohaplogroup N. Both mtDNA macrolineages seem to have differentiated in Southeast Asia from ancestral L3 lineages. Taking this genetic evidence and those reported by other disciplines, they have constructed a new and more conciliatory model to explain the history of modern humans out of Africa. 53
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations From the Levant, early modern humans went further northwards to the Altai Mountains. Harsh climatic conditions dispersed them southwards erasing the mtDNA genetic footprints of this pioneer northern phase. The small surviving groups already carried basic N and M lineages. One of them, with only maternal N lineages, spread southwards to present-day southern China and probably, across the Sunda Shelf reached Australia and the Philippines. Other dispersed groups were the bearers of other N branches, including macrohaplogroup R, that enter India from the north, carrying with them the blade-microblade technology detected in this subcontinent. This technology also spread with other N and R branches to northern and western Eurasia, reaching Europe, the Levant and even northern Africa. Short after, another southeastern group carrying undifferentiated M lineages radiated from a core area, most probably localized in Southeast Asia (including southern China), reaching India westwards and near Oceania eastwards. These M haplogroup bearers brought with them at least one of the primitive core-flake technologies present in India that, therefore, had to have a southeastern Asian origin. In subsequent mild climatic windows, demographic growth dispersed macrohaplogroup M and N northwards, most probably from overlapping areas that in time colonized northern Asia and the New World.
The Mysterious Younger Dryas Period The Younger Dryas period (12,800 – 11,600 years ago) is one of the most wellknown examples of abrupt change. Remarkable events have been observed to occur in the Younger Dryas period. Confidence in identifying such events rises when more than one data source and in more than one region record the events. The Cause The prevailing theory is that the Younger Dryas was caused by significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic “Conveyor”, which circulates warm tropical waters northward, in response to a sudden influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America. NOAA in their websites explain the cause as below. About 14,500 years ago, the Earth’s climate began to shift from a cold glacial world to a warmer interglacial state. Partway through this transition, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere suddenly returned to near-glacial conditions. This near-glacial period is called the Younger Dryas, named after a flower (Dryas octopetala) that grows in cold conditions and became common in 54
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Europe during this time. The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,600 years ago, was particularly abrupt. In Greenland, temperatures rose 10 °C in a decade. The Younger Dryas is clearly observable in paleoclimate records from many parts of the world. In the Cariaco Basin north of Venezuela, for example, temperatures decreased about 3 °C, although some of this cooling might have been due to greater upwelling of colder subsurface water (Lea et al 2003). In many parts of the Northern Hemisphere tropics, conditions also became drier (Hughen et al 2000, Wang et al 2001). The story in Antarctica is somewhat different, however. The ice core record at Dome C shows that climate changes in Antarctica were out-of-phase with those in the Northern Hemisphere (EPICA 2004). At Dome C, the amount of the hydrogen isotope called “deuterium”, expressed here as δD, is proportional to temperature. The deuterium record indicates that, contrary to the Northern Hemisphere records, temperatures were relatively low prior to the Younger Dryas (a period called the Antarctic Cold Reversal) and rose during the Younger Dryas. This pattern provides an important clue about what caused the Figure 34 – Climate changes associated with Younger Dryas. the Younger Dryas. From top to bottom: cooling and decreased snow accumulation in Greenland, cooling in the tropical Cariaco Basin, warming in Antarctica, and the flux of meltwater from the Laurentide Ice Sheet down the Saint Lawrence River. Source: NOAA.
The Younger Dryas occurred during the transition from the last glacial period into the present interglacial (the Holocene). During this time, the continental ice sheets were rapidly melting and adding freshwater to the North Atlantic. Figure 35 shows the reconstructed freshwater flux from the melting Laurentide ice sheet through the St Lawrence River. Just prior to the Younger Dryas, meltwater fluxes into the North Atlantic increased dramatically. In addition, there was probably a shortlived period of particularly high freshwater flux about 13,000 years ago that is not shown in this figure, resulting from a large discharge of freshwater from a glacial lake in North America. Scientists have hypothesized that meltwater floods reduced the salinity and density of the surface ocean in the North Atlantic, causing a reduction in the ocean’s thermohaline circulation and climate 55
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations changes around the world. Eventually, as the meltwater flux abated, the thermohaline circulation strengthened again and climate recovered. The thermohaline circulation is the part of the global ocean circulation that is driven by geographic differences in the density of sea water, which are controlled by temperature (‘thermal’) and salinity (‘haline’). In the North Atlantic this circulation transports warm and salty water from the tropics to the north. There, the water cools and releases heat to the atmosphere, warming the North Atlantic region. Once the water loses heat, it becomes cooler and more dense, sinking into the deep ocean. This deep water flows slowly southward (~0.1 m/s) near the bottom of the ocean basins and gradually returns to the surface as a result of wind-driven upwelling near Antarctica and slow diffusive upwelling over the rest of the global ocean. It then joins near-surface currents to be returned to the areas of deep water formation. This ocean circulation is sometimes referred to as the “ocean conveyor belt”. A key aspect of this global circulation circuit is the northward transport of salty waters to the North Atlantic where, with additional cooling, surface waters become dense enough to sink and form deep water. Imagine that a flood of freshwater entered the North Atlantic, perhaps from the melting of land-based ice sheets. This would decrease the density of surface waters in the North Atlantic and would likely reduce deep water formation. The “conveyor” circulation would slow, just as the conveyor belt at the grocery store would slow if an item became jammed in its descending path. Without a strong northward flow of salt, surface Figure 35 – The ocean thermohaline circulation water densities in the North system. Source: NOAA. Atlantic would continue to decrease and deep water formation would further weaken – a positive feedback. A positive feedback will also operate as a way of strengthening the circulation at times when the northward flux of salt is enhanced. The record from Dome C in Antarctica supports this explanation. If the thermohaline circulation were to slow, less heat would be transported from the South Atlantic to the North Atlantic (Crowley 1992, Broecker 1998). This would cause the South Atlantic to warm and the North Atlantic to cool. This pattern, 56
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations sometimes called the “bipolar see-saw”, is observable when comparing the GISP2 and Dome C records for the Younger Dryas. Notice the second period of large freshwater discharge following the Younger Dryas. Interestingly, this discharge did not cause a second major climate change similar to the Younger Dryas. One possible explanation for this is that, after the Younger Dryas, the thermohaline circulation had become more vigorous as the climate finally entered the interglacial. A vigorous thermohaline circulation might be less susceptible to freshwater discharges. An alternative theory suggests instead that the jet stream shifted northward in response to the changing topographic forcing of the melting North American ice sheet, bringing more rain to the North Atlantic which freshened the ocean surface enough to slow the thermohaline circulation. There is also some evidence that a solar flare may have been responsible for the megafaunal extinction, though it cannot explain the apparent variability in the extinction across all continents. A hypothesized Younger Dryas impact event, presumed to have occurred in North America around 12,900 calendar years ago, has been proposed as the mechanism to have initiated the Younger Dryas cooling. Amongst other things findings of melt-glass material in sediments in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Syria have been reported. These researchers argue that this material, which dates back nearly 13,000 calendar years ago, was formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 °C (3,100 to 4,000 °F) as the result of a bolide impact. They argue that these findings support the controversial Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) hypothesis, that the bolide impact occurred at the onset of the Younger Dryas. Laacher See erupted at about the same time as the Younger Dryas started, and it has been suggested as a possible cause. Laacher See is a maar lake, a lake that lies within a broad, low-relief volcanic crater, that is about 2 km in diameter. It lies in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. This maar lake lies within the Eifel mountain range, and is part of the East Eifel volcanic field within the larger Vulkaneifel. This eruption was of sufficient size, VEI 6, with over 10 km3 tephra ejected, to have caused significant temperature changes in the northern hemisphere. Concurring Events As clearly noticeable from the cooling, warming, snow accumulation, deuterium and fresh water flux data above, the Earth has undergone remarkable events 57
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations during the Younger Dryas period. These could pose incredible effects to imbalance the Earth’s lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The effects could be severe at the beginning and at the end of the period as abrupt changes occurred at these times. Concurring events occurring around this period have been observed, showing that the epoch inflicts great impact on the planet. The ending time of the Younger Dryas period corresponds to the end of Pleistocene geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,600 years ago and the beginning of Holocene which extends to the present time. The Holocene epoch, which means “entire recent”, has been identified with the current warm period. The Holocene also encompasses the growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all its written history, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition toward urban living in the present. In archaeology, the end of Younger Dryas is also the end of the Paleolithic age. The Paleolithic age is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered and human technology prehistory. There have been major shifts in the distributions of plants and animals. A number of large animals including mammoths and mastodons, saber-toothed cats like Smilodon and Homotherium, and giant sloths disappeared at the end of the Younger Dryas period – especially in North America, where animals that survived elsewhere (including horses and camels) became extinct. Though this extinction of American megafauna has been explained as caused by the arrival of the ancestors of Amerindians, but most scientists assert that climatic change also contributed, and the event perhaps also caused the ancestors of the Amerindians to migrate to the new place. Monika Karmin et al in 2015 presented a study of 456 geographically diverse high-coverage Y chromosome sequences, including 299 newly reported samples, indicating that there has been a sharp decline in the population of the world beginning in the early Holocene, or the end of the Younger Dryas period. In addition, they also pointed out that there has been a bottle neck of human population at about mid-Holocene, and expanded very sharply thereafter. It can be seen in Figure 36 that the number of populations in the Pleistocene period were more numerous in the regions of Southeast and East Asia, followed by South Asia. However, after the bottle neck there were population turnover in Europe, followed by the Near East and the Caucasus. This suggests that there might have been a remarkable worldwide disaster at about 11,600 years ago, ie 58
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations the end of the Younger Dryas, and perhaps the survivors from Southeast, East and South Asia fled to Europe and the Near East to establish new civilizations. This is in line with a study by Posth et al (2016) who suggests – from analysis of mtDNA haplogroup M (carried by the majority of Southeast, East and South Asian peoples) – that 1 there was a major population 2 turnover in Europe around late 3 4 2 Pleistocene that came from 7 5 separate Last Glacial Maximum 6 7 6 refugium. Studies by Karafet et al 3 8 8 (2014) and Hammer (2013) 4 5 support the origin of the 1 European around late Pleistocene from Southeast Asia through the Figure 36 – Cumulative Bayesian skyline plots of Y Near East based on lineages from chromosome diversity by world regions haplogroups P and R. (Monika Karmin et al 2015). Apparent in the figure that populations grew fairly after the Toba eruption around 74,000 years ago, most rapidly in the regions of Southeast and South Asia. Note the lack of genetic data coverage in Southeast Asia, so that their growth is expected even more than that. Due to the Earth’s rotation, regions west of Mount Toba experienced more severe effects. In the regions of Southeast Asia (mainly in Sundaland), modern humans found the ideal climatic conditions and natural resources for development, and it was there that farming and civilization were invented, making them to grow more rapidly. Yet, an unknown event at the end Younger Dryas made them to depopulate and the refugia fled to other regions of the world. Apparent also in the figure that the Andes started to populate after the event, showing that the refugia also fled to as far as America. Language, cultural and other genetic studies consistently support the out of Southeast Asia (Sundaland) dispersal to other regions after the Younger Dryas event, either to East and North Asia (Sagart 1990, 2005; Oppenheimer 1998, 2011; Yao et al 2002, Sanchez-Mazas et al 2005, Palmer 2007, Richards et al 2008, HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium 2009, 2011; Cai et al 2011, Peng et al 2011, Wang et al 2013, Karafet et al 2014, Li et al 2015, Brandão et al 2016, Soares et al 2016, Marrero et al 2016 and Simanjuntak 2017), South Asia (Oppenheimer 1998, 2011; HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium 2009, Peng et al 2011, Marrero 59
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations et al 2016), West Asia (Oppenheimer 1998), Oceania (Richards et al 2008, Peng et al 2010, Jinam et al 2012, Karafet et al 2014, Brandão et al 2016, Soares et al 2016, Marrero et al 2016) and Europe (Oppenheimer 1998, Hammer 2013, Karafet et al 2014, Posth et al 2016, Marrero et al 2016). The population of Brazilian Amazon and other Americas also detected almost coincide with the event (Reich et al 2015, Willerslev et al 2015, Marrero et al 2016). The warming phase at the end of the Younger Dryas period was very abrupt. The following events have been observed. 1. 2.
3.
4. 5.
The central Greenland temperatures increased by 7 °C or more in a few decades (Johnsen et al 1992; Grootes et al 1993; Severinghaus et al 1998). Most of the changes in wind-blown materials and some other climate indicators were accomplished in a few years (Alley et al 1993; Taylor et al 1993; Hammer et al 1997). Broad regions of the Earth experienced almost synchronous changes over periods of 0 to 30 years (Severinghaus et al 1998), and changes were very abrupt in at least some regions (Bard et al 1987), eg requiring as little as 10 years off Venezuela (Hughen et al 1996). Fluctuations in ice conductivity indicate that atmospheric circulation was reorganized extremely rapidly (Taylor et al 1993). A similar, correlated sequence of abrupt deglacial events also occurred in the tropical and temperate North Atlantic (Bard et al 1987; Hughen et al 1996) and in Western Europe (von Grafenstein et al 1999).
Establishment of new civilizations with building, farming, tool and weapon technology nearly coinciding with the end of the Younger Dryas period have been detected, as follow. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
The construction of Gobekli Tepe (near Urfa in southern Turkey) has been estimated between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago. Jericho settlement just north of the Dead Sea and due west of the Jordan River have been dated to 11,600 years ago. Catalhoyuk, a city near present day Cumra Konya, Turkey existed about 9,700 years ago. A Neolithic village in Cyprus has been dated to 12,000 years ago. Amesbury town in Wiltshire, UK has been continually occupied since about 10,800 years ago. The Middleeastern Neolithic B culture began around 10,800 years ago. 60
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 7. 8. 9.
10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
16.
17.
18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.
Clay tokens have been used since as early as 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia for some form of record-keeping. The large scale organized agriculture in the Levant region of the Middle East in present day Syria and Israel occurred about 12,000 years ago. Communities based on agriculture appeared in various places from around 12,000 to 9,000 years ago at Catalhoyuk in Turkey, at Teleilat el Ghassul in the Jordan valley, and at the Hussuna, Samarran and Halaf cultures on the Mesopotamian plain. Indian agriculture appears to have been in the Indus valley around 11,000 years ago. Rice was farmed in China about 12,000 years ago. Maize was first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Bottle gourd and dogs given its arrival in central Mexico by about 10,000 years ago. The Japanese Jomon Period has been dated between 12,500 and 2,300 years ago. A Neolithic Yellow River site of Nanzhuangtou near Lake Baiyangdian in Xushui County, Hebei, China has been dated to 12,600 – 11,300 years ago. The archaeological remains at sites in Folsom and Clovis, New Mexico were dated to 10,000 – 11,000 and 12,000 – 12,500 years ago, respectively. Pieces of pottery, tools, arrowheads and other objects used by native Americans that began inhabiting southwestern Hamilton County, Ohio was dated in about 12,000 years ago. A poop found in Oregon has been dated to 10,800 year ago. A skeleton found in Hoya Negro cave on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula (nicknamed Naia) was dated to about 11,000 – 12,000 years ago. A mine from which a prehistoric culture extracted iron oxide 12,000 years ago was discovered near the town of Taltal in northern Chile. Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Chile has been dated to around 13,000 years ago. Genetic studies shows that Polynesians ceased contact with the Southeast Asians around 11,500 years ago (Kayser et al 2000). Homo floresiensis found in the island of Flores in Indonesia survived until around 12,000 years ago before dying out.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Legendary Memories Myths and legends related to population diaspora have been told reflecting maintenance of their collective memory of their homelands. Biases might happen when passing the stories down over generations as oral transcriptions have changed the details through time, adding local geography and cultural aspects, but the core of each story was supposedly preserved and shared as a common theme and similar characters. Some of the stories describes the occurrence of flood, land drowning, earthquake and exceptional rainfall which caused them to move to other lands. These perhaps constitute the effects of extraordinary events occurred in the Younger Dryas period. 1.
In the Atlantis story written by the Greek philosopher Plato, the demise of Atlantis caused by an earthquake and a flood took place 9,000 years before the life of the Athenian statesman Solon (ca 600 BCE), or calculated as 11,600 years ago, exactly the same date as the end of the Younger Dryas period. It was told in the story – told to had been recorded on an inscription in an Egyptian temple – the kingdom of Atlantis was located in a tropical region with fertile land, had two seasons, had a maritime culture, and encompassed a later partly drowned territory larger than Libya and Asia Minor put together. The capital city was destructed by a flood and an earthquake in a single night and day, and subsequently the ruins and some areas of the kingdom were gradually drowned. These descriptions and all the others written by Plato are strongly comparable with the conditions of antediluvian Sundaland, and its subsidence after the Younger Dryas period.
2.
The people of the kingdom of Kumari Kandam as told by the Tamils in southern India and Sri Lanka in the early century CE was migrated from a drowned large landmass in the Indian Ocean to South India. It mentions that the Pandyan kings established three literary academies (sangams). The first sangam flourished for 4,400 years, the second for 3,700 years and the third for 1,850 years. The first two sangams were not located in the present South India but in an ancient Tamil country which then drowned and the works created were lost. Calculating the number of years of the three sangams, it turns out to a date between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago, which is in the range of the end of the Younger Dryas period. This ancient civilization was located south to present-day Tamil, or to go to their new land they reached from the 62
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations south. Vast land which sank in the past is not other than Sundaland. The story is also consistent with the theory of post-glacial been widely acceptable by scientists. 3.
In the folklore of the Iranians, Kangdez is a paradise-like fortress, being rich in water and game, as well as several walls or buildings made of different materials. Further, it is located at the extreme far east, in a sea which could be reached a year or six-month’s voyage, situated around the equator, there was no snow, there were two seasons (no winter and summer), outside of China, east of India, many rivers, water and mountains, and there was a row of volcanoes. These descriptions are strongly comparable with the conditions of Sundaland.
4.
In the Book of Genesis, Garden of Eden is a region in the east where Adam and Eve lived after they were created by God, with four river flowing on it, home to both the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, as well as an abundance of other vegetation. After generations, the God intended to return the Earth to its pre-creation state of watery chaos by flooding the Earth because of humanity’s misdeeds and then remake it using the microcosm of Noah’s ark. Subsequently, as the time passed by, after a long travel from the east, they arrived in a plain of Shinar (identified as Mesopotamia). These descriptions are compatible with the allegation of a severe catastrophe occurred in the Younger Dryas period where the surviving people then fled to other regions. It was told that they came from a place at the east (of Mesopotamia) described as an ideal place to live with abundance vegetation and friendly environment (“paradise”), perhaps a region in Sundaland.
5.
The Akkadian epic poem discovered on clay tablets in Mesopotamia, tells the story of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. After an initial fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. Together, they journey to the Cedar Mountain and defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Enkidu was sentenced to death by the goddess Ninsun to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. After the death of his friend, he travels to meet the immortal sage Utnapishtim who survived the Great Flood. A newly discovered clay tablet tells additional lines of the story. The Cedar Forest is told as full of noisy birds and cicadas, and 63
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations monkeys scream and yell in the trees, formed a symphony (or cacophony) that daily entertained the forest’s guardian, Ḫumbaba. A similar story to the epic of Gilgamesh, the Egyptian version, is found in the Book of Kolbrin, preserved by the Celtics in Great Britain. Gilgamesh is equal to Hurmanetar, Enkidu to Yadol, the goddess Ninsun to Nintursu, Humbaba to Hubabwara, Utnapishtim to Sisuda (Ziusudra in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis) and the city of Uruk to Eraka. The book also mentions the plain of Shinara (Shinar in the Book of Genesis). The descriptions about the Cedar Forest, told as full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees, fit the conditions in Sundaland. Archaeologically, monkeys and perhaps cicadas did not exist in the Near East nor Middle East. Utnapishtim in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis is mentioned as Ziusudra. The god Enki gives Ziusudra immortality in the mythological country of Dilmun, in the far east, where the sun rises, and could refer to Sundaland. 6.
The Land of Punt was a trading partner of Egypt, it was known for producing and exporting gold, incense, aromatic resins, cinnamon, ebony, ivory and animals. The Egyptians were continuously in trading relationship with the Puntites, as recorded in their history from the 4th to the 26th Dynasties (27th – 6th centuries BCE). The most famous Egyptian expedition to Punt, and the one from which most derived information, is the one conducted by 18th-dynasty Queen Hatshepsut (1473 – 1458 BCE) and recorded in the splendidly detailed reliefs on the walls of her mortuary temple at Deir El-Bahari, Egypt. The Egyptians called the Land of Punt “Ta Natjer”, literally the “Land of the Gods”, or the “Divine Land”. Older literature (and current nonmainstream literature) maintained that the label “Land of God”, when interpreted as “divine land” or “land of the divinities (ancestors)”, meant that the ancient Egyptians viewed the Land of Punt as their ancestral homeland. Since Ra, the sun god, held a very important place in the Egyptian pantheon, the Land of Punt must be located in the far east, in the direction of the sunrise, most probably Sumatera in Sundaland (Irwanto 2016).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Domestications Domestication is the process by which humans alter the morphology and genes of targeted organisms by selecting for desirable traits. Domesticated species and the human populations that domesticate them are typified by a mutualistic relationship of interdependence. Domesticated crop species tend to become increasingly reliant on human populations for dispersal due to the selection against natural seed dispersal methods and humans have become increasingly dependent on domesticated crop species to sustain growing populations. Because many crop species rely on humans for dispersal, and it is possible to use genomics* to track the dispersal of domesticated species, the genomics of domesticated species can be used as a tool to track human movements throughout history. Recent studies have revealed the presence of several agricultural crops and animals domesticated in Sundaland and its surroundings and they are closely related to population dispersals out of Sundaland. However, these studies are limited to discoveries available at this time only. The domestications are inseparable from the water environments, either rivers or seas which met at the estuaries. Thus it can be assumed that the early civilizations were centered at the estuarines. However, most Ice Age estuarines in Sundaland are presently under the sea. We can presume that the evidence of the oldest domestications have not been discovered due to their locations under the sea and those are discovered today are on higher grounds which are so much younger. Additionally, Sundaland has had frequent volcanic activities resulted in thick layers of volcanic ash, to become serious obstacles to discover such archaeological evidence. Coconuts It has generally been accepted that the coconut (Cocos nucifera) – cultivated in tropical portions of Africa, America, Asia and Oceania – originated in the Indian-Indonesian region. The modern coconut has two different species, essentially a Pacific version and an Atlantic one. Wild coconuts are not known; all coconuts today are dependent on human interaction to survive and regenerate. Coconut has spread across much of the tropics, probably aided in many cases by seafaring people.
Genomics is the study of the structure, content, and evolution of genomes, or the entire genetic information of organisms.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 37 – Spread of coconut cultivation.
DNA analysis of more than 1,300 coconuts from around the world by Olsen et al (2011) reveals that the coconut was brought under cultivation in two separate locations, one in the Pacific basin and the other in the Indian Ocean basin. Coconut genetics also preserve a record of prehistoric trade routes and of the colonization of the Americas.
Figure 38 – Historical distributions of coconuts (Olsen et al 2011).
In the Pacific, coconuts were likely first cultivated in islands of Southeast Asia, meaning the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and perhaps the continent as well. In the Indian Ocean the likely center of cultivation was the southern periphery of India, including Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and the Laccadives. The Pacific coconuts were introduced to the Indian Ocean a couple of thousand years ago by ancient Austronesians establishing trade routes connecting Southeast Asia to Madagascar and coastal east Africa.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Rice In the book Eden in the East (1998), Stephen Oppenheimer claims that the domestication of rice was not in China but in the Malay Peninsula, ca 9,000 years ago. Here grains of rice were found from the eras between 7000 and 5000 BCE on the Malay Peninsula. This time period is several years older than the arrival of the Austronesian people from Taiwan who were thought to have brought farming technologies to Southeast Asia. There are four main varieties of rice: japonica, a short-grained rice grown in Japan, Korea, and eastern China; indica, a long-grained variety common in India, Pakistan, and most of Southeast Asia; aus, grown primarily in Bangladesh; and aromatic rice, which includes more exotic varieties such as India’s basmati and Thailand’s jasmine. Scientists have primarily focused on indica and japonica because archaeological findings suggest both have a long history of cultivation. Researchers generally agree that humans living in what is now southern China domesticated japonica between 8,200 and 13,500 years ago. The precise locale within southern China is still debated. Experts are still debating the origin of indica. Those claiming one domestication event believe indica emerged from crosses between japonica and wild species as rice cultivation spread through Asia. Those arguing for two separate domestication events generally agree that japonica emerged in southern China, but they contend that indica was independently domesticated in a region straddling India and western Indochina. The new analysis, from a group led by Terence Brown of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, adds a third and separate domestication locale, for aus, in a region stretching from central India to Bangladesh. However, research on the origins of rice cultivation is still ongoing. It can be presumed that the evidence of the oldest rice cultivation can not be found because it is located under the sea and the evidence available today are on higher lands which are so much younger. Evidence on the mainland are also not necessarily reflecting the real origins since the Sundaland area is generally covered by very thick volcanic ash. Bananas Bananas (Musa spp) are believed to have originated more than 10,000 years ago and some scientists believe they may have been the world’s first fruit. The bananas we enjoy today are far better than the original wild fruit which 67
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations contained many large, hard seeds and not much tasty pulp. There was a cross breeding of two varieties of wild bananas, the Musa acuminata and the Musa baalbisiana. From this process, some bananas became seedless and more like the bananas we eat today. The first bananas are thought to have grown in the region that includes the Malaya Peninsula, Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua. From here, traders and travelers took them to India, Africa and Polynesia. There were references to bananas from 600 BCE when Buddhist scriptures, known as the Pali Canon, noted Indian traders travelling through the Malaysian region had tasted the fruit and brought plants back with them. In 327 BCE, when Alexander The Great and his army invaded India, he discovered banana crop in the Indian Valleys. After tasting this unusual fruit for the first time, he introduced this new discovery to the Western world. By 200 CE bananas had spread to China. According to the Chinese historian Yang Fu, bananas only ever grew in the southern region of China. They were never really popular until the 20th century as they were considered to be a strange and exotic alien fruit. Bananas began to be developed in Africa about 650 CE. It is thought that traders from Arabia, Persia, India and Indonesia distributed banana suckers around coastal regions of the Indian Ocean (but not Australia) between the 5th and 15th centuries. Portuguese sailors discovered bananas in West Africa and established banana plantations in the 15th century off the coast, in the Canary Islands. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the suckers were traded in the Americas and plantations were established in Latin America and the Caribbean. Banana plants first arrived in Australia in the 1800s. Sugarcane The people of Papua were probably the first to domesticate sugarcane (Saccharum spp), sometime around 8000 BCE. However, the extraction and purifying technology techniques were developed by people who were living in India. After domestication, its cultivation spread rapidly to Southeast Asia and southern China. India, where the process of refining cane juice into granulated crystals was developed, was often visited by imperial convoys (such as those from China) to learn about cultivation and sugar refining. By the sixth century CE, sugarcane cultivation and processing had reached Persia; and, from there that knowledge was brought into the Mediterranean by the Arab expansion. 68
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Spanish and Portuguese exploration and conquest in the 15th century carried sugar to south-west of Iberia. Henry the Navigator introduced the cane to Madeira in 1425, while the Spanish, having eventually subdued the Canary Islands, introduced the sugar cane to them. In 1493, on his second voyage, Christopher Columbus carried sugarcane seedlings to the New World, in particular Hispaniola. Chili Peppers The most recent research shows that chili peppers (Capsicum spp) were domesticated more than 6,000 years ago in Mexico, in the region that extends across southern Puebla and northern Oaxaca to southeastern Veracruz, and were one of the first self-pollinating crops cultivated in Mexico, Central and parts of South America. However, chili peppers are mentioned in the Siva Purana and Vamana Purana, from India, dated to the sixth to eighth centuries CE (Banerji 1980). The Sanskrit name marichi-phalam was applied to both Capsicum annuum and Capsicum frutescens (Nadkarni 1914). The plant and its fruit are naturalistically pictured in stone carvings at a Shiva temple at Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu (Gupta 1996). A very explicit rendering of chili pepper plants is found on a wall panel of a temple ruin in the garden at the 9th-century Prambanan Temple in Java (Johannessen et al 1998a, 1989a). The panel is about 1,300 years old. Maize Within the last 10,000 years, early Native Americans were able to transform teosinte into a plant whose ear, brimming with row upon row of exposed kernels, feeds the world over (Buckler et al 2005). Research suggest that maize (Zea mays) was first domesticated by indigenous peoples in the Balsas watershed in Mexico about 8,000 years ago (Doebley 1990). However, field investigations have discovered odd sorts of maize growing in Asia (especially Sikkim Primitive in the remote Himalaya and ‘waxy’ varieties from Myanmar all across China to the Korean peninsula), mostly away from coastal areas where 16th-century Iberian sailors are supposed to have first introduced maize. The characteristics and distribution of these grains cannot be explained in terms of post-Columbian introduction, because waxy varieties were not known in the Americas. Johannessen et al (1998a, 1989a) were the first to document extensively that maize ears were represented in sculptures of ears of corn – hundreds of them – on original temple walls in Karnataka State, southern India. This art usually dates from the 11th to the 13th centuries CE, but some representations are 69
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations much older. Four Sanskrit words for maize have been recorded, while the Garuda Purana, as well as the Linga Purana texts of the 5th century CE refer to maize. From near Zhenghou, Henan province, China, comes a ceramic effigy of maize, dated about 2,000 years ago, that was found in an excavation of an imperial tomb of the Han Dynasty. A bas-relief showing maize is found on a wall panel of a temple ruin in the garden at the 9th-century Prambanan Temple in Java, next to the panel showing chili pepper plant, about 1,300 years old (Johannessen et al 1998a, 1989a). Maize is also shown on a bas relief of a panel at the 9th-century Borobudur Temple, also in Java. Fossilized remnants of staple foods, comprising maize and rice, were found at Liyangan archaeological site in Central Java. Based on 14C dating, burned tree trunks found at the site were dated back to 590 CE. Chickens The history of chickens (Gallus domesticus) is a bit of a puzzle. They were first domesticated from a wild form called the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus), a bird that still runs wild in most of Southeast Asia, likely hybridized with the grey junglefowl (Gallus sonneratii). That occurred probably about 8,000 years ago. Recent research suggests there may have been multiple origins in distinct areas of South and Southeast Asia, southern (and perhaps northern) China, Thailand, Burma and India. The earliest fossil bones identified as possibly belonging to chickens appear in sites from northeastern China dating to around 5400 BCE, but the birds’ wild ancestors never lived in those cold, dry plains. A 2016 study (Eda et al) of 280 bird bones reported as chicken from Neolithic and Bronze age sites in northern and central China found that only a handful could securely be identified as actually chicken. So if they really are chicken bones, they must have come from somewhere else. Researchers suggest that chickens were a rare occurrence in northern and Central China, and thus probably an import from southern China or Southeast Asia were evidence of domestication is stronger. Once chickens were domesticated, cultural contacts, trade, migration and territorial conquest resulted in their introduction, and reintroduction, to different regions around the world over several thousand years. Although inconclusive, evidence suggests that ground zero for the bird’s westward spread may have been the Indus Valley, where the city-states of the Harappan civilization carried on a lively trade with the Middle East more than 4,000 years ago. Archaeologists have recovered chicken bones from Lothal, once a great 70
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations port on the west coast of India, raising the possibility that the birds could have been carried across to the Arabian Peninsula as cargo or provisions. By 2000 BCE, cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia refer to “the bird of Meluhha”. That may or may not have been a chicken; Professor Piotr Steinkeller, a specialist in ancient Near Eastern texts at Harvard, says that it was certainly “some exotic bird that was unknown to Mesopotamia.” He believes that references to the “royal bird of Meluhha” – a phrase that shows up in texts three centuries later – most likely refer to the chicken. Chickens arrived in East Africa some 250 years later in the mid-15th century BCE, as fighting birds and additions to exotic menageries. The earliest firm evidence for chickens are illustrations from several sites in New Kingdom Egypt. Chickens arrived in western African at Iron Age sites such as Jenne-Jeno in Mali, Kirikongo in Burkina Faso and Daboya in Ghana by the mid-first millennium CE. Domestic chickens reached West Asia and the Near East during the third and second millennium BCE, and were introduced to Europe by the Phoenicians during the 8th century BCE (Perry-Gal et al 2015). Chickens were brought to the Polynesian islands from Southeast Asia with the Lapita expansion, about 3,300 years ago. While it was assumed that they had been brought to the Americas with the Spanish conquistadors, presumably preColumbian chickens have been identified at several sites throughout the Americas, most notably – and controversially – at the site of El Arenal-1 in Chile, ca 1350 CE. Dogs An initial estimate for the origin of domestic dogs based on molecular data, for example, placed their divergence from wolves at ~135,000 years ago (Vila` et al 1997), more than 100,000 years earlier than the first morphological evidence for dog domestication based on fossil bones from Europe and Asia, which were dated to ~13,000 – 17,000 years ago (Sablin et al 2002). Research conducted by Matthias Oskarsson at the School of Biotechnology, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden in 2012 based on Ychromosomal DNA sequence suggest that dogs in Asia south of Yangtze River has the highest genetic diversity and was founded from a large number of wolf founders. He emphasized that early dog dispersal is tightly coupled to human history with the dog brought along as a cultural item. He has for the first time investigated the dog dispersal into Polynesia and Australia and their data can be 71
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations used as evidence for a more complex settlement of Polynesia than earlier indicated from archaeological and linguistic studies. Peter Savolainen of the KTH-Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and YaPing Zhang of the Kunming Institute of Zoology in China in 2015 simultaneously suggest that humans first domesticated dogs in Southeast Asia 33,000 years ago, and that about 15,000 years ago a subset of dog ancestors began to migrate toward the Middle East and Africa. Their movement was likely inspired by that of their human companions, but it is also possible that they began their journey independently. One possible motivating factor could have been melting glaciers, which started retreating approximately 19,000 years back. It was not until 5,000 years after they first began spreading out from Southeast Asia that dogs are thought to have reached Europe. Before finally making their way to the Americas, one of these groups doubled-back to Asia where they interbred with dogs that had migrated to northern China. Pigs Archaeological evidence indicates that pigs were domesticated at least twice, once in China’s Mekong valley and once in Anatolia, the region in modern-day Turkey between the Black, Mediterranean, and Aegean seas. For another, a 2007 study of genetic material from 323 modern and 221 ancient pigs from western Eurasia suggests that pigs first came to Europe from the Near East, but that Europeans subsequently domesticated local wild boar, which seemed to replace those original pigs. Laurent Frantz, a bioinformaticist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, carried out sophisticated computer analyses of 103 whole genomes sequenced from wild boars and domesticated pig breeds from all over Europe and Asia, published in Nature Genetics in 2015, indicating that that pigs were indeed originated in those two places. But Europe’s modern pigs are mongrel mixes derived from multiple wild boar populations. Some of their genetic material does not match any wild boar DNA collected by the researchers, so they think that at least some ancestors came from either an extinct group or from another group in central Eurasia. This anomaly suggests that pigs were herded from place to place, where they mated with this “ghost” population. Moreover, at one point – most likely in the 1800s, when Europeans imported Chinese pigs to improve their commercial breeds – a little Asian pig blood entered the mix. 72
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Bottle Gourd Archeological remains of the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) have been discovered in the Americas, Africa and Asia, establishing that it is one of the earliest plants to have been domesticated for use by humans with a global distribution during pre-Columbian times. Studies – both archeological and genetic of seed and fruit-rind fragments – indicate it was in use by humans in East Asia 13,000 years ago or earlier (Zeder et al 2006). It was present as a domesticated plant in the Americas by 10,000 years ago and had a wide distribution in the Americas by 8,000 years ago (Smith 2000, Erickson et al 2005). Despite its utilitarian importance to diverse human populations, it remains unresolved how the bottle gourd came to be so widely distributed, and in particular how and when it arrived in the Americas. Bottle gourd reached Eastern Polynesia from the Americas, while occurrences in Western Polynesia originate in Southeast Asia (Green 2000, Clarke 2009). A study using ancient DNA concluded that Paleoindians transported already domesticated gourds to the Americas from Asia when colonizing the Americas (Erickson et al 2005). Although it is possible that the bottle gourd could have been carried from Asia to the Americas by the north Pacific current. Nevertheless, a recent study by Kistler et al in 2015 found that all preColumbian bottle gourds are most closely related to African gourds, not Asian gourds, and they could have simply floated across the Atlantic during the Late Pleistocene through ocean-current drift. Kalimantan Elephants The origin of the Kalimantan elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis) is controversial. Two competing hypotheses argue that they are either indigenous, tracing back to the Pleistocene, or were introduced, descending from elephants imported in the 16th – 18th centuries. Taxonomically, they have either been classified as a unique subspecies or placed under the Indian or Sumatran subspecies. Prithviraj Fernando et al in 2003 have conducted research comparing DNA of Kalimantan elephants to that of elephants from across the range of the Asian elephant. They found that the Kalimantan elephants are genetically distinct, with molecular divergence indicative of a Pleistocene colonization of Kalimantan and subsequent isolation about 300,000 years ago. When the sea level rise in the Last Glacial Age separated the Kalimantan Island from the Asian mainland, the elephants were isolated in the island from their cousins on mainland Asia and 73
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Sumatera and later evolved to become a distinct Asian elephant sub-species. The now extinct Javan elephants (Elephas maximus sondaicus) those once inhabited Java are identical to the Kalimantan elephants. Fossils of dwarfed elephantoid, stegodon, are frequently encountered on Asian islands, which even during periods of low sea-level. Like elephants, stegodons must have been good swimmers. They are found in Java (Stegodon trigonocephalus and Stegodon elephantoides), Sulawesi (Stegodon sompoensis), Flores (Stegodon florensis and Stegodon sondaari), India (Stegodon ganesha and Stegodon insignis), Myanmar (Stegodon elephantoides), Japan (Stegodon aurorae, Stegodon orientalis and Stegodon shinshuensis) and China (Stegodon orientalis and Stegodon zdanski).
Pyramids Building A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single point at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. A step pyramid is an architectural structure that uses flat platforms, or steps, receding from the ground up, to achieve a completed shape similar to a geometric pyramid. Step pyramids are structures which characterized several cultures throughout history, in several locations throughout the world. These pyramids are typically large and made of several layers of stone. As well as menhirs, stone tables, and stone statues, Austronesian megalithic culture in the archipelago also featured earth-and-stone step pyramid structure, referred to as punden berundak, regarded as one of the characteristics of the original culture of the archipelago. These structures have been found and spread throughout the archipelago as far as Polynesia. Most of them are found in the island of Java. Gunungpadang is the biggest and the oldest earth-and-stone step pyramid structure dated ca 25,000 years ago or older (Natawidjaja 2013). The Sukuh and Cetho temples in Central Java (dates are debated) show the Austronesian indigenous elements of step pyramid that somewhat resemble the Mesoamerican pyramids. The huge Borobudur temple is the largest Buddhist temple in the world, which allegedly built on the previous earth-and-stone step pyramid. The construction of stone pyramids was based on the native belief that mountains and other high places are the abode of the spirits of the ancestors, or the most ideal pilgrimage places to worship them. They feel the need for pilgrimages, in addition to worship, in a belief that the ancestral spirits can solve their everyday life problems. 74
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Figure 39 – Spread of step pyramids in Southeast Asia.
The earth-and-stone step pyramids were normally built on natural or manmade mounds, hills or hillsides. As the civilizations were developing, they built larger pyramids so that more stones were required. The majority of the weight are closer to the ground and material higher up on the pyramid will be pushing down from above. The stones could pose problems on the strength of the earth to hold the weight – a case that has been observed at Borobudur temple. Therefore, pyramids with heavier stone weight pushing on the earth fill are observed to have less earth fill or even without it. This design allowed early civilizations to create stable monumental structures. Dry stones were used in the construction where minimum human work are required. Pyramids have been built by civilizations in many parts of the world. For thousands of years, the largest structures on Earth were pyramids. They spread from Egypt to America, that emerged separately from one another by oceans who supposedly never discovered each other’s existence. There are no firmly established connections between the different civilizations that built them, but their similarities show that they sprang from a common origin. In South and Southeast Asia, architectural elements were added on the terraced plinths of the pyramids, including multiple tower shrines. They gradually transformed into temples that mostly influenced by the Hindu and Buddhist architecture. Some of the temples retain their pyramidal form, such as Gangaikondachola-puram, Thanjavur, Airavatesvara and Srirangam temples in India; Prasat Thom temple in Cambodia; and Borobudur, Sukuh and Cetho 75
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations temples in Indonesia. Balinese puras are also in the form of earth-and-stone step pyramids, that are vigorously fantastical, with gilt paint and colored glass. In Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, Akkadians and Assyrians built the earliest pyramidal structures, called ziggurats, began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period. They were constructed of sun-dried mud-brick so that little remains of them. The ziggurat was a pyramidal structure with a flat top, built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval or square platform. They probably had shrines at the top with the access would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit.
Figure 40 – Development of pyramid building.
The Egyptian pyramids are huge structures built of brick or stone, shaped as a reference to the rays of the sun. They began building pyramids after 2700 BCE until about 1700 BCE. The first pyramid was built during the Third Dynasty by king Djoser and his architect Imhotep, as a step pyramid by stacking six mastabas (rectangular, flat-roofed ancient Egyptian tomb). The largest pyramids are the pyramids at Giza (2575 – 2150 BCE). In Mesoamerica, such as the Aztecs, Maya, Purépechans, Teotihuacans and Toltec built pyramids from around 1000 BCE up until the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century. The Mesoamerican pyramids were usually stepped, with temples on top, more similar to the Mesopotamian ziggurat. These are usually made out of stone and mortar but some of the earliest may have been made out of clay. The largest pyramid by volume is the pyramid of Cholula in Mexico. Other civilizations also built pyramid-shaped structures in the past. There are many square flat-topped mound tombs in China, most of which are ancient mausoleums and burial mounds built to house the remains of several early emperors of China and their imperial relatives. Many native American societies of ancient North America built large pyramidal earth structures known as platform mounds. Andean cultures in Peru had used pyramids in various 76
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations architectural structures. The Nubian in Sudan built steep-angled pyramids at three sites to serve as tombs for the kings and queens of Napata and Meroë. The Igbo culture in Nigeria built three clay or mud pyramids structures. Two pyramid-like structures are found in Greece, one at Hellenikon and the other at Ligourio. A Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias (2nd century CE) mentions two buildings resembling pyramids in Greece, but neither of these still survive. In the district of Chacona, Spain, six rectangular pyramid-shaped, terraced structures, referred to as the Pyramids of Güímar, are found.
Riparian Civilizations Rivers supplied a continuous if not always dependable flow and supply of water for transportation, farming and human consumption. These rivers along with climate, vegetation, geography, and topography shaped the development of the early riparian civilizations. However, while people of these civilizations were dependent on the rivers, the rivers also inspired new technological, economic, institutional, and organizational innovations and developments. Riparian cultures were the cradle of maritime civilizations which later developed into Austronesian-speaking people. The riparian zones – the interfaces between lands and rivers – provide wildlife habitat, increased biodiversity and wildlife corridors, enabling aquatic and riparian organisms to move along river systems avoiding isolated communities. Riparian vegetation can also provide forage for wildlife and livestock. They provide native landscape irrigation by extending seasonal or perennial flows of water. Nutrients from terrestrial vegetation are transferred to aquatic food webs. These are the reasons why early civilizations were centered at the riparian zones as water, food, irrigation and movement facilities are readily available. Large rivers with fertile lands existed in Sundaland during the Ice Age. It is logical that the civilizations developing in this region began at the riparian zones of these rivers. Since the seas were inseparable from their lives, their development until fully developed must happen at the estuarines. Sea level rise and frequent floods or tsunamis caused some of them to move to higher ground, on mountains. Rivers are the only means of transportation existed at that time, so they moved along the rivers in the upstream direction. Ancient civilizations survive to this day have been observed and it turns out that they are living in regions upstream of major rivers, as shown on Figure 41.
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Figure 41 – Traces of riparian civilizations in Sundaland.
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Austronesian Expansion Austronesian-speaking peoples are various populations in Asia, Oceania and Africa who speak, or had ancestors who spoke, one of the languages of the Austronesian family. The Austronesian-speaking peoples themselves have a variety of different traditions and history of their origins. They include Taiwanese aborigines; the majority of ethnic groups in the Philippines, Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, Brunei, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Madagascar, Micronesia, and Polynesia, as well as the Malay people of Singapore, the Polynesian peoples of New Zealand and Hawaii, and the non-Papuan people of Melanesia. They are also found in the regions of the Pattani in Thailand, the Cham areas in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the Hainan region of China, parts of Sri Lanka, southern Myanmar and some of the Andaman Islands. The territories populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are known collectively as Austronesia.
Figure 42 – Spread of Austronesian-speaking people.
The colonizing movements of early modern humans, originally from Africa through South and Southeast Asia and onto the continent of Sahul and beyond to the Pacific Islands of the time, soon reached as far as Melanesia. Although the earliest dates for the Solomon Islands only go back about 29,000 years, this probably occurred a little under 40,000 years ago (Spriggs 2011). The pottery of the early settlers links them with the people of the Maluku Islands. 79
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In around 1300 BCE, seafarers make the longest step so far in this process and reach Fiji, a group of islands intermediate between Melanesia and Polynesia. The Pacific islanders develop a twin-hulled sailing canoe which is an extremely effective sea-going vessel. In boats of this kind they continue the process of spreading eastwards through Polynesia. The first staging posts are Tonga and Samoa. The earliest surviving trace of human occupation in these islands is about 420 BCE in Tonga and 200 BCE in Samoa, but colonists are likely to have arrived considerably earlier than this. Since by the 1st century BCE humans have reached the much more inaccessible Marquesas Islands in Tahiti. They had settled the most remote island groups of the Pacific: Rapanui (Easter Island) by 300 CE, Hawaii by 400 CE, Tahiti in about 600 CE and into New Zealand by about 1280 CE. In the Indian Ocean, humans sailed west from the islands of Southeast Asia; they reached Madagascar by ca 50 – 500 CE. By the beginning of the first millennium CE, most of the Austronesian inhabitants in the islands of Southeast Asia began trading with India and China which allowed the creation of Indianized kingdoms such as Sriwijaya, Melayu, Majapahit, and the establishment of Hinduism and Buddhism. Muslim traders from the Arabian peninsula were thought to have brought Islam by the 10th century CE. Islam was established as the dominant religion in the Indonesian archipelago by the 16th century CE. The Austronesian inhabitants of Polynesia were unaffected by this cultural trade, and retained their indigenous culture in the Pacific region.
Language Family The Austronesian language family stretches halfway around the world, covering a wide geographic area from Madagascar to Easter Island, and from Taiwan and Hawaii to New Zealand. The family includes most of the languages spoken on the islands of the Pacific with the exception of the indigenous Papuan and Australian languages. Austronesian languages are spoken in Brunei, Cambodia, Chile, China, Cook Islands, East Timor, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Indonesia, Kiribati, Madagascar, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mayotte, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailand, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, USA, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Wallis and Futuna. The total number of speakers of Austronesian languages is about 386 million people, making it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers, 80
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations behind only the Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo and Afroasiatic languages. The existence of the Austronesian language family was first discovered in the 17th century when Polynesian words were compared to words in Malay. Otto Dempwolff was the first researcher to extensively explore Austronesian languages using the comparative method. Another German, Wilhelm Schmidt, coined the German word austronesisch which comes from Latin auster (“south wind”) and Greek nêsos (“island”). The name Austronesian was formed from the same roots. The family is aptly named, as the vast majority of Austronesian languages are spoken on islands: only a few languages are indigenous to mainland Asia. With 1268 languages, Austronesian is one of the largest and the most geographically far spread language families of the world. Austronesian and Niger-Congo are the two largest language families in the world, each having roughly one-fifth of the total languages counted in the world. The geographical span of Austronesian languages was the largest of any language family before the spread of Indo-European in the colonial period, ranging from Madagascar off the southeastern coast of Africa to the Easter Island in the eastern Pacific. Despite extensive research into Austronesian languages, their origin and early history remain a matter of debate. Some scholars propose that the ancestral Proto-Austronesian language originated in Taiwan (“Out of Taiwan” model), while other linguists believe that it originated in the islands of Indonesia (“Island Origin” model). The Austronesian language family is usually divided into two branches: Formosan and Malayo-Polynesian, with the latter is by far the largest of the two. Malayo-Polynesian is traditionally divided into two main sub-branches: Western and Central-Eastern. The Western sub-branch includes 531 languages spoken in Madagascar, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, parts of Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Micronesia (Chamorro and Palauan), represents over 300 million speakers and includes such widely spoken languages as Javanese, Malay and Tagalog. The Central-Eastern sub-branch, sometimes referred to as Oceanic, contains around 706 languages spoken in most of Papua and throughout the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia but excluding the aboriginal Australian and Papuan languages, represents only under 2 million speakers. 81
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The seven largest Austronesian speakers are: Javanese (~100 million), Filipino/Tagalog (~70 million native, ~100 million total), Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian) (~45 million native, ~250 million total), Sundanese (~39 million), Cebuano (~19 million native, ~30 million total), Malagasy (~17 million) and Madurese (~14 million). Twenty or so Austronesian languages are official in their respective countries.
Dispersal Genomic analysis of cultivated coconut (Cocos nucifera) has shed light on the dispersals of Austronesian-speaking people. By examining 10 microsatelite loci, researchers found that there are 2 genetically distinct subpopulations of coconut – one originating in the Indian Ocean, the other in the Pacific Ocean. However, there is evidence of admixture, the transfer of genetic material, between the two populations. Given that coconuts are ideally suited for ocean dispersal, it seems possible that individuals from one population could have floated to the other. However, the locations of the admixture events are limited to Madagascar and coastal east Africa and exclude the Seychelles. This pattern coincides with the known trade routes of Austronesian sailors. Additionally, there is a genetically distinct subpopulation of coconut on the eastern coast of South America which has undergone a genetic bottleneck resulting from a founder effect; however, its ancestral population is the pacific coconut, which suggests that Austronesianspeaking people may have sailed as far east as the Americas. The earliest known evidences of maritime activities in the regions of Austronesian-speaking people are found as cave paintings in the islands of Muna (Southeast Sulawesi), Kai (Maluku), Arguni (Papua), Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Flores and Timor dated back for more than 10,000 years BCE, those are fully decorated by sailboat paintings. A study by M Aubert et al published in Nature (2014) suggests that paintings in the Maros-Pangkep caves in Sulawesi range from 17,400 to 39,900 years old. Another study by M Aubert et al published in Nature (2018) suggests that paintings in the Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave in East Kalimantan range from 40,000 to 52,000 years old. Similarities of prehistorical remains found in Java and Australian Aborigines show that ancient maritime activities had been made between them. Long distance sailing technology in the region must have appeared much earlier, with the peopling of Australia through Southeast Asia some 40,000 years ago (Green 2006). Jukung, a type of boat used by the people of southern Kalimantan is found similarly in Madagascar, as well as their languages are closely similar. 82
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Archaeologists have revealed ample evidence of the active maritime networks in the Southeast Asian region that existed from at least 5,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Austronesian migration that spread throughout all of insular Southeast Asia and most of the Pacific (Bellwood 1985, 1991, 1995; Bellwood and Dizon 2005; Horridge 1995; Reid 1988; Ronquillo 1998; Scott 1994; Solheim 1988, 2006). As pointed out by linguists, archaeologists and anthropologists, shared cultural traits such as language, agriculture, animal husbandry and pottery-making are evidence of the Austronesian maritime connection. Likewise a boat building tradition emerged out of Southeast Asian islands but scarcely addressed in archaeology and history subjects.
Figure 43 – Locations of rock arts with boat paintings.
Similarities between boat-building technology in the regions of Austronesianspeaking people and in the Indian Ocean about 5,000 years ago were observed. Wooden boards added on the canoe hulls and sewn-plank boats spread across the archipelago were also observed on the boats in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Horridge (2006) claimed that it is not appropriate to correlate them seeing that the Austronesian speaking people spread over the archipelago long before they were influenced by boat-building technology in the Indian Ocean or even Egypt. He shows that the Austronesian boats were developed 83
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations using a triangular-shaped sail since about 200 BCE demonstrated by the spread of bronze kettle which is one of the artifacts of the Dong Son culture, but this sail type was developed in the Indian Ocean more recently about 200 CE and was adopted by the Portuguese sailors a thousand years later. Austronesian boats on its development have unique characteristics with a triangular sail and single outrigger. The outrigger is made of bamboo trunks with transverse connectors at the top of the hull, while the triangular sail is formed using bamboo sticks supported by a slanting mast (Horridge 2006). Cloves and cinnamon were allegedly trade commodities brought by Austronesian-speaking sailors towards India and Sri Lanka, and perhaps also towards the east coast of Africa by outrigged boats. They left trails of influences such as boat design, boat building techniques, outriggers, fishing techniques and so on as evidenced in the Greek literature (Christie 1957 in Horridge 2006). Hornel (1928 in Horridge 2006) supported this argument that the boat shape in Bantu tribe in Victoria Nyanza, Uganda in East Africa is similar to those in Indonesia. The 8th-century wooden double outrigger ships depicted on Borobudur Buddhist temple in Central Java, Indonesia were most likely the type of vessels used for inter-insular trades and naval campaigns by the Sailendran and Sriwijayan thalassocracy empires that ruled the region around the 7th to the 13th century. The function of the outrigger was to stabilize the ship; a single or double outrigger canoe is the typical feature of the seafaring Austronesian vessels. It is considered by scholars to have been the most likely type of vessel used for their voyages and exploration across Southeast Asia, Oceania and the Indian Ocean. In the late 20th century, Philip Beale, a British sailor, became interested in depictions of the ship Figure 44 – Image of a ship on Borobudur at Borobudur and decided to temple bas relief. reconstruct one. Aided by government and international bodies, he organized an expedition team that constructed the ship and, from 2003 to 2004, sailed it from Indonesia to Madagascar and to Ghana, proving that long-distance trade had occurred. The 84
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Samudraraksa Museum was constructed at Borobudur Archeological Park to house the ship, opening in 2005, and provides other displays to interpret the ancient maritime history of Indonesia. A masterpiece traditional two-masted sailing ship pinisi (variously spelled phinisi, pinissi or pinisi') mainly built by the Konjo tribe, a sub-ethnic group of BugisMakassar mostly residents at the Bulukumba regency of South Sulawesi, was and still is used widely by the Buginese and Makassarese, mostly for inter-insular transportation, cargo and fishing purposes within the Indonesian archipelago. The traditional Buginese Lontara manuscripts and stories document the use of pinisi by the Buginese for transport, as a sailing boat, and a warship. In its original form, the pinisi is a double ended hull type, having sharply raked stem and stern post. There was not a centerline rudder, instead most often made use of twin rudders, one on each aft quarter. The large mainsails are reefed towards the mast, much like a curtain, thus allowing the gaff to be used as deck crane in the harbor. The lower part of the mast itself may resemble a tripod or is made of two poles. Pinisi may be 20 to 35 meters long and 350 tons in size. The masts may reach to 30 meters above the deck. There are two general types of pinisi: lamba or lambo – a long and slender built, having a straight stern, is the one currently surviving in its motorized version; and palari – older type with a curved stern and keel, usually smaller than the lamba. Pinisi has proved to sail from Muarabaru, South Sulawesi to Figure 45 – Drawing of a pinisi of lamba type Vancouver, Canada through Pacific by Xavier Romero-Frias. Ocean, a distance of about 11,000 Source: Wikipedia. kilometers (7,000 miles), in the 1986 Nusantara Pinisi Expedition to participate the Vancouver Expo. A traditional sailing ship padewakang (variously spelled paduwakang or paduakan) is widely employed for far-distance fishing and trade in South Sulawesi until the early 20th century. Padewakang were the biggest craft of the trading and war fleets of the famed South Sulawesian kingdoms, used by the Mandar, Makassar and Bugis traders and warriors for hundreds of years in their plying the seas 85
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations between western Papua, the southern parts of the Philippines, and the Malay Peninsula. Between the end of the 16th to the early 20th centuries they routinely sailed for the coasts of northern Australia in search of teripang (sea cucumber). Padewakang is the most remarkable boats equipped with Indonesian traditional rectangular sails called tanjak or tanja'. Sources since the earliest times of Chinese, Arabian and European describe tanjak as the typical sail of what they called the “Islands below the Wind”. From the beginning of the 20th century, padewakang was gradually replaced by the pinisi.
Traces of Austronesians in the Americas Austronesian-speaking people were a maritime people with considerable navigational skills. This maritime heritage carried their culturally and economically important plants and animals in their colonizing canoes, introduced their cultural and material marks in the regions of the world and it is not unreasonable to assume that they can reach other continents, including the Americas. Archaeology, transfer of plants and material culture, and historical records can all contribute to explore Austronesian-speaking people relationships with the world communities. Genetic evidence increasingly has strengthened the belief of the existence of these relationships and supports the notion of cultural transfer that have been there before. Blow-gun, backstrap loom, bark-cloth, paper, coconut, sweet potato, bottle-gourd and sailing raft are striking examples of technology spread by Austronesian contacts (Blench 2014). Blowgun Blowgun is a simple weapon consisting of a pipe to fire projectiles or darts by blowing, which is used for hunting or warfare. Many cultures have used this weapon, generally used by indigenous communities in the regions of Southeast Asia, Madagascar in Africa, the Amazon and Guyana in South America, and Guatemala in Central America, but entirely absent from Africa (except Madagascar) and Western Eurasia. They are typical of Southeast Asia and a distinctive zone between North and South America (Jett 1970, 1991). The projectiles can be in the form of grains, clay pellets or darts. Some cultures dip the darts into venom to paralyze the target. Blowgun is generally used by people to hunt animals such as monkeys, but sometimes also used as a weapon in a warfare. The Japanese blowgun, fukiya, is used as a weapon to kill the enemies in which the darts are poisoned with toxins from the puffer fish. 86
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Blowguns are depicted in paintings on pre-Columbian pottery and mentioned in many myths in Central America. Then and now, the Mayans used blowguns to hunt birds and small animals using round dry beans and clay pellets. Cherokee people in North America is known as the makers of the river cane blowguns to hunt rabbits and other small creatures. Dayak people in Kalimantan using blowguns to hunt Figure 46 – Blowguns, bas relief on animals, such as monkeys or birds, by Borobudur temple (left) and painting on smearing the darts with tree sap Mexican Mixtec pottery (right). locally know as ipuh or iren. The historic use of blowguns for hunting has been defined by Stephen Jett in 1991. His analysis of some related design features suggests that they were invented in prehistoric times around Kalimantan, with later regional elaboration. He saw the invention of blowguns as ancient (pre-Austronesian), or at least belonging to the earliest Neolithic or Proto-Malay migrants into the islands of Southeast Asia. There is a clear linguistic distribution of blowguns among two major language groups – the Austronesians and Austro-Asiatic. With few exceptions, the region of continuous use of blowguns in the islands of Southeast Asia almost exactly describes the large western half of the distribution of Austronesian languages (Oppenheimer 1998).
NORTH AMERICA
ASIA
ATLANTIC OCEAN
PACIFIC OCEAN
AFRICA
INDIAN OCEAN
SOUTH AMERICA
AUSTRALIA
Figure 47 – Blowgun distribution (indicated in black) adopted from Jett 1970, 1991.
The absences of the blowgun over very large areas of the Americas and its complete absence in the center and northwest of the United States argues that it 87
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations cannot be a technology connected with the Bering Strait migrations. Jett (1991) argues convincing on technological grounds that the distribution in the southeastern United States is likely to be a sea-borne diffusion of the Austronesians from further south. Virtually all occurrences are contiguous, suggesting the technology was only adopted once and diffused, rather than developing through convergent evolution. The absences of the blowgun in Luzon in the Philippines, the whole of Taiwan and southern China argues that blowguns did not fit into the “Out of Taiwan” model. Backstrap Loom A backstrap loom is a type of weaving device, very ancient but it is still in use today. In a backstrap loom, the warp (lengthwise) threads are stretched from a fixed device, such as a post or tree, to a belt that a person wears around their waist. By backing away from a post or tree, the weaver can pull the warp threads into tension. In order to weave, a means must be provided so that the threads can be separated into two (or more) parts so that a weft thread can be passed between the two sets of threads. The two sets of warp threads can then be reversed and a weft thread passed through again. By repeating this process, fabric can be woven. The weaver is generally a woman. Recent studies on the commonalities in bast fiber production particularly for abaca (Musa textilis), resist-dye techniques, cultural-spiritual-social significance, dyes and motifs argue for a common origin and the existence of exchanges and a community among the Austronesians (Buckley 2012, Blench 2014, Yulo 2015). These diverse traditions amongst Neolithic cultures in the Asian mainland and islands of Southeast Asia have a common ancestor, and is unlikely originated with the Bronze Age Dong-Son culture (Buckley 2012). It is estimated that this weaving technique was first developed in the Philippines, Kalimantan or Sulawesi around 4,000 years ago (Yulo 2015). The development and spread of the backstrap loom can also be attributed to the pioneering maritime heritage of Austronesians, and a striking association with speakers of Austronesian languages. The design motifs can be traced to earlier pottery, tattoo, mat, basket and bark cloth traditions. The motifs represent a belief system specific to Austronesians. The tradition of backstrap loom has spread to the regions of Austronesian-speakers, India, China, Japan, Indochina (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam), Central Asia, Middle East, Egypt, Europe (France, Switzerland, the Mediterranean) and South America (Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico, Guatemala) (Yulo 2015). 88
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The distribution and similarities in the technology design of backstrap loom shows that the peoples of Austronesian-speakers and the Americas were once connected, although no hypothesis when and how the contact took place in preColumbian era (Bird 1979). Resistdyed textile design processes leaving sections of thread undyed by coating with wax before dipping into dye vat, are very similar on both sides of the Pacific. Figure 48 – A woman using a backstrap loom to weave a textile in Guatemala. Source: Wikipedia.
Edward Yulo (2015) shows that the backstrap loom in South America arrived in two waves, during the preColumbian era, particularly in Peru/Chile from Austronesian Polynesians and during the colonial era in Guatemala and Mexico from the Philippines. He also demonstrates that linguistic evidence supports the Austronesian origins of backstrap looms in South America. Austronesian Polynesians seem to have lost the tradition of loom weaving but must have passed it on to Quechua speakers in South America before it went to disuse among Polynesians. Backstrap loom is strongly associated with women among Austronesians in contrast with South America. The difference suggests that male Austronesian seafarers were the main transmitters of this practice during the Galleon Trade* (Yulo 2015). Barkcloth Barkcloth is produced by beating the inner bark of various trees, but most commonly the paper mulberry, into a thin, pliable, felt-like fabric, which are then finished into a variety of items. The inner bark is beaten after the fibers have been softened by soaking or boiling. Barkcloth comes primarily from mulberry trees of the Moraceae family, including paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), natal fig (Ficus natalensis) and upas (Antiaris toxicaria). Fibers from the upas, breadfruit and natal fig are best suited to the The Manila Galleons were Spanish trading ships which made round-trip voyages once or twice per year across the Pacific Ocean from the port of Acapulco (present-day Mexico) to Manila in the Philippines which were both part of New Spain.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations process because of the natural interlacing of their internal structures, while the paper mulberry produces the softest and finest cloth (Cameron 2008). Barkcloth is known from the ancient China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and from Central to northern South America. It was also made in Central Africa, although technologically this seems to be an independent tradition. To make barkcloth required heavy beaters, and if these are made from stone, they show up in the archaeological record. The earliest known beaters are those found at the site of Dingmo in Bubing basin, South China, dated to 7,900 years ago (Li et al 2014). Although bark cloth is found through much of Polynesia, only wooden beaters are used in its manufacture, which have much less Figure 50 – Typology of prehistoric barkchance of preservation. Stone bark-cloth cloth beaters from South China and Southeast Asia (Cameron, 2008). beaters have been recovered from many Neolithic sites in mainland and islands of Southeast Asia. All but one of the eight different types have been identified in Island Southeast Asia (see Figure 50) (Cameron 2008). The earliest barkcloth beaters in Mesoamerica come from sites in the Maya area and its periphery, particularly along the coasts of Guatemala and El Salvador, where they first appear about 2,500 years ago (Tolstoy 1961, 1991 in Cameron 2008). The technology then moved westwards Figure 49 – Distribution of barkcloth beaters in South China and and eastwards from Southeast Asia (left dotted line), Mesoamerica (right dotted line), the Maya homeland and the Polynesian triangle (middle dotted line) (Cameron 2008). (Cameron 2008). The distribution of barkcloth is not conclusive, but it is highly suggestive for their relation with the Austronesian colonization of the Americas in pre90
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Columbian era. Assuming bark-cloth travelled along the same basic routes as the blowgun and the backstrap loom, it seems to have diffused less widely, either because it came later, or more likely because it was never perceived as an equally useful technology (Blench 2014). Paper A practical and symbolic component of Austronesian cultures is paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), a common tree species introduced and clonally propagated since prehistoric times across the Pacific. Native to Asia, paper mulberry gets its common name from the fact that it was used in China and Japan to make paper. In the Pacific, it was an extremely important plant used for producing barkcloth, which was not only used for clothing, but for ceremonial artifacts and as an important indicator of wealth in gift exchange, still seen today in places like Tonga (Matisoo-Smith 2015). The transfer of bark-cloth technology may have had an interesting secondary consequence in the Americas, the introduction and diffusion of paper (León 1923/1924 in Blench 2014). True paper, made by felting shredded inner bark of planted mulberry trees, was produced in China and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. It is not known exactly where or when paper making began in Mesoamerica, but since it is made from the bark of Moraceae, and flattened out with similar beaters it is likely to be connected with bark-cloth (Blench 2014). However, there is an additional parallel with Southeast Asia, which adds credibility to the connection (Blench 2014). One of the uses of paper-like materials in some areas is the creation of cut-outs. These are made from any thin fibrous material such as paper or palm-leaf, and knifes are used to make shapes and figures by incising part of the material. These are suspended from poles and used in ceremonial contexts, especially in Vietnam and Bali. Paper cutouts created for ritual purposes are also made by the Otomi and some other peoples of Central Mexico, and used in very similar ways (Blench 2014). These almost died out, but have now been revived for the tourism market. It seems quite possible that along with early papermaking from bark, the idea of making cutouts for ritual purposes was similarly transferred across the Pacific. Probably the notion of making paper and then using it for written manuscripts was an independent consequence of the transfer of bark-cloth technology for clothing.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Slit Drum A slit drum is a percussion instrument formed by hollowing a tree trunk through a lengthwise slit and sounded by the players’ stamping feet or by beating with sticks; the edges of the slit are usually of different thicknesses, so as to produce different pitches. Unlike membrane drums, which are classified as membranophones, slit drums are idiophones, or resonant solids. They vary in size from huge tree trunks – 6 meters (20 feet) or more in length and 2.1 meters (7 feet) or more in width – enclosed in huts and played by several men to small bamboo instruments used in Indonesia and Malaysia by watchmen. Large slit drums are sometimes less precisely called slit gongs.
Figure 51 – Wooden slit drums from Vanuatu. Source: Wikipedia.
Slit drum is used throughout Southeast Asia, Oceania, the Americas and Africa. In Southeast Asia, these are used from Melanesia as far as Nagaland in Northeast India and China (Blench 2014). The Chinese mu yü is carved in the shape of a mythical fish and lacquered red, used in religious ritual, and the former was also in Chinese opera orchestras. In the Americas, they are used in the Central Amazon as far as Mesoamerica (Lindblom 1936 in Blench 2014).
Because of their great carrying power and resonance, they are often also used as signaling instruments, in some places transmitting messages by reproducing the inflections of human speech. Frequently, slit drums are carved as elaborately stylized animals. Among the Aztecs (as the teponaztli) and earlier Mesoamerican peoples, the slit drum was hollowed through an H-shaped slit, the two tongues of which produced different pitches; several instruments are believed to have been combined in order to play melodies. Anthropologists have long noticed the close similarities between the social context of slit drums in Melanesia and Amazonia, for example, their role in initiation and associated menstrual taboos (Gregor and Tuzin 2001 in Blench 2014). It is hard to know what to make of this; slit drums are also made throughout West-Central Africa, but their social context is quite different, being mainly used for signaling and ceremonial announcements (Carrington 1949 in 92
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Blench 2014). Given the distribution of the blowgun in Amazonia, it is certainly conceivable that the concept of a slit drum and its corresponding associations were carried across from Southeast Asia. Sweet Potato Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are cultivated throughout tropical and warm temperate regions wherever there is sufficient water to support their growth. They became popular very early in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, spreading from Polynesia to Japan and the Philippines. They are featured in many favorite dishes in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other island nations. Indonesia, Vietnam, India and some other Asian countries are also large sweet potato growers. Uganda, Rwanda and some other African countries also grow a large crop which is an important part of their peoples’ diets. The origin and domestication of sweet potato is thought to be in either Central America or South America. In Central America, sweet potatoes were domesticated at least 5,000 years ago. In South America, Peruvian sweet potato remnants dating as far back as 8,000 years BCE have been found. At least three distinct hypotheses have been set forth to explain the migration of the sweet potato. Some archaeologists have taken the similarity between various words for sweet potato – kuumala and its derivatives in Polynesia, and kumara, cumar or cumal among Quechua speakers in northwestern South America – as evidence that the tuber proliferated in Polynesia after an early introduction by locals who visited South America, long before Europeans made it there. Another theory is that the sweet potato might have reached Oceania through the natural dispersal of seeds across the Pacific Ocean. When James Cook sailed to the South Pacific in 1770, the sweet potato had been widely spread throughout the islands. A genetic map of the sweet potato’s pathway published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013 throws support to a third hypotheses. In the tripartite hypothesis, developed in the 1970s by the archaeologist Douglas Yen, then at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, the sweet potato arrived in Oceania multiple times. First, between 1,000 and 1,100 CE, Polynesian voyagers visited South America and brought the sweet potato back with them, later spreading it around other Pacific islands; Europeans then transported other sweet-potato lineages to the Philippines and the western Pacific in two separate waves from the sixteenth century onwards. From there, genetically distinct 93
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations sweet-potato lines would have dispersed throughout Oceania. A team led by Caroline Roullier, a botanist at the Centre for International Agricultural Cooperation and Research for Development in Montpellier, France in 2013 favors this tripartite scenario, took genetic samples from modern sweet potatoes and historical specimens kept in herbarium collections. Anthropogenic Dark Earth Anthropogenic dark earth is a type of very dark, fertile manmade soil found in the Amazon Basin. It is also known as Amazonian dark earth or terra preta in Portuguese. Anthropogenic dark earth owes its characteristic black color to its weathered charcoal content, and was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, and manure to the otherwise relatively infertile Amazonian soil. A product of indigenous soil management and slash-and-char agriculture, the charcoal is very stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years, binding and retaining minerals and nutrients. Several sites in East Kalimantan, Indonesia possess an anthropogenic development and context similar in several respects to the Amazon’s anthropogenic dark earth (Sheil et al 2012). Similarities include riverside locations, presence of useful fruit trees, spatial extent as well as soil characteristics such as dark color, high carbon content (in some cases), high phosphorus levels, and improved apparent fertility in comparison to neighboring soils. Local people value these soils for cultivation but are unaware of their origins. In the tribal tongues of Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province, it is called tiem by the lowland Merap and punyuh by the upland Punan. In all three languages, the meaning is “black soil”, an apt description of the dark, nutrient-rich soil pockets prized by forest-dwelling tribes in the tropics. Nearly 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) apart, both the Amazonian and Indonesian anthropogenic dark earths are thought to originate in the same style of farming: “slash-and-char” cultivation rather than the more common “slash-and-burn” pattern. Chicken The earliest fossil bones identified as possibly belonging to chickens appear in sites from northeastern China dating to around 5,400 years BCE, but the birds’ wild ancestors never lived in those cold, dry plains. A 2016 study (Eda et al) of 280 bird bones reported as chicken from Neolithic and Bronze age sites in northern and central China found that only a handful could securely be 94
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations identified as actually chicken. So if they really are chicken bones, they must have come from somewhere else. Researchers suggest that chickens were a rare occurrence in northern and Central China, and thus probably an import from southern China or Southeast Asia were evidence of domestication is stronger. A study conducted by Martin Johnson at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology of Linköping University, Sweden in 2015 shows chickens were first domesticated from a wild form called red junglefowl (Gallus gallus), a bird that still runs wild in most of Southeast Asia, likely hybridized with the grey junglefowl (Gallus sonneratii). That occurred probably about 8,000 years ago. The research suggests there may have been multiple origins in distinct areas of South and Southeast Asia, including North and South China, Thailand, Burma and India. Chickens were brought to the Polynesian islands from Southeast Asia with the Lapita expansion, about 3,300 years ago. While it was assumed that they had been brought to the Americas with the Spanish conquistadors, presumably preColumbian chickens have been identified at several sites throughout the Americas, most notably – and controversially – at the site of El Arenal-1 in Chile, ca 1350 CE. As previously discussed, the results from the ancient DNA analyses carried by Alice A Storey et al in 2012 provide support for archaeological hypotheses about the prehistoric human transport of chickens. Haplogroup E mtDNA signatures have been amplified from directly dated samples originating in Europe at 1,000 years ago and in the Pacific at 3,000 years ago indicating multiple prehistoric dispersals from a single Asian center. These two dispersal pathways converged in the Americas where chickens were introduced both by Polynesians and later by Europeans. They pointed to the presence of haplogroup E in both chickens from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and coastal Chile (El Arenal-1). A study by Thomson et al in 2014 of ancient and modern DNA from chickens identified the likely genetic markers of authentic ancient Polynesian chickens at El Arenal-1. They assert that among Polynesian chickens, one particular cluster of mitochondrial DNA, haplogroup D, is the signature of the founding lineage of Polynesian chickens. Simulations from their studies indicate that chickens were transported from Papua into Micronesia by about 3,850 years ago; and separately from Papua to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and eastward at a later date. 95
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Coconut As previously discussed, coconut was brought under cultivation in two separate locations, one in the Pacific basin and the other in the Indian Ocean basin (Baudouin et al 2009, Olsen et al 2011). In the Pacific, coconuts were likely first cultivated in the islands of Southeast Asia, meaning the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and perhaps the continent as well. In the Indian Ocean the likely center of cultivation was the southern periphery of India, including Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and the Laccadives. Coconut genetics also preserve a record of prehistoric trade routes and of the colonization of the Americas. Genomic analysis of cultivated coconut has shed light on the movements of Austronesian peoples. Given that coconuts are ideally suited for ocean dispersal, it seems possible that individuals from one population could have floated to the other. However, the locations of the admixture events are limited to Madagascar and coastal east Africa and exclude the Seychelles (an island off the coast of Somalia). This pattern coincides with the known trade routes of Austronesian sailors. Additionally, there is a genetically distinct subpopulation of coconut on the eastern coast of South America which has undergone a genetic bottleneck resulting from a founder effect; however, its ancestral population is the Pacific coconut, which suggests that Austronesian peoples may have sailed as far east as the Americas. Coconut thus appears to have been brought by Austronesian seafarers from the Philippines to Ecuador about 2,250 years ago (Baudouin et al 2009). Bottle Gourd As previously discussed, both archeological and genetic studies of seed and fruit-rind fragments indicate bottle gourd was in use by humans in East Asia 13,000 years ago or earlier (Zeder et al 2006). It was present as a domesticated plant in the Americas by 10,000 years ago and had a wide distribution in the Americas by 8,000 years ago (Smith 2000, Erickson et al 2005). Bottle gourd reached Eastern Polynesia from the Americas, while occurrences in Western Polynesia originate in Southeast Asia (Green 2000, Clarke 2009). A study using ancient DNA concluded that Paleoindians transported already domesticated gourds to the Americas from Asia when colonizing the Americas (Erickson et al 2005). Although it is possible that the bottle gourd could have been carried from Asia to the Americas by the north Pacific current.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Human Genetic Studies In December 2007, several human skulls were found in a museum in Concepción, Chile. These skulls originated from Mocha Island, an island just off the coast of Chile in the Pacific Ocean, nowadays inhabited by the Mapuches. Lisa Matisoo-Smith of the University of Otago and José Miguel Ramírez Aliaga of the University of Valparaíso claim the skulls have “Polynesian features”, such as a pentagonal shape when viewed from behind, and rocker jaws. Two studies by Lie et al in 2007 and Thorsby et al in 2009 showed evidence of an Amerindian genetic contribution to the Easter Island population, determining that it was probably introduced before European discovery of the island. In 2014, a study by Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas of The Center for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen found human genetic evidence of contact between the populations of Easter Island and South America, between 1300 and 1500 CE. In 2018, a collaborative effort between the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) and Cícero Moraes, a 3D designer based in Brazil produced a digital reconstruction of a face of Eve of Nahron, a hunter-gatherer living almost 14,000 years ago found in an underwater cave in Sistema Naranjal in Yucatán, Mexico. The reconstruction appears to confirm that Eve was a descendant of people living in South Asia and Indonesia, rather than North Asia. The prevailing theory is that the first Americans arrived in a single wave, and all Native American populations today descend from this one group of adventurous founders. The origin of the first Americans has been hotly debated for decades, and the questions of how many migratory groups crossed the land bridge, as well as how people dispersed after the crossing, continue to spark controversy. In 2008, Thomas Gilbert et al studying DNA from 10,800-year-old poop concluded that a group of ancient humans in Oregon has ancestral ties to modern Native Americans. And in 2014, genetic analysis lead by James Chatters linked a 12,000-year-old skeleton found in an underwater cave in Mexico to modern Native Americans. Genetic studies have since connected both these ancient and modern humans to ancestral populations in Eurasia. Aleutian Islanders are a notable exception. They descend from a smaller second influx of Eurasians 6,000 years ago that bear a stronger resemblance to modern populations, and some Canadian tribes have been linked to a third wave (Raghavan et al 2014). In 2014, David Reich et al had also previously found genetic evidence for a single founding migration. In 2015, a team from the Copenhagen University led by Eske Willerslev and Maanasa Raghavan concluded that the first humans arrived in the Americas in a 97
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations single migratory wave. They would have left East Asia at some time in the last 23,000 years and reached the New World after spending almost 8,000 years in Beringia. They would have left East Asia at some time in the last 23,000 years and reached the New World after spending almost 8,000 years in Beringia. Once this ancestral population arrived in the New World, it separated into two groups about 13,000 years ago: one that is now dispersed across North and South America while the other is restricted to North America. However, a team from the Harvard Medical School led by David Reich reached apparently different conclusions but both suggested that a few present-day indigenous groups in Brazil are related in some way to the peoples of Oceania. They compared the genomes to each other and to those of 197 populations from around the world. The signal persisted. Three Amazonian groups – Suruí, Karitiana and Xavante – all had more in common with Australasians than any group in Siberia. They think that they all share a common ancestor that lived tens of thousands of years ago in Asia but that does not otherwise persist today. One branch of this family tree moved north to Siberia, while the other spread south to Papua and Australia. The northern branch likely migrated across the land bridge in a separate surge from the Eurasian founders. In 2018, a collaborative effort between the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) and Cícero Moraes, a 3D designer based in Brazil produced a digital reconstruction of a face of Eve of Nahron, a hunter-gatherer living almost 14,000 years ago found in an underwater cave in Sistema Naranjal in Yucatán, Mexico. The reconstruction appears to confirm that Eve was a descendant of people living in South Asia and Indonesia, rather than North Asia. It completely dispels the idea that the first humans in America migrated via the Bering Strait after the last Ice Age, some 13,000 years ago. Instead, the discovery supports the theory that people emigrated to the continent in waves – and much earlier than previously thought. Others In 1937, a Norwegian zoologist Thor Heyerdahl traveled to the South Pacific to study the flora and fauna of the isolated Marquesas Islands. As he collected a menagerie of specimens on the tiny Polynesian island of Fatu Hiva, however, Heyerdahl’s curious mind drifted from thoughts of living creatures to those of ancient civilizations. Aware of the prevailing scholarly wisdom that people from Southeast Asia had arrived from the west to first populate Polynesia, the Norwegian could not help but notice the trade winds and breakers rolling across the Pacific Ocean from the east. Heyerdahl noted the presence of South 98
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations American plants such as the sweet potato in Polynesia and the similarities between stone figures on Fatu Hiva and the monoliths erected by ancient South American civilizations. He saw parallels in the physical appearances, rituals and myths of Polynesians and South Americans, he listened as an elder spoke of a demigod named Tiki who brought his ancestors to the island from a big country beyond the eastern horizon. Then he built a raft named Kon-Tiki to make a journey across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands in 1947. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey. In 1986, a traditional two-masted sailing ship pinisi – mainly built by the Konjo tribe, a sub-ethnic group of Bugis-Makassar mostly residents at the Bulukumba regency of South Sulawesi – has proved to sail from Muarabaru, South Sulawesi to Vancouver, Canada through Pacific Ocean, a distance of about 11,000 kilometers (7,000 miles), in the Nusantara Pinisi Expedition to participate the Vancouver Expo. Two plants have been proposed for pre-Columbian introductions from the Americas to Polynesia, the Polynesian tomato (Solanum repandum) and the soapberry (Sapindus saponaria) (Blench 2014). The similarities between the Polynesian name for Sapindus repandum (kokua) and its South American relative, Sapindus sessiliflorum (kokona), suggest a connection but there is no genetic or archaeological evidence to confirm this. As has been previously discussed, the most recent research shows that chili peppers (Capsicum spp) were domesticated more than 6,000 years ago in Mexico. However, a very explicit rendering of chili pepper plants is found on a wall panel of a circa 1,300 years old temple ruin in the garden at the 9th-century Prambanan Temple in Java. Similarly, maize which is believed to be domesticated more than 10,000 years ago in Mexico, also present in the temple ruin rendering in a wall panel next to the chili carving. Maize is also shown on a bas relief of a panel at the 9th-century Borobudur Temple, also in Java. Fossilized maize was found at Liyangan archaeological site in Central Java, carbon dated to 590 CE. 99
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Sukuh and Cetho temples in Central Java (dates are debated) show the elements of step pyramid that somewhat resemble Mesoamerican pyramids. Step pyramid structure is regarded as one of the characteristics of the Austronesian original culture, referred to as punden berundak. These structures have been found and spread throughout the archipelago as far as Polynesia. The “tree of life” concept of the Dayaks in Kalimantan is well described in the tomb of Mayan king Pakal, existence probably goes back to the Olmec time. It also includes similar concepts spreading in Southeast Asia. Clothing, decorations, skin painting and war equipment of the Dayaks have similarities with the Mayan; more apparent is the bird-feather decorated headdress with bird’s head front end.
Traces of Austronesians in Africa The history of contacts between East Africa and the islands of Southeast Asia is a long one. Based on current research, this history is punctuated by at least three important events. The first of these is the beginning of any contacts between East Africa and the islands of Southeast Asia, which dates from 300 BCE or possibly earlier. There was regular contact between islands of Southeast Asia and the East African coast prior to 0 CE by an unknown people using outriggers and trading in spices. It involved the transfer of cultigens (including banana, yam, taro and rice), hunting tools (such as blowgun) as well as boat technology and several other elements. This transfer has usually been assumed to go from the islands of Southeast Asia to East Africa, but it also went in opposite direction. A second event is the settlement of Madagascar by speakers of Austronesian languages. It covers a period probably beginning around the 7th century CE, when people from the shores of the Barito River in South Kalimantan moved to East Africa, and ending with the settlement of Madagascar in the eighth century. Precursors of the modern Southeast Asians established a ‘raiding and trading’ culture based in settlements along the East African coast. The Southeast Asians settlements on the East African coast transported captured mainland African populations from the Sabaki-speaking area to Madagascar, primarily for agricultural labor, between the 5th and 7th centuries CE. Other islands of Southeast Asian peoples may also have followed these established trade routes to East Africa, accounting for a residue of non-Malay Austronesian items in the Malagasy lexicon. On the East African coast, the transfer of nautical technology 100
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations to coastal Iron Age cultivators stimulated the development of the Swahili maritime culture. A third event consists of contact that was maintained between the islands of Southeast Asia and Madagascar after the latter’s settlement. It continued until after the arrival of Europeans in the Indian Ocean and brought about some important cultural influences on (at least) Madagascar’s southeast coast. The expansion of Arab shipping in the Indian Ocean from the 10th century onwards obscured the Austronesian origins of local seafaring through the replacement of boat types and maritime terminology. Ancient contacts between Indonesia and East Africa, and a various theories were advanced about the settlement of Madagascar. Otto Christian Dahl (1951) concluded that Malagasy is most closely related to Ma’anyan and the East Barito languages of southeastern Kalimantan, a hypothesis that is now widely accepted. Pierre-Yves Manguin in 2000 reviewed the documentary evidence for historical connections between insular Southeast Asia and the Maldives. Manguin argues that in addition to the direct and well-known route between the Maldives and the coast of Somalia, Austronesian voyagers may also have used Diego Garcia and the Chagos islands as a stepping stone to reach Madagascar and the East African coast. In any event these different journeys involve passing through the Maldives. A Persian Muslim traveler, sailor, cartographer and geographer Buzurg Ibn Shahriyar in his Book of the Marvels of India mentions that Indonesians were raiding and trading on Pemba, Mozambique and the East African coast in the 10th century CE, and they may well have been doing so for some time. Two centuries later, a Sicilian Muslim geographer, cartographer and egyptologist AlIdrisi reported that merchants from Sumatera were still trading with the East African coast, where “they understand one another’s language”. Robert Dick-Read (2005) contends that Southeast Asians may have begun regular trading to Africa when Greek and Roman demand for oriental spices developed several centuries BCE. For centuries; the Austronesian-speaking, Afro-Indonesian people of Madagascar maintained regular contact with the mainland giving rise to mixed societies, particularly in the MozambiqueZimbabwe region. He believes the ancient Zimbabwe culture was in several ways linked with that of Madagascar, and that the vast ruin area of Nyanga was also connected. There is a wealth of evidence that Indonesians rounded the Cape and sailed to West Africa. Several elements of Nigerian culture generally attributed to East-West overland movements or trans-Saharan Arab traders, are 101
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations more likely to have reached the lower Niger regions by sea from Indonesia. Among these was the technology enabling the iconic ‘bronze’ artwork for which Nigeria is famous. Traditionally, archaeologists have estimated that the earliest settlers of Madagascar arrived in successive waves throughout the period between 350 BCE and 550 CE, while others are cautious about dates earlier than 250 CE (Crowley 2010). Early settlers arrived in outrigger canoes from southern Kalimantan. Upon arrival, they practiced slash-and-burn agriculture to clear the coastal rainforests for cultivation. The first settlers encountered Madagascar’s abundance of megafauna, including giant lemurs, elephant birds, giant fossa and the Malagasy hippopotamus, which have since become extinct due to hunting and habitat destruction (Virah-Sawmy 2010). Roger Blench in 2010 showed an accumulation of evidence suggests that there were direct Austronesian contacts with the East African coast prior to 0 CE unconnected with the settlement of Madagascar. This includes textual sources, maritime technology, plant and animal transfers, disease and other aspects of material culture. The Yale University archaeologist Robert Dewar claimed in 2013 that people reached Madagascar around 2000 BCE, millennia earlier than had been thought, based on radiocarbon dates of organic matter found with stone artifacts in a rock shelter on the north coast. Studies of Y-chromosome polymorphisms and mitochondrial sequence diversity in Malagasy populations by Hurles et al in 2005 have indicated approximately equal African and Indonesian contributions to both paternal and maternal Malagasy lineages. Moreover, in striking confirmation of linguistic interpretations, the closest match to Malagasy Y-chromosomal haplogroup distributions has been found in Kalimantan. Subsequent genetic studies have confirmed and extended these observations (Boivin et al 2013). The founding Southeast Asian population appears to have been a mixed-sex one: it is estimated that the colonization of Madagascar involved some 30 women, the majority of Indonesian ancestry (Cox et al 2012). Recent analysis of mtDNA from modern chicken stock in East Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda) by Mwacharo et al in 2011 suggests haplogroups A and D being the most common. The oldest and most diverse haplogroup is D, of South Asian origin; it is found in all four countries and has also been found 102
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations in chickens from West and southern Africa, including Madagascar (Adebambo et al 2010, Muchadeyi et al 2008, Razafindraibe et al 2008). The A haplogroup, meanwhile, is of East or Southeast Asian origin. It was only found in Kenya, but has also been identified in samples from Zimbabwe and Madagascar (Muchadeyi et al 2007, Razafindraibe et al 2008). Asian rice (Oryza sativa) appears to have been domesticated in East Africa from Southeast Asia at least twice, resulting in the establishment of two major variety groups, japonica and indica (Fuller et al 2010, Garris et al 2005, Londo et al 2006, Purugganan 2010). Three tropical Southeast Asian crops, banana (Musa paradisiaca), greater yam (Dioscorea alata) and taro (Colocasia esculenta), for all of which suggestions of a prehistoric introduction to East Africa have been made (Blench 1996, 2006, 2009; Fuller and Boivin 2009; Harris 1967). Another crop that appears to have arrived in the East African region from Southeast Asia is the coconut (Cocos nucifera). Linguistic studies indicate the arrival of coconut to Madagascar with early Austronesian settlers (Allibert 2008, Beaujard 2011), while archaeobotanical analyses support its presence on Pemba, the Comoros and mainland Tanzania by the 6th to 8th centuries. This pattern coincides with the known trade routes of Austronesian sailors. A research lead by Alison Crowther in 2016 provides the first archaeological evidence for an early Southeast Asian presence in the remote island of Madagascar and reveals that this settlement extended to the neighboring Comoros Islands. They identified that the ancient seeds from Madagascar consist of typically Southeast Asian crops, such as rice (Oryza sativa), mung bean (Vigna radiate) and cotton (Gossypium arboreum). In the late 20th century, Philip Beale, a British sailor, became interested in depictions of a Borobudur ship that he had seen on the Borobudur Temple terraces in Java, Indonesia (see Figure 44). He became interested in the fact that the carvings, which had been completed ca 825 CE depicted ships that may have sailed southwest from Indonesia to West Africa. He decided to reconstruct one and sail it to West Africa to prove that Indonesian seafarers could have reached West Africa on water as well as by land. Aided by government and international bodies, the ship that Beale constructed was called Samudraraksa which means ‘guardian of the sea’. It was 19 metres long and 4.25 metres. Beale led the expedition which became known as the Borobudur Ship Expedition in 2003 with 15 crew and sailed Samudraraksa to Madagascar and to Ghana, arriving in 2004. 103
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Traces of Austronesians in East Asia The migration route which leads to the peopling of East Asia remains controversial. There are two possible migration routes (from Central Asia and Southeast Asia) that were involved in three hypothetical models of the entry of modern humans into East Asia. By the phylogenetic analysis, Chu et al (1998) showed that northern and southern Chinese belong to distinct clusters and indicated that the colonization of East Asia might be mainly attributed to the northward migration of the settlers from Southeast Asia. Yao et al (2002) analyzed the mtDNA gene pool of Han Chinese and observed a south-to-north cline based on the haplogroup frequency. In addition, the haplogroups in southern East Asians were found to be more ancient than those in the northern population (Yao et al 2002). This evidence suggested that the southern route might play an important part in the peopling of East Asia. A study by Wang et al in 2013 revealed that the current Y chromosome evidence suggests multiple early migrations of modern humans from Africa via Southeast Asia to East Asia. After the initial settlements, the northward migrations during the Paleolithic Age shaped the genetic structure in East Asia. Subsequently, recent admixtures between Central Asian immigrants and northern East Asians enlarged the genetic divergence between southern and northern East Asia populations. Cultural practices, such as languages, agriculture, military affairs and social prestige, also have impacts on the genetic patterns in East Asia. A study by Edwina Palmer in 2007 suggested that Southeast Asians would have been prompted to migrate to Japan in the Jomon period, in response to the postglacial flooding of the lowland plains of the former continent of Sundaland after the Ice Age. Japan in the Jomon period was probably only one final destination out of many possibilities. Immigrants from Southeast Asia first arrived in response to the flood “events” of 14,000 and 11,500 years ago respectively. Polynesian Motif in Wallacea 10,000 years ago (Oppenheimer 1998) could mark the start of this putative migration, and corroborated by the Uenohara Site as a destination in Japan. Then another migration was around 6,000 – 4,000 years ago, in response to the further rapid rise in sea level around 7,500 ago. Some of these migrants might have “island-hopped” northward from the inundated former Sundaland via the Philippines, Taiwan and the Ryukyu Islands. Immigration might well have peaked around 4,000 years ago as a result of the time lag in the growth of forest cover which some of the migrants steadily 104
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations exploited as a food source as it spread northward via southern China and Taiwan into and through Japan during the Holocene maximum. Some refugees, then, appear to have “strandlooped” up the coast of the emergent Malay Peninsula, Vietnam and southern China, northward into the expanding zone of lucidophyllous forest* that emerged from around 5,000 years ago, stretching in a belt from the Himalayas to southern Japan, subsequent to global warming. There was inevitably a time lag between the rise in mean annual temperatures and sea levels on the one hand and the growth of the new forest, which would have been reflected in the progress of these migrants northward and eastward through the lucidophyllous zone to reach Japan 5,000 – 4,000 years ago. This would account for the commonality of attributes observed among Austronesian cultures and so-called “laurilignosa culture”, including some aspects of Japanese culture, as observed by Sasaki. Once these two routes were established, they probably continued to be used by smaller numbers of voyagers into later periods. Such a scenario also reconciles with some of Benedict’s ideas on the Austronesian and Austro-Asiatic origins of some aspects of the Japanese language; and it fits well with both the Hanihara-Turner hypothesis and Sasaki’s “laurilignosa culture” hypothesis. The culture they took with them remained pervasive well into the historical period, and vestiges of it are identifiable in Japan even today. Laurent Sagart in 1990 proposed a Sino-Austronesian or Sino-TibetanAustronesian language family. Using reconstructions of the Old Chinese language, Sagart argued that the Austronesian languages are related to the Sinitic languages phonologically, lexically and morphologically. Sagart later in 2005 acknowledged that the Sino-Tibetan languages are a valid group and extended his proposal to include the rest of Sino-Tibetan. Additionally, the Tai-Kadai languages found in southern China, northeast India and Mainland Southeast Asia were placed internally within the Austronesian family as a sister branch of Malayo-Polynesian (Sagart 2004). The proposal is controversial, but still being debated. A study by Alicia Sanchez-Mazas et al in 2005 using human genetic polymorphisms revealed a complex genetic structure in East Asian. They found evidence of a genetic continuity between Austronesian, especially extraLucidophyllous forest is a type of subtropical forest found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable, mild temperatures. The forest is characterized by broadleaf tree species with evergreen, glossy and elongated leaves, known as laurophyll or lauroid. Plants from the laurel family (Lauraceae) may or may not be present, depending on the location.
*
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Formosan and Tai-Kadai. This finding is compatible with the hypothesis of an Austronesian origin of Tai-Kadai. Although Japanese, Korean and Altaic proper (Mongolic, Manchu-Tungusic and Turkic) are included by some authors into such macrophyla as Altaic and Eurasiatic, few regard Koreo-Japonic and Altaic proper as linguistically very close. They observe a major genetic differentiation between Koreo-Japonic on the one hand and Altaic-proper on the other hand. Several linguists have proposed that the Japanese may be a relative of the Austronesian family (Benedict 1990, Lewin 1976, Matsumoto 1975, Miller 1967, Murayama 1976, Shibatani 1990). Some linguists think it is more plausible that Japanese might have instead been influenced by Austronesian languages, perhaps by an Austronesian substratum. Those who propose this scenario suggest that the Austronesian family once covered the islands to the north as well as to the south. Alexander Vovin calls his reconstruction of Proto-Japanese suggestive of a Southeast Asian origin of the Japonic languages. Several Japanese linguists classify Japanese as “Para-Austronesian”. A DNA study by Yu-Chun Li et al in 2015 suggested that Myanmar was likely one of the differentiation centers of the early modern humans. Intriguingly, some haplogroups were shared merely between Myanmar and southwestern China, hinting certain genetic connection between both regions. Further analyses revealed that such connection was in fact attributed to both recent gene flow and certain ancient dispersals from Myanmar to southwestern China during 25,000 – 10,000 years ago, suggesting that, besides the coastal route, the early modern humans also adopted an inland dispersal route to populate the interior of East Asia.
Nusantara The word “Nusantara” was taken from an oath by Gajah Mada (ca 1290 – ca 1364 CE) in 1336 CE, as written in the Old Javanese Pararaton and Nagarakretagama. Gajah Mada was a powerful military leader and prime minister of the Majapahit Empire (ca 1293 – ca 1527 CE) – a vast thalassocracy (maritime state) based on the island of Java – who was credited with bringing the empire to its peak of glory. Gajah Mada delivered an oath called “Sumpah Palapa”, in which he vowed not to eat any food containing spices until he had conquered all of Nusantara under the glory of Majapahit. In fact, the concept of Nusantara was not an idea coined by Gajah Mada for the first time in 1336 CE. It was coined earlier in 1275 CE as “Cakrawala Mandala 106
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Dwipantara” by Kertanegara of the Singhasari Kingdom (ca 1222 – ca 1292 CE) in eastern Java. Dwipantara is a Sanskrit word for the “islands in between”, the synonym to Nusantara as both dwipa (Sanskrit) and nusa (Kawi, Old Javanese) mean “island”. The term is used to describe the Southeast Asian archipelago that make up modern Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor and southern Philippines as one cultural and political entity. Kertanegara envisioned the union of Southeast Asian maritime kingdoms under Singhasari as a bulwark against the rise of the expansionist Mongol Yuan dynasty in mainland China, which affected both China and Middle East – the two main source of trading goods that passed through Indonesian waters. Fearing an incursion to Southeast Asia, the Singhasari king Kertanegara sent envoys to the nearby Malayu Kingdom in Sumatera to consolidate alliance against the Mongols. Kertanegara planned this as the first step towards the “Dwipantara” he envisioned, that may easily repulse the Mongolians or their satellite states should they ever come south.
Figure 52 – Regions and places mentioned in the Nagarakretagama (1365 CE).
Kertanegara never saw his vision realized – it was his descendant Hayam Wuruk together with his admiral Gajah Mada, with the newly born Majapahit Kingdom that saw this thing became true. Like any other empires, their time will soon come in the late 1400s CE. But Majapahit’s influence was so huge that many kingdoms after it sought to re-establish the glory of Majapahit and claim themselves its legitimate successor – just like how European kingdoms vie to become “the successor of Rome”. Hence also the usage of Majapahit red-and107
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations white banner in various kingdoms in the region, later absorbed by Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia (and also by the British East India Company). In the Majapahit concept of state, the monarch had the power over the following three areas. The first is “Negara Agung”, the core kingdom, includes the capital and the surrounding area, covers eastern Java and its surrounding area. The second is “Mancanegara”, areas surrounding the Negara Agung, are directly influenced by the Javanese culture, includes the entire Java Island, Madura, Bali, as well as Lampung and Palembang in southern Sumatera. The third is “Nusantara”, areas which do not reflect Javanese culture, but are colonies where they had to pay tribute, includes the modern territories of Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor and southern Philippines. Today for Indonesians, Nusantara is synonymous with Indonesian archipelago or the national territory of Indonesia; in this sense the term Nusantara excludes Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines. While for Malaysians and Bruneians, it was a historical idea, but now evolved into the consciousness that they are in the same culture sphere – that the insular Southeast Asia have a culture group of their own; the term is synonymous and often interchangeable with Malay Archipelago or Malay Realm (Malaysian: “Alam Melayu”) which includes those countries. For Singaporeans, it is a native insular Southeast Asian concept, but have nothing to do with their modern nation. For Filipinos, it means nothing for those from Luzon and Visayas, but for Southern Filipinos, it is the idea that they are much more culturally close to their Malay counterparts. ***
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Documented Memories Starting about 12,800 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was abruptly gripped by centuries of cold, an era known as the Younger Dryas or the Big Freeze. A giant shift of continental meltwater and addition of freshwater to the ocean may have triggered an ancient 1,200-year-long chill, the last major cold age on Earth. Scientists have suggested this chill helped major shifts in the distributions of plants and animals, extinction most of the megafauna in North America as well as the so-called Clovis people, and redistribution of civilizations around the world. The Big Freeze was not a glacial period, which are colloquially often called Ice Ages – it was a cold time in the relatively warm spans between glacial periods. Remarkable events during the Younger Dryas period might trigger the Earth’s lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere to an unbalance situation, causing great impacts on the planet. Frequent and extensive events such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, land drowning, exceptional rainfall and volcano eruptions were highly probable to occur within this period. Native global disaster stories are documented as legends or myths in almost every region on Earth, observable with tremendous similarities. They are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into Bronze Age and Neolithic prehistory.
Great Flood and the Repopulation of Man The overwhelming consistency among legends and myths of flood and the repopulation of man found in distant parts of the Earth indicates they were derived from a common origin. Oral transcription has changed the details through time, adding local geography and cultural aspects. However, the core of each story is supposedly preserved and shared as a common theme and similar characters. Many flood stories have overwhelming similarities with the Noah’s Ark in the Book of Genesis flood narrative. They are frequently linked by common elements including the flood hero, warning of the coming flood, the construction of a boat in advance, the storage of seeds and animals, the inclusion of family, and the release of birds or other animals to determine if the water level had 109
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations subsided. The stories are closely parallel to the story of the creation: a cycle of creation, un-creation and re-creation, in which the flood plays a pivotal role. Eridu Genesis In the Sumerian Eridu Genesis, Ziusudra is recorded as the survivor of the godsent flood. The story survives on a cuneiform tablet from the 17th century BCE, of which only the lower third survives. The Eridu Genesis begins with the creation of man, but continues with the establishment of kingship and a list of cities. Then comes the list of antediluvian rulers, which confirms the pattern again, and the supreme god Enlil’s decision to destroy mankind. Ziusudra is a king of Suruppak and a seer, who witnesses the gods’ council and decision in a vision, and understands that something terrible is about to happen. When the gods had decided to destroy humanity with a flood, the god Enki (lord of the underworld sea of fresh water, the Akkadian Ea), who did not agree with the decree, revealed it to Ziusudra, a man well known for his humility and obedience. Ziusudra did as Enki commanded and built a huge boat. The story continues with a description of the flood, which lasts seven days and nights. Then Utu (Sun) appears and Ziusudra opens a window, prostrates himself, and sacrifices an ox and a sheep. After the flood is apparently over, Ziusudra leaving the ark and prostrating himself before An (Sky) and Enlil (Lordbreath). The end of the story is a speech by Enki, and the apotheosis of Ziusudra, who is given immortality in the mythological country of Dilmun, in the far east, where the sun rises. The younger Epic of Atrahasis and the Epic of Gilgamesh, written in Babylonian, change many details. They continue to refer to Suruppak as the city of the hero of the flood story. The Sumerian name of the hero, Ziusudra, has been changed into Atrahasis in the Epic of Atrahasis and Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the late version of The Instructions of Shuruppak and the youngest Babylonian version by Berossus, the origal name of Ziusudra return. In the Sumerian king list recension, Ziusudra, or Zin-Suddu of Shuruppak is recorded as having reigned as both king and gudug priest for 10 years. Epic of Atrahasis Atrahasis is the protagonist of an 18th-century BCE Akkadian/Babylonian epic of the great flood sent by the gods to destroy human life recorded in various versions on clay tablets. Only the good man, Atrahasis (translates as “exceedingly wise”) was warned of the impending deluge by the god Ea who 110
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations instructed him to build an ark to save himself. Atrahasis heeded the words of the god, loaded two of every kind of animal into the ark, and so preserved human and animal life on Earth. The epic begins by explaining how the lesser gods tired of their labors on the canals and farms and instigated a rebellion. Enlil (the god of the sky and earth), wanted to punish these gods, but Ea (the god of the waters, the Sumerian Enki), argued that humans should be created to do the work instead. The womb goddess, Mami, was appointed to create humankind by mixing clay with the blood of a slain junior god Geshtu. However, human overpopulation soon became a problem. Enlil sent various disasters to diminish humankind, but Ea persistently foiled his plans. Finally, Enlil determined to send a flood to kill all humans, and Ea warned the faithful Atrahasis of the plan. Atrahasis then built a boat and saved his family and animals. Enlil was furious at Ea for ruining his plan, but they agreed to devise a new way to control human population. Mami arranged that one out of every three children born would die, and certain priestesses would be celibate. Epic of Gilgamesh The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient Mesopotamian odyssey recorded on clay tablets in the Akkadian language about Gilgamesh, the king of the Mesopotamian city-state Uruk. In the epic, the flood hero is named Utnapishtim, and considered as the closest to the biblical story of Noah. Overcome with the death of his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh sets out on a series of journeys to search for his ancestor Utnapishtim (Ziusudra in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis) who lives at the mouth of the rivers and has been given eternal life. Utnapishtim counsels Gilgamesh to abandon his search for immortality but tells him about a plant that can make him young again. Gilgamesh obtains the plant from the bottom of the sea in Nisir (Dilmun in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis) but a serpent steals it, and Gilgamesh returns home to the city of Uruk having abandoned hope of either immortality or renewed youth. In the epic, Utnapishtim is tasked by Enki (Akkadian Ea) to abandon his worldly possessions and create a giant ship to be called The Preserver of Life. The design of the ship was supposedly drawn on the ground by Enki, and the frame of the ark, which was made in five days, was 60 meters (200 feet) in length, width and height, with a floor-space of one acre. The ark interior had 7 111
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations floors, each floor divided into 9 sections, finishing the ark fully on the seventh day. The entrance to the ship was sealed once everyone had boarded the ship. He was also tasked with bringing his wife, family, and relatives along with the craftsmen of his village, baby animals and grains. The oncoming flood would wipe out all animals and humans that were not on the ship. After twelve days on the water, Utnapishtim opened the hatch of his ship to look around and saw the slopes of Mount Nisir, where he rested his ship for seven days. On the seventh day, he sent a dove out to see if the water had receded, and the dove could find nothing but water, so it returned. Then he sent out a swallow, and just as before, it returned, having found nothing. Finally, Utnapishtim sent out a raven, and the raven saw that the waters had receded, so it circled around, but did not return. Utnapishtim then set all the animals free, and made a sacrifice to the gods. The gods came, and because he had preserved the seed of man while remaining loyal and trusting of his gods, Utnapishtim and his wife were given immortality, as well as a place among the heavenly gods. Book of Kolbrin The Book of Kolbrin is a collection of eleven books, six Egyptian and five Celtic, preserved by the Celtics in Great Britain. A similar story to the epic of Gilgamesh, the Egyptian version, is found in the book. The flood hero is named Sisuda (Ziusudra in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis). The people of those times spurned all spiritual things and men lived only for pleasure, caring little for the good of mankind or the future of the people. Lewdness and lies were upon the tongues of all men and brother could not deal justly with brother. The princes and governors were corrupt and proper tribute was not paid, the statues were held up to scorn. The lives of men were ruled by their desires and they spent their days in gluttony, drunkedness, fornication, dancing and singing to instruments of music. The land was unattended, for men dissipated their strength in unproductive lusts and pleasures. Women lacked shame, for many would cast their glances after one man. Men fought among themselves and even slew one another because of their lusts for worthless women, while the chaste women were not sought. In Ardis there were wise men filled with the inner wisdom, who read The Book of Heaven with understanding and knew the signs. They went to Sharepik, then called Sarapesh, and said to Sisuda, the King, that the shadow of doom approaches and the hour of doom is at hand. Because Sisuda has not mingled 112
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations with the wicked, he is set apart and shall not perish, so his seeds may be preserved. Therefore a great ship was laid down under the leadership of Hanok, son of Hogaretur, for Sisuda, from whose treasury came payment for the building of the vessel. It was built on the Lake of Namos, close by the river of gold, where it divides. The great ship was 300 cubits (160 meters, 500 feet) in length, 50 cubits (26 meters, 86 feet) in width and had three storeys. Each storey was divided in twain, so that there were six floors below and one above, and they were divided across with seven partitions. Great stones were hung from ropes. They carried the seed of all living things; grain was laid up in baskets and many cattle and sheep were slain for meat. They also took all kinds of beasts of the field and wild beasts, birds and fowls, all things that crawl, and also gold and silver, metals and stones. People of the plains mocked the builders of the great ship. On the appointed day, they who were to go with the great ship departed, the people entered the great ship and closed the hatch, making it secure. The king had entered and with him those of his blood, in all fourteen. The ship was lifted by the mighty surge of waters and hurled among the debris, but it was not dashed upon the mountainside because of the place where it was built. In the seething waters and howling gales all buildings were destroyed, trees were uprooted and mountains cast down. All the people not saved within the ship were swallowed up in the midst of raging confusion, and their wickedness and corruption was purged away from the face of the Earth. The swelling waters swept up to the mountain tops and filled the valleys. They did not rise like water poured into a bowl, but came in great surging torrents. The great flood remained seven days, diminishing day by day as the waters drained away to their places. After many days the great ship came to rest upon Kardo, in the mountains of Ashtar, against Nishim in The Land of God. Babyloniaca The Babyloniaca (hereafter, “History of Babylonia”) is three books written by Berossus intended to correct Greek misconceptions about Babylon, which was probably written some time around 290 – 278 BCE and dedicated to Antiochus I Soter of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. Berossus is a priest of Marduk in Babylon, on whom Alexander relied heavily for information on Mesopotamia.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Known from the second book of Babyloniaca, Xisuthros (Ξισουθρος) is a Hellenization of Sumerian Ziusudra. Among the interesting features of this version of the flood myth, are the identification, through interpretatio graeca (interpretation by means of Greek models), of the Sumerian god Enki with the Greek god Cronus, the father of Zeus; and the assertion that the reed boat constructed by Xisuthros survived, at least until Berossus’ day, in the Corcyrean Mountains of Armenia. Xisuthros was listed as a king, the son of one Ardates, and to have reigned 18 years. Cronus appeared to Xisuthrus in a dream and revealed that on the fifteenth of the month Daisios mankind would be destroyed by a great flood. He then ordered him to bury together all the tablets, the first, the middle and the last, and hide them in Sippar, the city of the sun. Then he was to build a boat and board it with his family and best friends. He was to provision it with food and drink and also to take on board wild animals and birds an all four-footed animals. Then when all was prepared, he was to make ready to sail. If asked where he was going, he was to reply, “to the gods, to pray that all good things will come to man”. He did not stop working until the ship was built. Its length was 5 stadia (925 meters, 3,000 feet) and its breadth 2 stadia (370 meters, 1,200 feet). He boarded the finished ship, equipped for everything as he had been commanded, with his wife, children and closest friends. After the waters of the Great Flood had come and quickly left, Xisuthrus freed several birds. They found neither food nor a place to rest, and they returned to the ship. After a few days, he again set free some other birds, and they too came back to the ship, but they returned with claws covered with mud. Then later for a third time he set free some other birds, but they did not return to the ship. Then Xisuthrus knew that the earth had once again appeared. He broke open a seam on a side of the ship and saw that the ship had come to rest on a mountain. He disembarked, accompanied by his wife and his daughter together with the steersman. He prostrated himself in worship to the earth and set up an altar and sacrificed to the gods. After this, he disappeared together with those who had left the ship with him. Those who remained on the ship and had not gone out with Xisuthrus, when he and those with him had disembarked, searched for him and called out for him by name all about. But Xisuthrus from then on was seen no more, and then the sound of voice that came from the air gave the instruction that it was their duty to honor the gods and that Xisuthrus, because of the great honor he had shown the gods, had gone to the dwelling 114
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations place of the gods and that his wife and daughter and the steersman had enjoyed the same honor. The voice then instructed them to return to the city of Sippar, as it was fated for them to do, to dig up the tablets that were buried there and to turn them over to mankind. The place where they had come to rest was the land of Armenia (the Babylonian Urartu, from which the Biblical name Ararat is derived). After they understood all this, they sacrificed to the gods there and went on foot to Babylonia. Book of Genesis Noah’s Ark is the vessel in the Book of Genesis flood narrative (Genesis chapters 6 – 9) by which god spares Noah, his family and a remnant of all the world’s animals from the flood. The narrative indicates that god intended to return the Earth to its pre-creation state of watery chaos by flooding the Earth because of humanity’s misdeeds and then remake it using the microcosm of Noah’s Ark. In the Book of Genesis’ story, the descendants of Adam and Eve had become evil and wicked, and god was sorry he had ever created mankind. He decided the only thing to do was destroy them all and start over. But there was one man, Noah, who was obedient to god and found god’s favor. God told Noah to build a big boat, called an ark, and he told Noah exactly how to do it. The ark was to be 300 cubits (137 meters, 450 feet) in length, 50 cubits (23 meters, 75 feet) in width and 30 cubits (14 meters, 45 feet) in height. It was to have three internal divisions, be divided into rooms, have a door in the side and a sohar, which may be either a roof or a skylight. Noah was to find one male and one female of every kind of animal and bird and take them into the ark. He also had to take food for all those animals. It took Noah 120 years to build the ark and find all the animals to put in it, but Noah obeyed god and did just as he was told. God told Noah to go into the ark with his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their wives. It started to rain, then lasted without stop for 40 days and nights. The water got so deep that even the mountains were covered. Every living creature on earth died in the flood. But the ark floated on top of the flood waters and the people and animals in the ark were safe. The story goes on to describe the ark being afloat for 150 days and then coming to rest on the Mountains of Ararat and the subsequent receding of the waters. 115
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations For well over a century scholars have recognized that the biblical story of Noah’s ark is based on older Mesopotamian models. In the oldest story, the hero is Ziusudra and this version was inscribed about 1600 BCE in the Sumerian city of Nippur. In Babylonian versions his name is Atrahasis, but the flood is a river flood, the ark is in the form of a cube and has seven decks with nine compartments on each level. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the flood hero is Utnapishtim, and considered as the closest to the biblical story of Noah. In the early centuries BCE, Syrian had a tradition of the ark landing at Mount Judi, where according to Josephus the remains of the ark were still shown in the 1st century BCE. Quran The Noah’s Ark story is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the ark appears as Safina Nuh (Arabic: )سفينة نوح. Nuh is recognized in Islam as a prophet and apostle of the god Allah. God commanded Nuh to construct the ark within Allah’s sight and under his guidance. As commanded, Nuh set upon the task of building the ark with the help of the small group of believers. When the ark was completed, Nuh took with him his family and the believers, and a pair of every creature that was found on the land around him. The flood waters began to rise. Believers who had so far suffered at the hands of the chiefs and idol worshippers found themselves safe in Nuh’s ark. The unbelievers who had ignored Allah’s guidance were in a grievous state. Amongst the unbelievers was Nuh’s own son, and he too was desperately trying to save himself from the flood waters. Nuh’s ark with all aboard was sailing safely on the waters and rested on Mount Judi. Metamorphoses The Metamorphoses (hereafter: “Books of Transformations”) is a Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid, considered his magnum opus (masterpiece). Ovid begins by addressing the gods and asking them to inspire his work, which opens with the creation of the world and continues on to the present day, and is about the transformation of bodies. After this short prayer, Ovid describes the birth of the world. He then begins his tale of transformations by describing how the creator separated earth from heaven, sea from land, and lighter air from heavier air. He 116
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations then made beings to inhabit these new spaces: gods and stars filled the heavens, fish the seas, beasts the land, and birds the air. Man was created to rule the world. Four ages followed. The age of gold was a time of trust, moral goodness, and fruitfulness. In the age of silver, people had to work for a living. The age of bronze saw the first wars, but some semblance of morality persisted. In the age of iron, however, nothing is sacred. Even family ties lead to bloodshed. This is followed by an attempt by the giants to seize the heavens, at which the wrathful Jove (Jupiter, the Roman equivalent of Zeus) sends a great flood which destroys all living things except one pious couple, Deucalion and Pyrrha, because of their piety. This couple repopulates the earth by obeying the commands of the gods and throwing rocks behind them, which are transformed into a new, hearty breed of people. Fabulae The Fabulae (meaning “stories”) is a summary by Gaius Julius Hyginus, a firstcentury CE author from Roman Spain who collected ancient myths. When the cataclysm called the Flood or Deluge occurred, all the human race perished except Deucalion and Pyrrha, who fled to Mount Etna, which is said to be the highest mountain in Sicily. When they could not live on account of loneliness, they begged Jupiter either to give men, or to afflict them with a similar disaster. Then Jupiter bade them cast stones behind them; those Deucalion threw he ordered to become men, and those Pyrrha threw, to be women. Because of this they are called laos (“people”), for stone in Greek is called las. Bibliotheca The Bibliotheca (hereinafer: “The Library”) was traditionally attributed to Apollodorus of Athens, a 2nd-century BCE Greek author, but it cannot be his because it cites authors who wrote centuries later. Prometheus had a son Deucalion. He reigning in the regions about Phthia, married Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, the first woman fashioned by the gods. When Zeus would destroy the men of the Bronze Age, Deucalion by the advice of Prometheus constructed a chest, and having stored it with provisions he embarked in it with Pyrrha. But Zeus by pouring heavy rain from heaven flooded the greater part of Greece, so that all men were destroyed, except a few who fled to the high mountains in the neighborhood. It was then 117
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations that the mountains in Thessaly parted, and that all the world outside the Isthmus and Peloponnese was overwhelmed. But Deucalion, floating in the chest over the sea for nine days and as many nights, drifted to Parnassus, and there. When the rain ceased, he landed and sacrificed to Zeus, the god of Escape. Zeus sent Hermes to him and allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to get men. At the bidding of Zeus he took up stones and threw them over his head, the stones which Deucalion threw became men, and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women. Hence people were called metaphorically people (laos) from laas (“stone”). Deucalion had children by Pyrrha, first Hellen, whose father some say was Zeus, and second Amphictyon, who reigned over Attica after Cranaus; and third a daughter Protogenia, who became the mother of Aethlius by Zeus. The Lithuanian From his heavenly window, the supreme god Pramzimas saw nothing but war and injustice among mankind. He sent two giants, Wandu and Wejas (water and wind), to destroy earth. After twenty days and nights, little was left. Pramzimas looked to see the progress. He happened to be eating nuts at the time, and he threw down the shells. One happened to land on the peak of the tallest mountain, where some people and animals had sought refuge. Everybody climbed in and survived the flood floating in the nutshell. God’s wrath abated, he ordered the wind and water to abate. The people dispersed, except for Manuu, an elderly couple who stayed where they landed. To comfort them, the god sent the rainbow and advised them to jump over the bones of the earth nine times. They did so, and up sprang nine other couples, from which the nine Lithuanian tribes descended. Vedas In the Vedas, the sacred literature of Hinduism in India, Manu in the Indian mythology is the archetypal man, or the first man. He appears as the performer of the first sacrifice. In later texts, he is also known as the first king, and most rulers of medieval India traced their mystical genealogy back to him, that begin with each cyclic kalpa (aeon) when the universe is born anew, either through his son (the solar line) or his daughter (the lunar line). He is also the legendary author of an important Sanskrit law code, the Manusmriti (“Laws of Manu”). In 118
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations this code, Manu is used as a prefix, but refers to the first Manu – Svayambhuva, the spiritual son of Brahma and the main character of the flood story. Manu Svayambhuva is described as a virtuous individual. The Satapatha Brahmana recounts him as an ancient holy man who, by penances and prayers, had won the favor of the lord of heaven. The god appears to Manu in the form of a little fish whilst he was performing his ablutions in a pond. Manu kept the fish, which grew so quickly that its body occupied the entire ocean in a matter of days. It was then that the god revealed his identity to Manu, told him about the flood that would destroy the whole of humanity, and the way to save them. The fish instructed Manu to build a boat and fill it with animals and seeds to repopulate the earth. He therefore built a boat, as the fish advised. When the flood (pralaya) came, he tied this boat to the fish’s horn and was safely steered to a resting place on a mountaintop. When the flood receded, Manu, the sole human survivor, performed a sacrifice, pouring oblations of butter and sour milk into the waters. After a year there was born from the waters a woman who announced herself as “the daughter of Manu”. These two then became the ancestors of a new human race to replenish the Earth. In the Mahabharata, the fish is identified with the god Brahma, while in the Puranas, including the Bhagavata Purana and the Matsya Purana, it is Matsya, the fish incarnation of the god Vishnu. Manu was said to have three sons before the flood – Charma, Sharma and Yapeti, in close resemblance with Noah who also had three sons – Ham, Shem and Japheth. After the flood he had fifty other sons on Earth. In the story, the destruction of the world is treated as part of the natural order of things, rather than as a divine punishment. However, the deluge is through divine intervention similar to the Near East flood story. The god, in the form of a little fish, saves Manu by warning him that a flood would destroy the whole of humanity and then he build a boat. Manu was perched on a mountaintop (Malaya Mountains as written in the Matsya Purana), performed a sacrifice, pouring oblations, went to the foothills and started to perform tapasya (meditation), almost similar to the Near East flood story. The name Manu is cognate with the Indo-European “man” and has an etymological connection with the Sanskrit verb man (“to think”). The Sanskrit manava or manush (“human”), means “of Manu” or “children of Manu”.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Chingpaw The Chingpaw people is a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group inhabiting upper Burma and the north Burma-Chinese frontier region, especially the Irrawaddy drainage above Myitkyina known as “the Triangle” and the Hukawng valley. The flood hero is named Pawpaw Nan-chaung. When the deluge came, Pawpaw Nan-chaung and his sister Chang-hko saved themselves in a large boat. They took with them nine cocks and nine needles. When the storm and rain had passed, they each day threw out one cock and one needle to see whether the waters were falling. On the ninth day, they finally heard the cock crow and the needle strike bottom. They left their boat, wandered about, and came to a cave home of two nats or elves. The elves bade them stay and make themselves useful, which they did. Soon the sister gave birth, and the old elfin woman minded the baby while its parents were away at work. The old woman, who was a witch, disliked the infant’s squalling, and one day took it to a place where nine roads met, cut it to pieces, and scattered its blood and body about. She carried some of the tidbits back to the cave, made it into a curry, and tricked the mother into eating it. When the mother learned this, she fled to the crossroads and cried to the Great Spirit to return her child and avenge its death. The Great Spirit told her he could not restore her baby, but he would make her mother of all nations of men. Then, from each road, people of different nations sprang up from the fragments of the murdered baby. The Bataks The Bataks are a number of ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatera, Indonesia. Debata, the Creator, sent a flood to destroy every living thing when the Earth grew old and dirty. The last pair of humans took refuge on the highest mountain, and the flood had already reached their knees, when Debata repented his decision to destroy mankind. He tied a clod of earth to a thread and lowered it. The last pair stepped onto it and were saved. As the couple and their descendants multiplied, the clod increased in size, becoming the Earth we inhabit today.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Dayaks The Dayaks are the native people of Kalimantan in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic subgroups, located principally in the interior of Kalimantan. The flood hero is named Bunu as told in the Ngaju Dayak folklore. In the Panaturan, the sacred folklore of the Ngaju Dayak inhabiting the southern Kalimantan region, the first human who descended to this world is named Maharaja (the “Great King”) Bunu. At first he lived in a divine world at Lewu Nindan Tarung with his triplets namely Maharaja Sangiang and Maharaja Sangen. The triplets are the children of Manyamei Tunggul Garing Janjahunan Laut and his wife Kameloh Putak Bulau Janjulen Karangan, the first humans that were created by Ranying Mahatala Langit, the supreme god. Maharaja Bunu was descended to Pantai Danum Kalunen (this world) using a ship namely Palangka Bulau Lambayung Nyahu or simply Palangka, on Samatuan Hill, from where his descendants were spread out to fill the earth. According to Panaturan, the hill is located between Kahayan Rotot and Kahayan Katining in Central Kalimantan region. The Palangka was loaded with supplies necessaries for life, such as farming and hunting tools, weapon making tools, rice seeds, fruit and plants seedlings, as well as livestock breeds. Palangkaraya (the “Greater Palangka”) is now the name of the capital city of Central Kalimantan Province. The Hawaiian The Hawaiian inhabit Hawaii islands, the northernmost island group in Polynesia, in the central Pacific Ocean. The flood hero is named Nuu. The people had turned to evil, so the gods punished their sin with a flood. The gods commanded Nuu to build an ark, and carry on it his wife, three sons, and males and females of all breathing things. Waters came and covered the earth. They subsided to leave the ark on a mountain overlooking a beautiful valley. The gods entered the ark and told Nuu to go forth with all the life it carried. In gratitude for his deliverance, Nuu offered a sacrifice of pig, coconuts and awa to the moon, which he thought was the god Kane. Kane descended on a rainbow to reproach Nuu for his mistake but left the rainbow as a perpetual sign of his forgiveness. After the flood, these people repopulated the islands.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Sahtú The Sahtú are a first people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living in the vicinity of Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada. The flood hero is named Kunyan. Kunyan (“Wise Man”), foreseeing the possibility of a flood, built a great raft, joining the logs with ropes made from roots. He told other people, but they laughed at him and said they would climb trees in the event of a flood. Then came a great flood, with water gushing from all sides, rising higher than the trees and drowning all people but Kunyan and his family on his raft. As he floated, he gathered pairs of all animals and birds he met with. The earth disappeared under the waters, and for a long time no one thought to look for it. Then the musk-rat dived into the water looking for the bottom, but he could not find it. He dived a second time and smelled the earth but did not reach it. Next beaver dived. He reappeared unconscious but holding a little mud. Kunyan placed the mud on the water and breathed on it, making it grow. He continued breathing on it, making it larger and larger. He put a fox on the island, but it ran around the island in just a day. Six times the fox ran around the island, by the seventh time, the land was as large as it was before the flood, and the animals disembarked, followed by Kunyan with his wife (who was also his sister) and son. They re-peopled the land. But the flood waters were still too high, and to lower them, the bittern swallowed them all. Now there was too little water. Plover, pretending sympathy at the bittern’s swollen stomach, passed his hand over it, but suddenly scratched it. The waters flowed out into the rivers and lakes. The Mesoamericans A large number of Mesoamerican flood myths have been documented in written form or passed down through oral tradition. Some clearly have Christian influences, but others are believed by scholars to represent native flood myths of pre-Columbian origin. In the Mesoamerican myths, a variety of reasons are given for the occurrence of the flood: either the world was simply very old and needed to be renewed; the humans had neglected their duty to adore the gods; or they were punished for a transgression (cannibalism, for example). The flood was but one of several destructions of the creation – usually the first of three or four cataclysmic 122
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations events, although there is some evidence that the Aztecs considered the flood to be the fourth. Recorded among the Nahua (Aztec), peoples tell that there were no survivors of the flood and creation had to start from scratch, while other accounts relate that current humans are descended from a small number of survivors. In some accounts the survivors transgress against the gods by lighting a fire and consequently are turned into animals. In the Mayan mythology as expressed in the Popol Vuh, the creator gods attempted to create creatures who would worship them three times before finally succeeding in creating a race of humans that would pay proper homage to their creators. The three previous creations were destroyed. The third race of humans carved from wood were destroyed by a flood, mauled by wild animals and smashed by their own tools and utensils. The myths documented among the Tlapanec and the Huaxtecs has a man and his dog as the sole survivors of the deluge, but the man finds out that the dog takes the shape of a woman during the day when he is away. The man and the dogwoman then repopulate the Earth. The myths found among the Aztec and the Totonac peoples relates how a human couple survive by hiding in a hollow vessel and start to cook a fish when the water subsides. When the smoke reaches the heavens the gods become angry and punish them by turning them into dogs or monkeys, depending on the version. Names Association It is highly probable that the biblical Noah and the Indian flood hero Manu were the same individual. Manu, like Noah, is said to have built an ark in which eight people were saved. Manu and Noah were both the father of all post-flood mankind. The Noah Flood story in the Book of Genesis matches the Epic of Gilgamesh flood myth so closely that few doubt that it derives from a Mesopotamian account. The word Manu is related to the Germanic Mannus, the founder of the West Germanic peoples, mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus in his book Germania. Mannu is also the name of the Lithuanian Noah. The same name may even be reflected in the Egyptian Menes (founder of the first dynasty of Egypt) and Minos (founder and first king of Crete). Minos was also said in Greek mythology to be the son of Zeus and ruler of the sea. Anu appears in Sumerian as the god of the firmament, and the rainbow was called “the great bow of 123
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Anu”, which seems a clear reference to Noah. In Egyptian mythology Nu was the god of waters who sent an inundation to destroy mankind. In southern Kalimantan folklore, Bunu is the first man who inhabited the region. In the Hawaiian myth, Anuu is the flood hero and the first man in the islands. The Sanskrit form manush, Indonesian manusia, Swedish manniska, Gothic manna and English “man” are closely related, meaning “human being”. The aboriginals of Japan are called Ainu, a word which also means “man”. In the Sioux language, minne means “water”. In the Assiniboine language, minnetoba means “water prairie”. However, this word may also have been derived from the Cree and Ojibiva-Saulteaux languages, which meant “the place of the Great Spirit”. Manitou (“the Great Spirit”) was the chief god among Algonquins. The name of Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, comes from the Nahuatl managuac, which means “surrounded by ponds”. The ancient Javanese banu and the Dayak Barito banyu mean “water”. There is Ino, a sea-goddess in Greek mythology, and the Greek word naiade, meaning “river nymph”. Further, Baruna in the Indonesian archipelago which given the title of the Water God, is the ruler of the seas and oceans. The original Sanskrit word for “ship” is nau. This root has developed even in English into such words as “navy”, “nautical”, “nausea”, and so on. In Norse mythology, Njord was the god of ships, living at Noatun, the harbor of ships. In this language, the syllable noa is related to the Icelandic nor, meaning “ship”. Thus, Noah and the waters of the great Flood are not only recalled in the ancient traditions of all nations, but their names have also become incorporated in many and varied ways into the very languages of his descendants. The trails are tenuous and often almost obliterated, so that some of the inferred connections are speculative and possibly mistaken, but the correlations are too numerous to be only coincidental, thus adding yet one more evidence for the historicity of the Great Flood.
Garden of Eden, Paradise The “Garden of Eden” or often “Paradise” is the biblical “garden of God”, described most notably in the Book of Genesis chapters 2 and 3, and also in the Book of Ezekiel. The “garden of God”, not called Eden, is mentioned in the Book of Genesis chapter 13, and the “trees of the garden” are mentioned in the Book of 124
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Ezekiel chapter 31. The Book of Zechariah and the Book of Psalms also refer to trees and water in relation to the temple without explicitly mentioning Eden. Much like records of the great flood, creation story and confusion of languages, the story of Eden echoes the Mesopotamian myth of a king, as a primordial man, who is placed in a divine garden to guard the tree of life. In the Hebrew Bible, Adam and Eve are depicted as walking around the Garden of Eden naked due to their innocence. Traditionally, the favored derivation of the name “Eden” was from the Akkadian edinnu, derived from a Sumerian word meaning “plain” or “steppe”. Eden is now believed to be more closely related to an Aramaic root word meaning “fruitful, well-watered”. Sumerian paradise is usually associated with the Dilmun civilization and Kur (“Mountain”), located in the far east. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh travels to the garden of the gods through the Cedar Forest and the depths of Mashu (“Cedar Mountain”), where Utnapishtim (Ziusudra in the Eridu Genesis) was taken by the gods to live forever. In the Sumerian Myth of Enlil and Ninlil, there is a description of the city of Nippur, its walls, river, canals and well, portrayed as the home of the gods. In the Sumerian myth the Incantation of Eridu, Eridu is described as having a “glorious fountain of the abyss”, a “house of wisdom”, sacred grove and a kiskanu tree with the appearance of lapis-lazuli, suggesting that it was not the city of that name. In their myth, Eridu was originally the home of Enki (the Akkadian Ea), who was considered to have founded the city. In the Ancient Egyptian myths, the land of gods or the divine land is called “Ta Natjer”; it is associated with the legendary “Land of Punt” and interpreted as the “land of the divinities (ancestors)” or the “ancestral homeland”. Since Ra, the sun god, held a very important place in the Egyptian pantheon, Ta Natjer must be a location in the far east, in the direction of the sunrise. In the biblical Books of Kings and Chronicles, the geographical location of Ophir is described in exactly the same way as the Land of Punt. Both countries lie “far away, to the south-east”; the ships set sail from a port on the Red Sea and the round voyage lasts three years. The goods brought from Ophir are more or less the same as those the Egyptians brought from Punt and their other ports. King Solomon received a cargo of gold, silver, “algum wood”, precious stones, ivory, apes and peacocks. In the Iranian folklore, Kangdez refers to a mythical, paradise-like fortress, means “Fortress of Kang”. In Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, the region around the castle is described as being rich in water and game, and knowing neither the 125
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations frost of winter nor the heat of summer. In the Bundahisn, the fortress had seven ring walls made of gold, silver, steel, brass, iron, crystal and lapis lazuli, and in the Pahlavi, it made of stone, steel, crystal, silver, gold, chalcedony and ruby. Kangdez was located beyond Khotan (today’s Hotan) and China, a year’s voyage (six months in another text) to the east by sea from the Baluchi port of Makran. In the Mesoamerican Mayan K’iche’ epic Popol Vuh and other versions among the Mayans, the first people created are gathered at paradise-like places in the other side of the sea in Tollan, a mountain with seven caves, and Siwan, seven canyons, where they receive their languages and their gods. Tollan is the name given to the mythical place of origin in many Mesoamerican traditions. The name Tollan means “among the reeds” in the Nahuatl language. Names with the same meaning were also used in other native Mexican languages. The Arabic word for paradise or garden in the Quran is jannah which literally means “concealed place”, with the highest level being called firdaus. Two watercourses are supposed to flow underneath the jannah where large trees are described, mountains made of musk, between which rivers flow in valleys of pearl and ruby. Islamic gardens can further divide the watercourses into four, meeting at a spring and including a sanctuary for shade and rest. Location Hypotheses The Book of Genesis lists four rivers in association with the garden of Eden: Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel and Perat. It also refers to the land of Havilah where the Pishon winds, Kush where the Gihon winds, and Asshur where the Hiddekel flows in front of it. In Havilah there are gold in good quality, bedolach and the ‘gemstone’. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the Sumerian version closest to the Book of Genesis, the land is described as a cedar forest at the depths of a cedar mountain. The cedar forest is told as full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees. The quest for pinpointing the exact location of the biblical Garden of Eden and the four rivers is lasting more than two millennia, almost rivals the quest for the location of Atlantis, both in theory and in practice. Those searches for Eden had proven difficult due to uncertainty in identifying the rivers. Nobody had been able to look at modern maps of the regions mentioned in the Book of Genesis and figure out exactly where the Garden of Eden was. At the head of the Persian Gulf by the present topography, only one river of the four, the Perat, is known by the same name of Euphrates in modern times, the 126
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Greek manner of pronouncing the Hebrew perâth, the first syllable being simply a help in sounding the double consonant. It presently originates in the mountains of Turkey and terminates when it merges with the Tigris River near the Iraq/Kuwait border region. Many have speculated that the Tigris is the river Hiddekel. This has led to speculation that the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in Turkey. This is assumed because the present headwaters of the Euphrates River originate in Turkey, as do the headwaters of the Tigris. Others have proposed that the other end of the Euphrates River, where it meets the Tigris, may be the true location. This requires interpreting the Tigris river as one of the other three (ie the Hiddekel), then interpreting a tributary confluence of rivers as a river head, and then locating at least two more rivers (or old river beds) as the other missing two. Having done so, they then claim that the Garden of Eden was near the present day Kuwait. This is a convenient solution, but not one supported by the literal wording of the Bible or the geological and geographical realities of what river “head” means, ie headwaters or source of origin. Several clues indicate that the Pishon and Gihon were located in Egypt or Arabia. The name Havilah, where the Pishon river is said to flow, means “sandy land” (Sarna, 1991). To an ancient Israelite audience, the explicit reference to an abundance of gold and precious stones evokes images of the Egyptian royalty from which they were birthed. This association also fits with the reference to “Kush”, identified later in the Book of Genesis as one ancestor of the Egyptians, hence it is believed the Gihon to be the famous Nile River. However, if these were indeed the Pison and Gihon rivers, two of the four that flowed out of the Garden of Eden, they do not correspond with the present-day headwater source of the Euphrates or Tigris up in Turkey. The respective watersheds of the Tigris/Euphrates and Nile rivers are separated by hundreds of miles, and these rivers are fed by completely different mountain ranges. Also, Perat finds its equivalent in the Assyrian Purattu and the Old Persian Ufratu. Names similar to these may be found in various places. They cannot prove much more than resemblance in language, and that may be sometimes very remote. Several like names occur in profane history. Geography affords numerous examples of the transference of names from one place to another along the line of migration. We may therefore expect names to travel with the tribes that bear them or love them, until they come to their final settlements.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Antediluvian myths, either Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Iranian all locate the Paradise in the far east, where the sun rises. Various Mesoamerican Mayan myths locate their paradise-like origin at the other side of the sea. A world map in the Christian Topography by Cosmas Indicopleustes (literally “Cosmas who sailed to India”), a Greek merchant and later a hermit from Alexandria of Egypt, ca 550 CE, locates the Paradise in the extreme far east beyond India. The Hereford Mappa Mundi, a medieval European map of the world, ca 1300 CE, also locates the Paradise in the extreme far east. Stephen Oppenheimer in his book Eden in the East, the Drawn Continent of Southeast Asia in 1998 made a hypothesis that the Garden of Eden was located in Southeast Asia. As the Ice Age ended, there was sea water rise drowned forever the huge continental shelf of Southeast Asia, namely the Sundaland, and caused a population dispersal which fertilized the Neolithic cultures of China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, thus creating the first civilizations. There were three catastrophic and rapid rises in sea level. The last of these, which finished shortly before the start of civilization in Mesopotamia, may have been the one that was remembered. The Southeast Asian contributions to the building of the first cities in Mesopotamia may not have been solely technological. While they may have brought the new ideas and skills of megalithic construction, cereal domestication, seafaring, astronomy, navigation, trade and commerce, they may also have introduced the tools to harness and control the labor of the farmers and artisans. These included magic, religion, and concepts of state, kingship and social hierarchy. Uniquely shared folklore shows that counterparts and originals for nearly every Middle Eastern and European mythological archetype, including the flood, can be found in the islands of Indonesia and the Southwest Pacific. Southeast Asia is revealed as the original biblical Garden of Eden and the Flood as the force which drove people from the Paradise. In a hypothesis, the author identifies the location of the biblical Garden of Eden as a vast plain surrounded by mountain ranges in southern part of Kalimantan Island in Indonesia (Irwanto 2015). The region is populated by the Dayaks, the indigenous inhabitants of Kalimantan. The center of the region is covered by tropical forest, which produces rattan and valuable timber such as Ulin and Meranti, as well as gold, resin and precious stones. The lowlands are dominated by peatland swamps that intersect with many large rivers.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In Genesis 2:8: “The Lord God planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there He placed the man whom He had formed.” and in Genesis 11:2: “And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.” The land of Shinar is identified by the scholars as Mesopotamia. The name may be a corruption of Hebrew shene neharot (“two rivers”), Hebrew shene arim (“two cities”), or Akkadian shumeru. The people of Mesopotamia were a refugium from Southeast Asia (“the east”) caused by a flood catastrophe and rapid rises of sea level in Sundaland (“they journeyed from the east”). Their land of origins, Eden, was therefore in Sundaland (“a garden in the east, in Eden”). Any other Afro-Asian myths regarding the Paradise also point the location in the far east, where the sun rises. In Genesis 2:9: “Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, along with the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” In Genesis 2:19-20: “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.” The God created the Garden of Eden specifically for Adam, the first man, whom God had formed. Thus, the Garden of Eden was perfect. It offered both beauty and sustenance, being home to every tree “that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” and a source of freshwater from the river to drink. Well known for its tropical forests, rich natural resources; and exotic, endemic and diverse flora and fauna, Kalimantan offers a unique, unexplored world of its own. This territory has a number of nature reserves to protect its unique flora and fauna. Kersikluway is where the very rare black orchid (Colongenia Pandurata) grows, located upstreams the Mahakam River, East Kalimantan. Bontang, in the regency of Kutai, has rare flora and fauna. The Kutai National Park near Bontang is a place to see scenery especially those at Berasbasah. Tanjungputing National Park in Central Kalimantan is the oldest conservation site of Kalimantan’s flora and fauna, inhabited by orangutans, owa-owa, bekantan and other primates. Also found here the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center which is supported by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). 129
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In West Kalimantan, Gunungpalung National Park located in the Ketapang regency is home to miscellaneous flora and fauna. The Rayapasi mountain located in the Singkawang regency is also an interesting place to see the rafflesia or giant flower. Singkawang is also a nature reserve. The forest of Sanggau is a place where hot springs, lakes and caves can be found. The other nature reserves are the forests of Baning and Kelam Hill in the Sintang regency. While in Kapuashulu, there is the Bentuang forest. In South Kalimantan, there is the Kaget island, home to a wide variety of birds and monkeys, most notably the humorous longnosed proboscis monkeys. The southern Kalimantan region’s climate is a wet weather equatorial zone with eight months of rainy season and four months of dry season. The rainfall or precipitation is 2,800 – 3,400 milimeters per year with an average of 145 rainy days annually. The Muller-Schwaner Mountains stretch from the north-east of the region to the south-west, 80% of which is covered in dense forest, peatland swamps, mangroves, rivers, and traditional agriculture land. Highland areas in the northeast are remote and not easily accessible. Non-volcanic mounts are scattered in this area including Kengkabang, Samiajang, Liangpahang and Ulugedang. The Meratus Mountains are situated approximately along the eastern part of the region. The mountains have mist-laced, river-crossed peaks, dense jungles, steep valleys and jagged karst formations. The mountains are inhabited by the “seminomadic” Meratus Dayak people, whose strong religious customs play to the soundtrack of the shaman’s drum. The above descriptions indicate that the region deserves to be called as the Garden of Eden as described in the Bible. The Four Rivers of Paradise In Genesis 2:10-14: “And a river ‘going out’ of Eden to water the garden; and from there was parted, and became into four ‘heads’. The name of the first is Phison: that it winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is ‘bedolach’ and the ‘gemstone’. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same that it winds the whole land of Kush. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that it goes in front of Asshur. And the fourth river is Perat.” The Bible says that “a river ‘going out’ of Eden” and then does something that most rivers do not do; specifically, split into four separate ‘heads’ or rivers that flowed 130
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations downstream, all fed from a common single river source. Almost all rivers start from a single source or are fed by multiple sources (tributaries). The verb in Hebrew is a present participle instead of the imperfect. Also, a noun phrase at the beginning of a verse is unusual. Again, the words “and from there” come before the verb “was parted” show that this verb has no subject expressed. Those singularities are perceived because the verse is interpreted verbatim. The present participle form of the verb implies that the words are in a phrase, the “river going out of a region (‘Eden’)”, that can be interpreted as the “hydrographical region”, the “hydrological region” or the “river catchment region”. The next phrases again affirm this interpretation, “from there was parted, and became into four ‘heads’ ”, that can be interpreted as “which divided into four main river sub-catchments (sub-regions)”. The interpreted phrases were seemingly not found in the original language of the verse. So, the verse can be interpreted as “The hydrological region of Eden consists of four river subcatchments.” The naming of the Biblical rivers was allegedly derived from the geographical alignment of the rivers. The numbering of the rivers was also in accordance with the order, from west to east. The simple present form of the verbs denotes that the conditions are not changed overtime. The author identified the four rivers as: Kahayan for Pishon, Kapuas for Gihon, Barito for Hiddekel and Negara for Perat as shown on Figure 53 and discussed below. Phison
In Genesis 2:11-12: “The name of the first is Phison: that it winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is ‘bedolach’ and the ‘gemstone’.” The Hebrew name for Phison is Pîšōn ( )ּפִיׁשֹוןwhich means “increase” (noun) and could be derived from pûsh ( )ּפּוׁשwhich means “to spring about”, “to be dispersed”, “to be scattered” or “to be spread”. When applied in the alignment of the river, this could mean that the river is “dispersed”, “refracted” or “deflected”. Looking at the geography of the region, the Kahayan River is deflected westward, as viewed from downstream side. At about the middle of the Kahayan River, that part of the river is winding. The winding of a river signify that the topography where the river traverses is flat and tends to be used as a center of community. So that Havilah could be at this site. Havilah is described in the lengthiest in the Bible compared to the other 131
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations places in the Eden, implies that this place is the most important or populated among the others. This place can be easily accessible from the southern coast through Kahayan River for the outsiders to visit. The present capital of the Central Kalimantan Province, Palangkaraya, is situated in the area too.
Figure 53 – Hypothetic Garden of Eden and the Four Rivers of Paradise.
The Bible says that there is gold in Havilah and the gold is good. Kahayan River is renowned for its gold mining. A place named Gunungmas, meaning “the hill of gold”, in the middle of the Kahayan River, is rich of gold and some other minerals such as silver, copper, iron, zinc, tin, platinum and zircon. Today, the gold reserves in the area are approximately 45 million tons. Besides some other classic names of the island, Kalimantan bore the name of Nusa Kencana meaning “the island of gold”, probably at Gunungmas as this site is easily accessible from the southern coast through the Kahayan River. Gold and zircon 132
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations are abundant in southern Kalimantan as these are the mainstay of the region at this time. The Bible mentions “bedolach” as a product of Havilah. Its Hebrew word is bedôlach ()ּבדלח, probably derived from bâdal ( )ּבדלmeaning “to divide” (in various senses literally or figuratively, “separate”, “distinguish”, “differ”, “select”, etc) or a foreign word. “Bedolach” is among the Biblical words which the meanings are unclear. According to the Septuagint, is the carbuncle or crystal; according to others, the pearl, or a particular kind of gum. The last is the more probable, regarding the various Greek forms of the word bdella (Βδέλλα) and bdellion (Βδέλλιον), a semi-transparent oleo-gum resin. Southern Kalimantan is renowned for its producer of natural gum sap locally known as jelutung (Malaysian: jelutong) tapped from the same name of the trees (Dyera spp) and is the largest exporter of the commodity in the world. Its natural distribution is scattered locales in low-elevation tropical evergreen forest. The kind of tree which grows in the swamp (Dyera pollyphylla) is an important source of chewing gum. Besides, jelutung sap is an industrial material for adhesives, varnishes, racing tires, waterproofing and insulating materials. This region is also famous for a guttapercha tree locally known as nyatoh or nyatu (Palaquium spp). Its habitat is coastal, lowland mixed dipterocarp, swamp and montane forests. Dayak communities in the region utilizing nyatu sap as a raw material for making handicrafts, from an epithet that can only be found in the region. Figure 54 – Handicraft made from nyatu sap.
The Bible mentions “gemstone”, also as a product of Havilah. Its Hebrew word in the Bible is shôham ( )ׁשהםfrom an unused root probably meaning “to blanch”; “a gem” or “a precious stone”. The story of Kalimantan’s rich gemstone resources has reached worldwide fame. Kalimantan, as they are known in the past and the West, is indeed the sources of many natural gemstones and have been documented well in many literatures. Amethyst or locally named kecubung, a violet jewel, is specifically found and renowned in southern Kalimantan. A place named Martapura located 133
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations in the region is famous from the early past for its jewelry industry. Zircon – a gemstone with natural colors varies between colorless, yellow-golden, red, brown, blue, and green – is abundantly found along the alluvial deposits of inland rivers in southern and western Kalimantan, as a byproduct of gold mining activities. Gihon
In Genesis 2:13: “The name of the second river is Gihon; the same that it winds the whole land of Kush.” The Hebrew name for Gihon is gı̂ychôn or gichôn ( )ּגחון ּגיחוןwhich means “bursting forth”, could be derived from primitive root of gı̂yach or gôach ()ּגח ּגיח which means “to gush forth (as water)”, “to burst forth”, “to draw forth”, “to bring forth” or “to break forth”. When applied in the alignment of the river, this could mean that the river is multiply “broken forth”, “come apart”, “divided” or “branched”. Looking at the geography of the region, the Kapuas River is evenly branched into three tributaries that look like a burst. At the confluence of the tributaries and at a distance downstream, that part of the river is winding. Kush could be at this site and could become the second important place after Havilah. Hiddekel
In Genesis 2:14: “The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it goes in front of Asshur.” The Hebrew name for Hiddekel is chiddeqel ( )חּדקלwhich means “rapid” or “darting”, probably derived from chad dékel ( )ּדֶ קֶ ל חַ דmeaning “a sharp and swift arrow” (Keil and Delitzsch), or of foreign origin. When applied in the alignment of the river, this could mean “a swift arrow trajectory”, “a long and direct trajectory” or simply “long and direct”. Looking at the geography of the region, the Barito River is long, direct and almost straightly aligned. The verb “goes” is applied instead of “winds” as in the other two rivers, implies that the river is in direct or straight alignment. The Bible says that Hiddekel goes in front of Asshur. The Hebrew word qidmâh ( )קדמהcan mean “in front of”, “over against” or “on the east of”. So, instead of “goes in front of Asshur” the phrase can be interpreted as “goes on the east of Asshur”.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Perat
In Genesis 2:14: “The fourth river is the Perat.” The Hebrew name for Perat is perâth ( )ּפרתwhich means “to break forth”. When applied in the alignment of the river, this could mean “to diverge” or “to branch”. Looking at the geography of the region, Negara River is a branch or a tributary of the Barito River. The Bible decreases the description of this river, without explanation of the alignment or a nearby place name, and puts it in the last order. This could mean that Perat is the least important river compared to the other three in the region. Noah Flood The Genesis flood narrative makes up chapters 6 – 9. The narrative indicates that God intended to return the Earth to its pre-creation state of watery chaos by flooding the Earth because of humanity’s misdeeds and then remake it using the microcosm of Noah’s Ark. A vast plain dominates the topography of the southern Kalimantan region which is level, smooth and even. The slope of the ground surface is mostly less than 1% declining southward towards the Java Sea and almost no visible mound on the whole plain. The area of the plain is located in a tropical rain forest region, has high precipitation rate over the year, has warm temperature over the year, mostly swampy and has many large rivers and tributaries so that the region is fertile and rich of food and daily necessity resources. Rivers are flowing on the plain; Barito, Kapuas, Murung, Kahayan and Sebangau Rivers are among them. The regimes of these rivers should have been changed over the past thousands of years due to processes of flooding, sedimentation, river bed movement and meandering on a very flat plain. Interchanges of flows and orders among the rivers might also occur. Numerous transverse passages connecting one river to the other exist in the region, some of them were built or rehabilitated in recent times. The passage is known locally as anjir, a canal linking two rivers as part of the transportation network. The canals are also used as primary tidal swamp irrigation canals supplying water to and draining from the cultivated lands. The plain is elevated from 0 to about 40 meters (130 feet) above the average sea water level. Being in a flat and low plain, the tidal affect of the sea may reach as far as 160 kilometers (100 miles) away from the coast. 135
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In Genesis 7:12: “The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.” In Genesis 7:12-20: “The flood was on the earth forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose up above the earth. The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. The water prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed upward and the hills were covered fifteen cubits deep.” 15 cubits is approximately 6.8 meters (23 feet). Kalimantan Island is among the regions on Earth having the highest yearlong rainfall. The probabilistic study of rainfall in the region of southern Kalimantan showed that it may reach as high as 500 millimeters (20 inches) per day for a 100-year return period and even higher on the mountainous regions. Its rainfall catchment region is a bulb-like shape where the mountainous upstream area is wider – with the highest rainfall – and the downstream, on the plain, is narrower. Therefore, flood catastrophe risk on this plain is extremely high, aggravated by its catchment shape, rainfall distribution, rainfall intensity; level, even, smooth and low plain; and farther reach of sea tides. Everyone can imagine how worst was the extraordinary Biblical Flood from a 40-day and 40night rainfall on this region. The Noah Flood could have happened here. Tsunami might also another possibility to cause the Noah Flood. Indonesia is among the regions in the world which have the highest risk of tsunami. A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, generally an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater displacement all have the potential to generate a tsunami. Tsunami waves do not resemble normal sea waves, because their wavelength is far longer. Tsunami waves traveled in shallow water in the ancient Java Sea and penetrated inland on a very flat plain in the region could amplify its wave height of more than 10 times and might reach hundreds of kilometers (or miles) inland. Interestingly, as discussed before, there is a folklore of the Ngaju Dayak living in the region similar to the Noah’s Ark story, and tells about how the region was populated. As told in the Panaturan, Bunu was descended to Pantai Danum Kalunen (this world) using a ship namely Palangka, on Samatuan Hill, from where his descendants were spread out to fill the Earth. The hill is located between Kahayan Rotot and Kahayan Katining in the region. The Palangka was loaded with supplies necessaries for life, such as farming and hunting tools, 136
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations weapon making tools, rice seeds, fruit and plants seedlings, as well as livestock breeds. The name Bunu is in close phonetic similarity with Noah and the associated Vedic flood hero Manu. The place name Danum is also close to Dilmun, the location of the Paradise in the Mesopotamian myths. Palangkaraya (the “Great Palangka”) is now the name of the capital city of Central Kalimantan Province. Due to the high level of flood risk in the region, it was possible that the floods had several times repeated for the recent thousands of years. Civilization that grew back after the flood will be swept back in the next flood, returned to its original nature and he humanity who survived spread to other parts of the world.
Atlantis The story of Atlantis is written in the Socratic dialogues Timaeus and Critias by a Greek philosopher Plato in about 360 BCE. His writings have survived due to the safekeeping of the academy he had founded, in the city of Athens. These are the only known original references which specifically refer to the story. As written in the dialogues, there are four people at a meeting who had met the previous day to hear Socrates describes the ideal state. Socrates wants Timaeus, Hermocrates, and Critias to tell him stories about the Athens interacting with other states. The first is Critias, who talks about his great grandfather’s meeting with Solon, one of the seven sages, an Athenian poet and a famous lawgiver. Solon had been to Egypt where priests had compared Egypt and Athens and talked about the gods and legends of both lands. One such Egyptian story is about Atlantis. Atlantis, a likely legendary land nation, has been an object of fascination among western philosophers and historians for nearly 2,400 years. The existence of Atlantis is supported by the fact that it is described in great details, mainly in Critias. In additions, various conditions, events and goods unknown to Plato are also described in detailed and lengthy words. The recent knowledge of late glacial and postglacial sea level rise and land subsidence that occurred almost precisely at the time described by Plato also becomes strong evidence to the truth of the story. Plato describes Atlantis, a powerful and advanced kingdom, as a land larger than Libya and Asia Minor put together, located just beyond the Stelae of Heracles. 137
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Its culture was advanced and it had a constitution suspiciously similar to the one outlined in Plato’s Republic. It was protected by the god Poseidon, who made his son Atlas king and namesake of the land Atlantis. As the Atlanteans grew powerful, their ethics declined. Their armies eventually conquered Africa as far as Egypt and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia before being driven back by an Athenian-led alliance. Later, by way of divine punishment, the capital city was devastated in a night and a day by an earthquake and a flood around 9,600 years BCE. The ruins and parts of the country were then gradually sank into the sea. As told in the dialogues, the character Critias heard the story of Atlantis from his grandfather, Critias (the same name), told as a “real story”. Critias the elder was told by his father, Dropides, who had heard it from the Athenian statesman Solon (about 240 years before Plato’s time), who had learned it from an elderly Egyptian priest, who said it had happened 9,000 years before that. In the story, Poseidon fell in love with a mortal woman, Cleito. Then he created a dwelling at the top of a hill near the center of an island and surrounded it with rings of water and land to protect her. Cleito gave birth to five sets of twin boys who became the first rulers of Atlantis. The land of Atlantis was divided among the brothers with the eldest, Atlas, the first king of Atlantis, being given control over the central hill and the surrounding areas. After generations, the zones of water were then bridged over, and water canals through the rings of land and from the outermost ring of water to the sea were cut, to facilitate travel and trade. The city of Atlantis sat just outside the outer ring of water and spread across the island. This was a densely populated area where the majority of the population lived. At the top of the central hill, a temple was built to honor Poseidon which housed a giant gold statue of him riding a chariot pulled by winged horses. It was here that the rulers of Atlantis would come to discuss laws, pass judgments and pay tribute to Poseidon. Beyond the city lay a fertile plain looked toward the south and sheltered from the north surrounded by a perimeter canal used to collect water from the rivers and streams of the mountains. Surrounding the plain to the north were mountains, dotted by villages, lakes, rivers and meadows. Inland canals, transverse passages and irrigation canals were cut on the plain. The climate was such that two harvests were possible each year, one in the winter fed by the rains and one in the summer fed by irrigation from the canals. Besides the harvests, the island provided all kinds of herbs, fruits and nuts. Abundance of animals, wild and tame, including elephants, roamed the island. 138
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations For generations the Atlanteans lived simple, virtuous lives. But slowly they began to change. Greed and power began to corrupt them. When Zeus saw the immorality of the Atlanteans he gathered the other gods to determine a suitable punishment. Soon, in one violent surge it was gone. The island of Atlantis, its people and its memory were destroyed. As written in the dialogues, Solon, while wrote his poem, enquired the Egyptian priest into the meaning and knowledge of the names which had been translated into their own language; then he copied them out again and translated them into Greek, by borrowing the parallel names from the Greek mythology for the Athenian people to understand. Thus, the names in the story including Zeus, Poseidon, Heracles, Atlas, Athens, Egypt, Libya, Tyrrhenia, Europe and the others are all borrowed names. Unknown things to the Ancient Greeks are described in lengthy words. Plato is alleged to have embodied the Athens as part of the story of Atlantis to show their greatest and noblest action. From the dialogues, the geographic positions of Atlantis and the Athens are described as follows. The kingdom of Atlantis was located at a distant point in the Atlantic Ocean. The Ancient Greeks understanding of the Atlantic Ocean was the ocean surrounding the whole Earth, which are now arbitrarily divided into the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. 2. The Atlantis and the Athens were bordered by stelae resembling the Stelae of Heracles which among others were placed in a sea mouth called the Strait of Heracles. 3. The city of Atlantis was located within the sea mouth, where there was a harbor with a narrow entrance and in a sea surrounded by a boundless continent. This means that the city of the Athens was located at the outside of the mouth and the sea. 1.
These geographic descriptions are not applicable to the existence of Atlantis in the proximity of the Mediterranean Sea due to the fact that the city of the Athens in Greece is located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and inside the Strait (sea mouth) of Gibraltar. Placing Atlantis at the opposite side of the mouth is inconsistent with the statement in the dialogues, inasmuch as the city of Atlantis was supposed to locate inside a sea mouth and in a sea surrounded by a boundless continent. The statement that the country of Atlantis was located at a distant point in the Atlantic Ocean by itself put the city of the Athens at a 139
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations distant location as well since both regions were neighboring, as told in the story, therefore they were not located in the proximity of the Mediterranean Sea. Further, it is said that the Athens which formerly had a vast and fertile land, at the time of Solon had sunk all around and all that remains were small rocky parts, as if such the bones of the wasted body. What was meant by the land subsidence is the drowning of lands caused by the sea level rise during the Last Glacial period, so as if the lands were fallen away. It is also stated that only a few trees were growing on the remains of the land and consisted almost entirely of bare land so that rain water flowed only just on it and then lost to the sea. These statements do not describe the conditions of the city of Athens at the time of Solon in which to this day is not so much different. The statement that the city of the Athens had been established a thousand years before Egypt is also incompatible. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Egyptian civilization is older than the Greek. In addition, the first Athens are not proven to exist in 9,000 years before Solon, but only about 3,400 years ago. In the same way he also embodied Egypt, Libya and Tyrrhenia into the story. What Plato means is perhaps in order to support his ideology of an ideal state as in The Republic, related to the greatest and noblest action of the Ancient Athens and the defeat of aggressive Atlantis. The Atlantis in the story told by the Egyptian priests is probably ever really existed. However, the Athens, as well as the Egyptians, the Libyans and the Tyrrhenians, were probably primordial ethnics of the ancestors prior the sea level rise, deluges and other catastrophes, whom among the refugees and survivors then resettled on the present lands. Summarized from the dialogues, below is the timeline of the story of Atlantis. The quoted names are allegedly borrowed. 1. 2. 3.
4. 5.
Sometimes before 10,000 years before Solon, the “Athens” was founded. Sometimes before 9,000 years before Solon, the “Egyptians” was founded. Shortly before 9,000 years before Solon, the regions from “Libya” as far as “Egypt” and “Europe” as far as “Tyrrhenia” were conquered by Atlantis. 9,000 years before Solon, a war between Atlantis and the “Athens” took place. 8,000 years before Solon, the Egyptians recorded their sacred registers. 140
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Between 9,000 years before Solon and Solon’s time, many great deluges and land subsidence took place. 7. About 600 BCE, the Egyptian priests told story about Atlantis to Solon. 8. About 360 BCE, Plato wrote Timaeus and Critias. 6.
Figure 55 – The timeline of Atlantis story.
In the Atlantis story, the demise of Atlantis by an earthquake and a flood took place 9,000 years before the life of Solon (ca 600 BCE), or calculated as 11,600 years ago, exactly the same date as the end of the Younger Dryas period. The kingdom of Atlantis was located in a tropical region with fertile land, had two seasons, had a maritime culture, and encompassed a later partly drowned territory larger than Libya and Asia Minor put together. The capital city was destructed by a flood and an earthquake in a single night and day, and subsequently the ruins and some areas of the kingdom were gradually drowned. These descriptions and all the others written by Plato are strongly comparable with the conditions of the antediluvian Sundaland, and its subsidence after the Younger Dryas period. Sundaland Hypotheses of Atlantis Some authors have specifically claimed a clear link between Sundaland and Plato’s Atlantis. The antediluvian Sundaland is large enough to match Plato’s description of Atlantis. Its topography, climate, flora and fauna together with aspects of local mythologies, all permit a convincing case to be made to support this idea. Thomas Stamford Raffles, who was the Lieutenant-Governor of British Java and the founder of Singapore, was perhaps the first to suggest a link between Atlantis and Indonesia, in his book The History of Java, published in 1817. A prominent theosophist CW Leadbeater also suggested that link, in his book The Occult History of Java, published in 1951. Other investigators have written on the prehistory of the region of whom the best known is probably Stephen Oppenheimer in his book Eden in the East, the Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, in 1998, who firmly locates the Garden of Eden in this region, although he 141
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations makes little reference to Atlantis. More recently, Robert M Schoch, in collaboration with Robert Aquinas McNally, wrote a book Voyages of the Pyramid Builder, the True Origins of the Pyramids from Lost Egypt to Ancient America, in 2003, in which they suggest that pyramid building may have had its origins in a civilization that flourished on parts of Sundaland that are now submerged. The first book to specifically identify Sundaland with Atlantis was written by Zia Abbas, in his book Atlantis: The Final Solution, published in 2002. However, prior to its publication the internet offered at least two sites that discussed in detail the case for Atlantis in Southeast Asia. William Lauritzen and the late Professor Arysio Nunes dos Santos developed extensive websites. Lauritzen has also written an e-book that is available from his site, while Santos developed his views on a Sundaland Atlantis in another recent book, Atlantis: The Lost Continent Finally Found, published in 2005. Sunil Prasannan has an interesting essay on Graham Hancock’s website. More esoteric sites also offer support for the Sundaland theory of Atlantis. A Geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, in his book Plato Never Lied, Atlantis is in Indonesia, published in 2013, written that Gunungpadang was apparently brought by people in a pyramid form about 13,000 years ago, the adoption of Atlantis was in the greater of the present-day Indonesia located. Graham Hancock proposed a common origin for various architectural and artistic works in pre-cataclysmic Sundaland as the true location of Atlantis, in his book Magicians of the Gods, published in 2015. Further support for an Indonesian Atlantis is the publication of a book, Atlantis, the Lost City is in Java Sea by Dhani Irwanto in 2015, who endeavors to identify features of the lost city with details in Plato’s account with a site in the Java Sea off the coast of the island of Kalimantan. Geography The kingdom of Atlantis is located “at a distant point in the Atlantic Ocean”. The ancient Greeks understanding of the Atlantic Ocean was the coterminous ocean surrounding the whole Earth, which are now arbitrarily divided into the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, despite the fact that all three are coterminous. Herodotus, Strabo, Plato, Aristotle and several other ancient authors are very specific on the fact that the “Atlantic Ocean” – otherwise called “Ocean of the Atlanteans”, “Outer Ocean”, “Kronian Ocean”, Mare Oceanum (“Ocean Sea”) or Mare Magnum (“Great Sea”) – was the whole of the “earthencircling ocean”. This Ocean surrounded the whole Earth then known, that of 142
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Eurasia and Africa. The Atlantic Ocean of the ancient Greeks of the time of Plato and Aristotle was not only the one we call by that name, but included the Indian Ocean and that portion of the Pacific Ocean along the eastern Figure 56 – Ancient Greeks understanding of the world coast of Asia. Therefore, the phrase (based on Herodotus ca 430 BCE, Atlantis location added). “at a distant point in the Atlantic Ocean” also implies that Atlantis was located in the ocean far or what we know today the eastern Indian Ocean or the western Pacific Ocean. As said in the story, the war between Atlantis and the Athens took place about 11,600 years ago. The sea level at this time was around 60 meters below the present-day sea level. The map showing the lands at 11,600 years ago has been extracted as shown on Figure 57 (Irwanto 2015). The country of Atlantis is described as “a land larger than Libya and Asia Minor put together”. The Ancient Libya is the northern Africa from the coast of the modern western Egypt to Tunisia on the north and to the desert of Sahara on the south (Phillip Smith’s map 1817 – 1885). Asia Minor is the modern Turkey. The combined area is about 1.9 million square kilometers (0.7 million square miles). Measuring the land area of Sundaland at 11,600 years ago from about the modern northern Malay Peninsula in the northwest, to Bali in the southeast and to northern Kalimantan in the northeast, an area of around 2.6 million square kilometers (1.0 million square miles) is obtained, which is larger than the combined Ancient Libya and Asia Minor, which affirming the size. It is said that Atlantis was “the way to other islands, and from there might pass to the opposite continent which encompassed the true ocean”, which is precisely points to Sundaland. Traveling further from Sundaland to the east, someone could get to some islands such as Nusatenggara, Sulawesi, Maluku, Mindanao and Luzon, and from here he might pass to the opposite continent, ie the large Sahul Continent combining Australia, Papua and the land connecting them, which encompassed the Pacific and Indian Oceans. 143
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations “The region on the side of the ocean was said to be very lofty and precipitous.” It is true that Sumatera, Java and Bali which are on the side of the Indian Ocean are occupied by mountainous regions and among the densest range of volcanos on Earth. It is said that the capital city of Atlantis is located “inside a sea mouth and in a sea encircled by a boundless continent”. The only sea at that time which had a mouth and encircled by a boundless continent is the ancient Java Sea. Supposedly, the capital city was located in this sea.
Figure 57 – Continents and lands at the time of Atlantis (about 11,600 years ago).
Climate Atlantis had “sun in the above”, “benefit of the annual rainfall”, “abundance of water”, “excellently attempered climate” and “summer and winter seasons”. These are strongly characterize a tropical climate. “Summer” and “winter” refer to the “dry” and “wet” seasons, which were non existence words in the ancient Greece. Products Atlantis had “full of rich earth”, “abundance of wood”, “cultivation by true farmers”, “noble nature”, “best soil in the world”, “abundance of animals”, “coconuts”, “spice 144
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations products” and “two harvests each year”. These are the true natural characteristics of the region in Sundaland. The abundance of food and wood was needed to sustain more than twenty million population, to create more than a million soldiers and to build more than two hundred ships, which was not possible in the other parts of the Earth during the era. Atlantis had abundance of minerals: gold, silver, copper, tin and orichalcum. These are also true natural characteristics of the region. Orichalcum was said unknown to Greek, being more precious in those days than anything except gold and “flashed” with the “red light”, or like fire. The author identified orichalcum as the zircon as they have the same characteristics as the descriptions (Irwanto 2015). The zircon products are really valuable second to gold; they have gemstone quality and are popular as diamond simulant. Zircon can be processed to bring out different colors, the red one is known as the hyacinth. When finished, its nature is sparkling like diamond that metals do not possess, which why Plato describes it with the words “flashed” and “light”, in particular. No known metal shines and flashed with the red color, or like fire, thus orichalcum is not a metal. The expression that it was “dug out of the earth in many parts of the land” is true as it is abundant in the region of Kalimantan. It is mentioned in the dialogues that there were “fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks, meats and ointments” in Atlantis. Those fruits are no other than coconuts (Irwanto 2015). Coconut has a long and respected history among cultures in the regions of Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Pacific. DNA analysis reveals that coconuts were first cultivated in island Southeast Asia, meaning the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, and perhaps the continent as well. Coconuts were introduced to the Indian Ocean a couple of thousand years ago by ancient Austronesians establishing trade routes connecting Southeast Asia to Madagascar and coastal east Africa. Coconut genetics also preserve a record of prehistoric trade routes and of the colonization of the Americas. There were “fruits which spoil with keeping, with which we console ourselves after dinner” in Atlantis. This could be a traditional fermented food eaten as a dessert, locally known as tapai (Irwanto 2015). Tapai is indigenous and popular throughout Southeast Asia. It is a sweet or sour alcoholic paste and can be directly eaten or processed in traditional recipes. Tapai can be made from a variety of carbohydrate sources, but typically from cassava, white rice or glutinous rice. Fermentation is performed by a variety of mould by inoculating a carbohydrate source with the required microorganisms in a starter culture, locally known as 145
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations ragi (“yeast”), along with bacteria. Tapai is also used to make alcoholic beverages locally known as arak or brem. The dialogues say that “there were roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower”. This could be the herbal medicine made from natural materials, locally known as jamu, or mixtures of spices or seasoning, known as bumbu (Irwanto 2015). The region is well-known from the ancient time for producing varieties of spices and herbal medicines. It is said that “there was ‘fruit’ which admits of cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given us for nourishment and any other which we use for food – we call them all by the common name ‘grain’ ”. This could be the paddy or rice, which is the staple food of the region (Irwanto 2015). It is also said that “there were chestnuts and the like, which furnish pleasure and amusement”. This could be coffee, which grows well in this region (Irwanto 2015). Fauna It is described that “there were a great number of elephants in Atlantis”. Two of the four sub species of Asian elephants are found in Indonesia and Malaysia. The Sumateran elephant is found on the island of Sumatera, and the Kalimantan elephant on the island of Kalimantan. The now extinct Javan elephant those once inhabited Java are identical to the Kalimantan elephant. Plato also mentions that “there was provision for all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all”. Large species such as tiger, rhinoceros, orangutan, elephant and leopard exist in the region, which are among almost a thousand mammal species inhabiting this region. Besides, there are almost a thousand of bird species and more than a thousand of fish species. Myths and Traditions God Poseidon
The kingdom of Atlantis was founded by a god named Poseidon, a name borrowed from the Greek myth. The land was divided into ten portions given to his children. There was a holy temple dedicated to Poseidon and his wife, Cleito near the center of the citadel. The ten kings in their cities and states were said to 146
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations have the absolute control of the citizens, and of course is the enforcement of the law. Poseidon is one of the twelve Olympian deities of the pantheon in the Greek mythology. His main domain is the ocean, so that he is called the “God of the Sea”, who rides on sea creatures that resemble horses. In the earliest works of the ancient Greek literature, Poseidon is more widely known than Zeus and was regarded as the supreme god, as mentioned in Linear B tablets from the preOlympians Greek Bronze Age. Homer in the Iliad calls him as the protector of the Hellenic cities. Poseidon is analogous to Nethune in the Etruscan civilization, around the 1st century BCE, which is also called the “God of the Sea”. In Latin language, the name was transformed into Neptune in the Roman mythology. Neptune is depicted as a god who drive sea creatures resembling dragon-tailed horses and armed with a trident, like Poseidon. This shows the strong influence of Greek mythology. The Greek Poseidon is parallel to god Baruna or Waruna in the Nusantara archipelago which given the title of the “Water God”, the ruler of the seas and oceans. In pre-dharmic mythology, Baruna was considered as the supreme god against the others and the first law founder of the world. Baruna is depicted as riding a sea monster called Makara, in which on the front resembling a beast, with large teeth and tusks, and on the back in the form of a giant dragon’s tail, which occasionally legged. In the Indian mythology, the Makara is described as an inland creature in the front half, such as deer, crocodile or elephant, and an aquatic creature in the back half, such as fish or seal, or occasionally peacock’s tail or flower. Of these things, the author concludes that Poseidon and Baruna are parallel, evidenced that both of them are the gods of the seas or oceans, became the first law founders, constituted the supreme gods in the early time, and drive mythological sea creatures (Irwanto 2015). Besides some other names, Kalimantan bore the name of Warunapura, means the land of the god Baruna. The old Javanese chronicle Nagarakretagama mentions an ancient state that was within the Majapahit spheres of influence called Baruné, later identified as Barunai, a kingdom of the modern Brunei. European sources further in the 16th century showed the name of the island as Burné by Antonio Pigafetta or Bornei by Duarte Barbosa. Chinese chronicles in the Song and Ming dynasties showed the name Boni. The Dutch and British colonials named the island Borneo. This is another conclusion that Kalimantan, or Borneo, which was once the island of the god Baruna, is analogous to the 147
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations island of Poseidon, and related to the existence of Atlantis in the region (Irwanto 2015). Studies of Holocene peatland fires in Sebangau, Mahakam Delta and Lake Sentarum in Kalimantan based on pollen and charcoal samples contained in the soil layers indicate that there have been accelerated human activities in the island since approximately 12,000 years ago (Ansari et al 2001, Yulianto et al 2004, Hope et al 2005). Heracles
Plato mentions that “the war was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Stelae of Heracles and all who dwelt within them”. Heracles is a name borrowed from the Greek mythology. Heracles, or Romanized as Hercules, is the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus seduced and made love to Alcmene after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon, the king of Thebes. Zeus swore that the next son born of the Perseid house should become ruler of Greece, but by a trick of Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera, another child, the sickly Eurystheus, was born first and became king. When Heracles grew up, he had to serve him and also suffer the vengeful persecution of Hera. Besides these Hera induced frenzies, Heracles was a very brutal character. In spite of those, Heracles is a divine hero in the Greek mythology. He is the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of strength and masculinity, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. The Greek Heracles is parallel to god Kala in the Nusantara archipelago (Irwanto 2015). Kala is a god of the underworld in the ancient Javanese and Balinese mythology. Kala is also named the creator of light and earth, as well as the god of destruction who devours unlucky people. In the myth, he causes eclipses by trying to eat the Sun or the Moon. According to the Javanese legend, Kala is the son of Guru. Guru has a very beautiful wife named Uma. One day Guru, in a fit of uncontrolled lust, forced himself on Uma. They had sexual intercourse on top of his Andini, a divine cow. This behavior ashamed Uma who then cursed Guru but Guru cursed back her so she appeared as a fearsome and ugly ogre. This fierce form of Uma is also known in Javanese mythology as Durgha. From this relationship, Kala was born with the appearance of an ogre. Kala is described as having an insatiable appetite and being very rude. He was sent by the dewa (“gods”) to the Earth to punish humans for their evil habits. 148
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations However, Kala was interested only in devouring humans to satisfy his appetite. Alarmed, the dewa then recalled Kala from the Earth. He later became ruler of the underworld. The parallel of Kala and Heracles is that each of them is the son of a supreme god, either Guru or Zeus. Their births were outrageous; Kala was born from an uncontrolled lust of Guru on Uma while Heracles was from a seduction of Zeus on Alcmene. They are having insatiable appetites and being very rude, brutal, and violent in their whole lives. From the ancient until present day, gargoyle-like faces of Kala are often found at temple entrances, boundary pillars, welcome monuments, gates, doorway, niches, furniture, wall hangings and traditional musical instruments; ubiquitous in Java and Bali. Similar figures are also found at the Dayak and Batak houses. As will be discussed hereinafter, the boundary monuments decorated with the Kala faces are parallel to the Stelae of Heracles. Apart from those, Zeus, the father or Heracles, and Guru, the father of Kala, are also parallel. Both of them were then appointed to the supreme gods replacing either Poseidon or Baruna. Note also the parallels and phonetic similarities between the names, Kleos (from Hera-Kleos), Alkaios (the first name of Heracles) and Kala, Guru and Zeu (the nickname of Zeus), Uma with Alkmene, and Durgha with Hera. Pyramid Building
Austronesian megalithic culture in the archipelago features an earth and stone step pyramid structure, referred to as punden berundak. Punden berundak is regarded as one of the characteristics of the original culture of the archipelago. These structures have been found and spread throughout the archipelago as far as Polynesia. Gunungpadang pyramid is the biggest and the oldest megalithic site in Southeast Asia dated circa 25,000 years ago or older. The Sukuh and Cetho temples in Central Java, where the dates are still debated, show the Austronesian indigenous elements of step pyramids that somewhat resemble Mesoamerican pyramids. In the development, they gave architectural decorations on the pyramids, which varies according to their cultures and beliefs. The shape of the structures then gradually transformed into temples. The huge Borobudur temple – the largest Buddhist temple in the world – is allegedly built on the previous step pyramid. The later temples were influenced by Indian dharmic architecture, as displayed 149
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations by the towering spires of Prambanan temple. The architecture of the dharmism in Bali is vigorously fantastical, with gilt paint and colored glass. The Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, with a scheme based on a grid of reservoirs and canals. Robert M Schoch and Robert Aquinas McNally (2003) suggest that pyramid building may have had its origins in a civilization that flourished on parts of Sundaland that are now submerged. Graham Hancock (2015) proposed a common origin for various architectural and artistic works in pre-cataclysmic Sundaland as the true location of Atlantis. As said by Plato, the temple of Poseidon was built in the center island where there was a hill, encircled by rings of waters. To reach the temple from the innermost ring of water, steps on the hill slope were definitely required. This could mean that the temple is featuring an earth-and-stone step pyramid structure, characterizes the original culture of Nusantara that is referred to as punden berundak. The temple was also the place to worship their ancestors. “Bull” Sacrifices
Plato describes that in every five or six years alternately, the kings of Atlantis gathered to discuss and make arrangements, topped off with plenty of “bulls” sacrifice. Common people generally could not distinguish between “bull” and “water buffalo”. Plato does not recognize “water buffalo” but beast resembling the “bull” because the animals were not found in the ancient Greece and its surroundings. Water buffalo, also called Asian buffalo or Asiatic buffalo, is a large bovine native to Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. Water buffalo is one of Figure 58 – Bull (left) and water buffalo (right). the animals of greatest economic and religious value used as a sacrificial victim in Southeast Asia, Indian sub-continent and southern China. In these monsoon regions of Asia, buffalos are offered in sacrifice to divinities or divine spirits, as the carrier of dead souls to the world beyond or of zoomorphic symbol of the ancestors. 150
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The main festival of many Dayak tribes in Kalimantan is the Tiwah demise festival, to honor and to lead the soul of the deceased towards the afterworld. The festival, particularly by the Iban and Ngaju Dayaks, lasts for thirty days and involves the sacrifice of buffalos as offerings to the Supreme God. In the Toraja society in Sulawesi, a funeral ritual called Rambu Solo is the most elaborate and expensive event. One component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalos. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalos are slaughtered at the death feast. In Sumba, particularly at the funerals of noblemen, literally hundreds of water buffalos, horses, pigs and dogs were slaughtered to accompany the departed soul to the afterlife. The number of animals dispatched was, and still is, prestige enhancing. A festival of slaughters of water buffalos in the Batak society in northern Sumatera is called Mangalahat Horbo, as the voice of thanksgiving to the Supreme God for the result of the earth and the welfare of the people. Along the coastal area of Java, a tradition by fishermen communities to give offerings to the sea is still in practice. Such offerings contain buffalo heads, various kinds of traditional snacks, vegetables and so on. A practice of burying a water buffalo head to bring good luck and to keep off misfortune is one of the traditions of people in the archipelago. The modern practice is particularly found in a ceremony called “placing first stone” before starting the construction of a house, a building, a monument or a bridge. Such a ceremony is held in a belief that the construction will run successfully and nothing worse will occur to the tenant. A characteristic of Southeast Asian houses is the forked horn on the roof, which is considered to be a symbol of the buffalo, regarded throughout the region as a link between heaven and this world. Ancestor Worshipping
The kingdom of Atlantis was founded by Poseidon, a name borrowed from the Greek myth. For generations, his descendants had traditions of veneration and reverence to honor him, as they believed that he was not gone away or disappear completely but his spirit may gain spiritual power and still involved in their offspring’s worldly affairs. This spiritual power is called “god” which later became the basic philosophy of the beliefs held by various civilizations. There was a holy temple to worship Poseidon and his wife, Cleito in the center of the citadel. In the archipelago, “Hyang” is the concept of ancestor worshipping. Hyang or personified as Sang Hyang (Kawi, Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese) is an 151
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations unseen spiritual entity that has supernatural power in the ancient mythology. The concept has the oldest origin, is developed, and has its root in the indigenous animism and dynamism beliefs of the Austronesian people that inhabit the archipelago. In the modern practice this term tends to be associated with gods or dewata, widely associated with the Indonesian dharmism developed in ancient Java and Bali for more than a millennium ago. In the cosmology of Hyang concept, the universe is divided into three parts, the upper world (heaven), the middle world (life) and the underworld (unseen). This concept was later adopted in dharmism as swarga (“upper world”), pertiwi (“this world”) and patala (“underworld”). Hyang concept adheres to trust one supreme god who controlled the universe, the name varies from region to region. In the earliest there was the water god (eg Baruna) and then the wider scope to rule the universe (eg Guru). Moreover, the worshipping of gods who gives fertility and agricultural products, especially rice (eg Sri), is also an important element in the natives beliefs of the archipelago. Both of these strong elements, water and agriculture, is also an important element in Atlantis. The native people of the archipelago believe in the powerful but unseen ancestral spiritual entity that can be either benevolent or malevolent. The worshipping to honor ancestor is an important element in the belief system. In the central and eastern Javanese mythology, Hyang is an unseen spiritual entity that has supernatural power associated with gods. Guru is a Hyang (god) that rules Kahyangan (the realm of the Hyangs). He gives revelations, gifts and abilities. For the natives Sundanese (western Java), a supreme god named Sang Hyang Kersa created the universe and also other gods such as king of god Guru who rules Kahyangan and mother goddess Ambu. Balinese dharmism adherers believe that all the creations of Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa will face the cycle of birth, life and death, expressed in a set of shrines called Sanggah Pemerajan at the outside of every dharmic house. In the folk religion professed by many Dayaks in Kalimantan, Kaharingan, their supreme god is called Ranying Hatalla Langit, their ancestral spirits Sangiang, their ancient language Sangen and their ancestors Tato-hiang. The Buginese (southern Sulawesi) developed an extraordinary creation myth called Galigo, where Patoto’ is the supreme god; with his wife Palinge’ begat Guru who was sent to Earth to cultivate it as human being. In the Torajan (central Sulawesi) mythology, their ancestors came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the creator and supreme god. In Batak (northern Sumatera) 152
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations mythology, the creator of the world is Mulajadi na Bolon, who has three children namely Guru, Soripada and Mangala Bulan. The Plain of Atlantis It is described in the dialogues that there was “a level plain, smooth and even, descended towards the sea”, “surrounded by mountains celebrated for their number, size and beauty”, “looked towards the south and sheltered from the north” and “with wealthy villages of country folk, rivers, lakes, and meadows”. There was a plain matching the characteristics in the region of southern Kalimantan in which now partly submerged under the Java Sea (Irwanto 2015). The plain has slopes mostly less than 1% declining southward to the Java Sea and no visible mound on the whole plain. It is open on the south and sheltered by the Muller-Schwaner and Meratus Mountains at the north, mostly covered by primary forest, inhabited by enormous kinds of animals and as the home of tens of native Dayak tribes. It has high rainfall and warm temperature over the year, many large rivers and tributaries so that it is very fertile and rich of food and daily necessity resources. Plato explains that the plain was “rectangular and oblong in shape, 3,000 stadia (555 kilometers, 345 miles) long and 2,000 stadia (370 kilometers, 230 miles) wide”. The shape of the plain in the region of southern Kalimantan and the adjacent Java Sea is rectangular at the south and oblong at the north, almost exactly 555 kilometers (345 miles) long and 370 kilometers (230 miles) wide. Concerning the waterways on the plain, it is described that “the perimeter canal was 100 feet (30 meters) deep, 1 stadium (185 meters, 607 feet) wide, 10,000 stadia (1,850 kilometers, 1,150 miles) long, carried round the whole plain, received streams from the mountains, winding around the plain, meeting at the city and let off into the sea”. “The inland canals were straight, 100 feet (30 meters) wide, 100 stadia (18.5 kilometers, 11.5 miles) intervals, let off into the perimeter canal and as means for transporting wood and products in ships.” There are waterways on the plain in southern Kalimantan matching the characteristics (Irwanto 2015). Flooding and sedimentation of the rivers on a very flat plain over the past 11,600 years have changed their regimes. Interchanges of flows and orders among them might also occur. However, in general view their straightness and elongation are preserved until today, that are parallel to each other and in the north-south direction. 153
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
KALIMANTAN
Perimeter canal
Inland canals Transverse passages
Capital city
Present shoreline
Approximate shoreline 11,600 years ago Java Sea Bawean Island
Figure 59 – The plain and the capital city of Atlantis as described by Plato (Irwanto 2015). The topography, bathymetry and stream layout do not reflect past conditions precisely, mainly due to the unknown processes of sedimentation, delta formation, river bed movement, meandering, scouring, littoral drift, limestone solution and tectonic movement over the past 11,600 years. However, the geography can be used to describe the general conditions of the plain during the Atlantis era.
The rivers of Barito, Kapuas-Murung, Kahayan and Sebangau found in the region are identified as those canals. They are originated from the MullerSchwaner and Meratus mountains. These rivers are about 600 to 800 meters (1,970 to 2,620 feet) wide and 8 meters (26 feet) deep in average. Calculating the conveying capacity, that is the area × the velocity, and assuming the same flow velocity because of the same gravitational energy slope, the cross section area of the flow, that is the width × the depth, as described by Plato is about 185 × 30 = 5,550 square meters (60,300 square feet). While the area today is amazingly almost precise, 700 in average × 8 = 5,600 square meters (59,200 square feet). 154
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The average distance of these rivers is approximately 20 kilometers (12.4 miles), also considered in close agreement to the figure of 18.5 kilometers (11.5 miles) by Plato. Considering the windingness of the rivers encircling the plain, their length is almost precisely the same, that is 1,850 kilometers (1,150 miles). Most of the rivers in southern Kalimantan are navigable. These rivers and all their tributaries are a network of transportation system, become very important means for the people and has been the economic lifeblood because most of their economic activities are carried out through and in the rivers since the ancient time. Various types of forest, mining and agricultural products are transported to collection points or ports through the river network. Plato mentions that “there were transverse passages cut from one inland canal into another” and “the irrigation streams tapping from the canals supplied water to the land in summer (or dry season) but rainfall in the winter (or rainy season) yielding two crops in a year”. Numerous existing transverse passages are found in the region, some of them were built or rehabilitated in recent times. The passage is known locally as anjir, a canal linking two rivers as part of the transportation network. Today’s practices of tidal swamp irrigation system in southern Kalimantan is traditionally known as the “anjir system” where primary canals called anjir or antasan were constructed connecting two tidal rivers, also used as navigation purposes. Inland canals were built to irrigate and drain the fields from and to the anjir; secondary canals called handil or tatah and tertiary canals called saka. In low tides, the canals drain the toxic water while in high tides fresh water enters the canals and conveyed to the fields. The system yields two rice crops in a year. The Capital City of Atlantis Plato describes that “the capital island where there was a city with a citadel and rings of water was in a real sea inside a sea mouth, surrounded by a boundless continent.” The boundless continent is the Sundaland attached to the Asian Continent, and the only sea surrounded by it in those days was the ancient Java Sea, suggesting that the capital island and the city are located in the Java Sea (Irwanto 2015). The statement that “the island was located near the plain and all the canals met at the city and drained into the sea”, suggesting that the island is located south of the plain, in a place now under the Java Sea. The city of Atlantis was an island with a small hill near its center. The city and the island existed long enough for many kings to develop it. It had rings of water and a passage from the sea to the inner ring. They bridged over the zones 155
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis. A stone wall began at the sea and went all round. They used orichalcum, tin and brass (or bronze) to cover the rings of walls of their cities. There was a hill, not too high, near the middle of the center island. At the top of the central hill, a temple was built to honor Poseidon, which housed a giant gold statue of him. They built the palace in the habitation of the god and of their ancestors, which they continued to ornament in successive generations. It is mentioned that “for which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a reef of mud (or clay) in the way”. “A reef of mud (or clay)” is the generally published translation of the Ancient Greek phrase pēloû kárta brachéos (Greek: πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος) written by Plato. The simple meanings of the words are: pēloû for “clay” or “mud”, kárta for “very” and brachéos for “shoal” or “reef”. However, kárta brachéos is not syntactically good and it is not found in any manuscripts; pēloû is masculine and is the antecedent of the relative pronoun; kárta brachéos, for its turn, is adverbial, so that the meaning is confusing. Other alternative translation is “the clay/mud that exists in large quantity there and of the small depth” (Lopes, 2011). The author translated them into “coral reef” for the reason that this sea formation is scarce in the Mediterranean so that the term does not exist in the Ancient Greece and Egypt, then Plato or Solon have difficulty to translate it (Irwanto 2015). It is confirmed further by the phrase “caused by the subsidence of the island”, as the growth of the coral reef was caused by the sea level rise during the last glacial period. Coral reefs grow best in warm, shallow, clear, sunny and agitated waters, and on hard, underwater surfaces, thus constitute the ideal conditions for the Java Sea. The sea level kept rising until about 6,000 years ago. Corals grew on the solid structures, along with sedimentation and other processes. There is an existing coral reef named Gosong Gia or Annie Florence Reef at a site in the Java Sea believed to be the location of the capital city. From an unpublished sonar survey of the site by a sponsor team, the top of the reef and the surrounding sea bed are about 10 and 55 meters below the average sea level, respectively. The city structures such as the hill, the circular wall, the circular channel and the bridge are still apparent from the patterns of the corals with exactly the same dimensions as those described by Plato. There is a trace of ancient river near the reef which coincides Plato’s descriptions, including its size. The depth of the surrounding sea here exactly coincides the land level about 11,600 years ago 156
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations before the sea level rise. However, further investigations are required to confirm. Bawean Island off in the Java Sea is a prototype of the island of Atlantis as it has the same environment, geological formation and tectonic processes, as well as they are closely situated. Bawean and Atlantis islands are both located on a geological arc identified by the geologists as Bawean Arc. It is described that “they had springs, one of cold and another of hot water”. There are several hot and cold springs in the Bawean Island resulted from the tectonic activities in the region. The descriptions “the stones were quarried from the center island and the zones, with white, black and red colors” and “they hollowed out double docks, having roofs formed out of the native rock” are also noticeable. The stones are apparently similar to the igneous rock deposited in the Bawean Island having the acidic white, alkaline black-grey and iron-oxide red rocks. This igneous rock is hard and strong having enough natural strength to stand as roofs of the hollowed out double docks. The Stelae of Heracles The Egyptian priest told Solon about the territorial boundary between Atlantis and its opponent as “which are by you called the Stelae of Heracles” to describe a state entrance or boundary markers which were situated in a sea mouth. The words “by you” could mean that the markers were commonly known by the Athenian but not necessarily what they referred to, or in other words “like the Stelae of Heracles”. As mentioned before, the Atlantis boundary is not compatible with the Mediterranean region. Moreover, Solon borrows Greek mythological terms in the story. Classical Greek writers frequently refer to the stelae without being in anyway specific regarding their location. The poet Pindar would appear to have treated the stelae as a metaphor for the limit of established Greek geographical knowledge, a boundary that was never static. The stelae were, in earlier times, identified with the Strait of Sicily, but from the time of Erastosthenes, ca 250 BCE (about a century after Plato’s time), the metaphor was moved to refer to the Strait of Gibraltar, reflecting the expansion of the Greek maritime knowledge. The author hypothesizes that the stelae are monuments built at places on state entrances or boundary line and could be anywhere at certain places along the boundary. The stelae is locally known as tugu, which has been the tradition in Indonesia until now to mark the boundary or entrances of a region. The stelae 157
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations are often decorated with gargoyle-like faces of the god Kala, which are ubiquitous in Java and Bali. As discussed previously, Kala is parallel to Heracles. Plato mentions that “the war was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Stelae of Heracles and all who dwelt within them”. Possibilities of the bordering markers resembling the Pillars of Heracles are around the mouth of the ancient Java Sea which are now have been submerged. 60 Converging Evidence The following table shows a summary of the converging evidence of the existence of Atlantis in Sundaland made by the author (Irwanto 2015). Some other less important evidence are not included. The quoted terms, wherever possible, are the English translation of the terms taken from the Plato’s account, either in Greek or terms not found in Greek. Phrases in parenthesis are interpretations by the author. These evidence are the “potsherds” in the verification of a theory using a Potsherd Model, where, the more “sherds” collected, reassembling them can give clearer representation of the “pot”. In this case, the reassembled “pot” from the “sherds” (evidence) is then compared to the descriptions by Plato (the “reference pot”) to prove the theory. It now appears from the table that the “pot” is almost fully reassembled and representative to the “reference pot”. Table 1 – Converging evidence of the existence of Atlantis in Sundaland No
Description
Plato’s reference Sections Sections in in Timaeus Critias
1
At a distant point in the “Atlantic Ocean” (Ancient Greek understanding)
24e
2
The way to other islands
24e
3
From there might pass to opposite continent encompasses true ocean
24e
4
Larger than Libya and Asia (Asia Minor) combined (Ancient Greek understanding)
24e
108e
158
Compatibility The Ancient Greek understanding of the “Atlantic Ocean” was the ocean surrounding the whole Earth. The way to islands on the east of Sundaland (Nusatenggara, Sulawesi, Maluku, Mindanao, Luzon) Sahul Continent (Australia and Papua combined) opposite to the islands encompassed Pacific and Indian Oceans Sundaland area is around 2.6 million km2 (1.0 million mi2), Ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined is around 1.9 million km2 (0.7 million mi2).
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
No
5
6
Description The landscape of the whole country, at the region on the side of the ocean, was very lofty and precipitous Two-season climate – “summer” (dry) and “winter” (wet)
Plato’s reference Sections Sections in in Timaeus Critias 118a
112d, 118e
Compatibility Sumatera, Java and Bali which are on the side of the Indian Ocean are occupied by mountainous regions. Sundaland was in a tropical climate with two seasons. The region of Southeast Asia is in a tropical climate, has many islands and mountains, which produce much rainfall. Tropical, warm climate in Southeast Asia 11,600 years ago (only 3 – 4 °C colder than now), frozen in other nontropical regions Due to many volcanos, much rainfall and warm climate, Southeast Asia is famous for its fertile soil, ideal for agriculture and farming. Fertile soil, abundance of water and warm climate caused Sundaland to produce abundant of food, enough to sustain more than 20 million people and to create more than a million soldiers. Southeast Asia is among the regions with most diverse and endemic flora and fauna in the world. Elephants, horses, bulls, water buffalos, dolphins and other tropical animals are found in Southeast Asia.
7
Abundant of water benefit of the annual rainfall
8
Sun in the above, excellently attempered climate
111e, 112d
9
Fertile, best soil for carpenter, agriculture and farming
111e, 113c
10
Abundant of food supply for every animal, wild or tame, to sustain a civilization and to create an army
111e, 118b, 118e, 119a
11
Vast diversity of flora and fauna
114e, 115a, 115b
12
Elephant, horse, “bull” and dolphin
114e, 116e, 117c – 117e, 119b, 119d – 120a
13
“Fruits” having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments
115b
Coconut
14
“Fruits” which spoil with keeping, consoled after dinner
115b
Tape or tapai, a fermented cassava or rice
15
Roots, herbage, woods and essences distilled from “fruit” and flower
115a
Southeast Asia is well-known for its spice products, including the extracted oil, as well as herbal medicines (jamu) and seasoning spices (bumbu).
111c
159
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
No
16
17
Description
Plato’s reference Sections Sections in in Timaeus Critias
Cultivated “fruit”, dried, for nourishment and any other, used for food – common name “grain” Chestnuts and the like, which furnish pleasure and amusement
Compatibility
115a
Paddy or rice
115b
Coffee Farming, agriculture and forestry products in Southeast Asia are miraculous and in great abundance. Gold is abundant in Kalimantan and generally in Southeast Asia. Silver is abundant in Southeast Asia. Tin is abundant in Southeast Asia. Minerals forming brass or bronze (copper, tin and zinc) are abundant in Southeast Asia. Zircon is abundant in southern and western Kalimantan, can be made into high value gemstones, second to gold, flashing. The red zircon is called hyacinth.
18
The land products were wondrous and in infinite abundance.
19
Gold
114e, 116c, 116d, 116e
20
Silver
116d, 116e
21
Tin
116b, 116c
22
“Brass”/“bronze” (copper, tin and zinc)
116b, 116c
23
“Orichalcum”, more precious mineral than anything except gold, flashing, red color, abundant resources
114e, 116c, 116d
24
“Orichalcum” was dug out of the earth in many parts of the land.
114e
Zircon is abundant in the region of Kalimantan.
25
Immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain.
118a
A vast plain in southern Kalimantan 11,600 years ago
115b
26
The plain was smooth and even.
118a
27
The plain was surrounded by mountains which descended towards the sea.
118a
28
The plain looked towards the south, sheltered from the north.
118b
160
The plain is smooth and even, and no visible mound on the whole plain. At present, the sea tides can penetrate inland as far as 160 km (100 mi) in the rivers. The plain is surrounded by Muller-Schwaner and Meratus Mountains in the north and in the east. It looks toward the Java Sea in the south and sheltered by Muller-Schwaner and Meratus Mountains on the north.
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
No
29
30
31
32
Description
Plato’s reference Sections Sections in in Timaeus Critias
The mountains surrounding the plain celebrated their number, size and beauty, with many wealthy villages of country folk, rivers, lakes and meadows. Plenty of wood of various sorts on the plain – abundant for each and every kind of work The general shape of the plain was rectangular and oblong. The plain was extending in one direction 3,000 stadia (555 km, 345 mi), across the center inland 2,000 stadia (370 km, 230 mi).
118b
The Muller-Schwaner and Meratus Mountains consist of large and small hills. Prosperous villages provided by nature are on the plain.
118b
Kalimantan consists mostly of forests, with varieties of quality woods.
118a, 118c
118a
33
The perimeter canal was incredible in size, unexpected that they were artificial.
118c
34
The perimeter canal was 100 feet (30 m) deep, 1 stadium (185 m, 607 ft) wide, 10,000 stadia (1,850 km, 1,150 mi) long.
118c
35
The perimeter canal received streams from the mountains.
118d
36
The inland canals were straight, about 100 ft (30 m) wide, 100 stadia (18.5 km, 11.5 mi) intervals and let off into the perimeter canal.
118d
37
Transverse passages were cut from one inland canal into another.
118e
161
Compatibility
The shape of the plain is rectangular at the south and oblong at the north. Its dimensions are almost exactly precise, 555 km (345 mi) long and 370 km (230 mi) across. Rivers in southern Kalimantan (Barito, Kapuas, Murung, Kahayan and Sebangau) have fairly large sizes. The flow capacity (from the cross section area) of the rivers is 5,600 m2 (60,300 ft2) in average, closely comparable to Plato’s description of 5,500 m2 (59,200 ft2). The perimeter of the plain 11.600 years ago is exactly the same, ie about 1,850 km (1,150 mi). The rivers are originated from Muller-Schwaner and Meratus Mountains. The rivers in southern Kalimantan are, in general view, parallel to each other and in the north-south direction. Their interval is about 20 km (11.5 mi), considered in close agreement to the Plato’s figure of 18.5 kilometers (11.5 miles) Numerous transverse passages connecting large rivers are found on the plain, locally known as anjir or antasan.
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Plato’s reference Sections Sections in in Timaeus Critias
No
Description
38
The inland canals and the transverse passages were means for transporting wood and products in ships.
118e
39
Irrigation streams were tapping from the canals.
118e
40
41
42 43
44
45
46
The irrigation streams supplied water to the land in “summer” (dry season) but rainfall in the “winter” (rainy season) yielding two crops in a year. The island city was in a sea surrounded by a boundless continent, the other is a real ocean. In front and inside of a sea mouth There were some islands in the sea. Immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain and all the canals met at the city and drained into the sea. A small hill (the central island) and a vast level plain near the sea were accessible by ships, vessels and boats from the sea. The sea at the Atlantis capital “is now” (Solon’s time) impassable and impenetrable because of a “reef of clay” (coral reef), caused by “subsidence” of the island (sea level rise).
47
The “Atlantis City” is now under the sea.
48
The city was beyond bordering stelae, the (Ancient) Greek called them the “Stelae of Heracles”
118e
25a
Compatibility The rivers in southern Kalimantan are used as interregion transportation until today. The irrigation system in southern Kalimantan is known as the “anjir system”, where irrigation canals taps water from the rivers or anjirs to water the fields. “Anjir system” combines rainfed and canal or river tapped irrigation, which produces two crops in a year.
The Java Sea 11,600 years ago
24e, 25a 24e
114c
A sea mouth between Madura and Kalimantan 11,600 years ago Islands in the Java Sea 11,600 years ago
118a, 118d
An place located south of the plain 11,600 years ago, now under the Java Sea.
113c, 113e
An island in the Java Sea 11,600 years ago
25d
Coral reefs grew on the solid structures submerged in the post-glacial sea level rise, ubiquitous in the Java Sea.
25d
Java Sea level within the last 11,600 years rose about 60 meters (200 feet).
24e, 25c
108e, 114b
162
Bordering monuments decorated with Kala faces, ubiquitous in Java and Bali
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Plato’s reference Sections Sections in in Timaeus Critias
No
Description
49
Hot and cold springs
113e, 117a
50
White, black and red stones
116a, 116b
51
Hollowed out rock for double docks
116a, 116b
52
53
“Poseidon” (sea or water god, law founder, driving mythological sea creatures, supreme god in earlier time) “Heracles” (son of a the supreme god Zeus, outrageous birth, has insatiable appetites and being very rude, brutal and violent)
113c – 113e, 116c, 116d, 117b, 119c, 119d 24e, 25c
108e, 114b
54
“Bull” (water buffalo) sacrifice
119d – 120c
55
Temple or pyramid
116c, 116d, 116e, 117c, 119c
56
Maritime activities
114d, 115c – 116a, 117d, 117e, 119b
57
Advanced civilization in the era
24e, 25a
163
Compatibility A lot of hot and cold springs are found in the volcanic region of Southeast Asia The igneous rocks in Bawean Island (a prototype of Atlantis Island) consist of acidic white, alkaline black-grey and ironoxide red rocks. The igneous rocks in Bawean Island is hard and strong having enough natural strength to stand as roofs of the hollowed out double docks. Baruna (sea or water god, law founder, driving mythological sea creatures, supreme god in earlier time) Kala (son of the supreme god Guru, outrageous birth, has insatiable appetites and being very rude, brutal and violent) Water buffalos are offered in sacrifice in the festivals of indigenous ethnics in Southeast and Central Asia, among others by the peoples of Dayak, Toraja, Sumba and Batak. Punden berundak (earth-andstone step pyramid) is the original culture of Southeast Asia and generally Austronesia. Temples are ubiquitous in the region. Southeast Asian and generally Austronesian people are wellknown for their maritime culture. Advanced technology has been mastered from the early time in Southeast Asia, such as pyramid and temple building, ship building, rice cultivation and techniques and food fermentation techniques.
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
No
Description
Plato’s reference Sections Sections in in Timaeus Critias
58
Destructed 9,000 years before Solon (about 11,600 years ago)
23e
108e, 111a
59
Earthquakes and “floods” from the sea (tsunami)
25c, 25d
108e, 111a, 112a
60
Sunken ceaselessly (postglacial sea level rise)
111b, 111c
Compatibility Cataclysm at the end of the Younger Dryas period, around 11,600 years ago Southeast Asia is among the regions in the world with frequent and magnificent earthquakes and tsunamis. Post-glacial sea level rise and land subsidence in Sundaland
Neserser In the mythology of the Egyptians, the island and the lake of Neserser or Nesisi, “the island and the lake of flames” where Osiris* and Thoth† came from, is often mentioned in their myths. As described in the Papyrus of Nu (in the Book of Dead), the myth tells that Osiris has his throne on the island of Neserser in the center of six or seven concentric circles with a gate at each and its all in the “lake” of Neserser. The concentric circles were built for Ra by the dwellers of the lake. Thoth had his lands around the lake and he visited Osiris on the island. There was a great flood in the lake of Neserser and somehow these circles of Ra became hidden. As written in many tomb texts from the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Periods, in the concepts of the divinities and the deceased, the Neserser island is a heaven-like place, a place where judgement is passed and the deceased is reborn equipped with a status (god or common being). The Hetepfields is a kind of paradise under the supervision of the god Hetep with whom the deceased identifies himself, and where he leads the happy life reserved for
Osiris was an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld, and the dead, but more appropriately as the god of transition, resurrection, and regeneration. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh’s beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and holding a symbolic crook and flail. † Thoth or Djehuti was one of the deities of the Egyptian pantheon associated with the arbitration of godly disputes, the arts of magic, the system of writing, the development of science, and the judgment of the dead, often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or an ape, animals sacred to him. *
164
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations the privileged (Englund in Demarée 1983). In the concept, Osiris, Horus* and Thoth were given the status of gods or ancestral divinities. The description of Neserser is parallel to the story of Atlantis. Six or seven concentric circles were built for Ra on the island of Neserser, conforming to the Atlantis’ four circles of lands (including the central land) and three circles of water, built by Poseidon. Either Osiris or Atlas have their thrones on the central lands. The lake of Neserser is conforming to the almost closed sea around the Atlantis capital island. Plato describes the sea as a water with a mouth to the outer sea, thus arbitrarily can be called a lake. As described above, the author make a hypothesis that the sea is the ancient Java Sea (Irwanto, 2015). There was a great flood in the lake of Neserser which devastated the island of Neserser, and then it was hidden. This is also parallel to the descriptions about the destruction of Atlantis. A passage from Proclus’ commentary on the Plato’s Timaeus gives a description of the geography of Atlantis, in which there were seven islands in that sea in their time, sacred to Persephone, and also three others of enormous size, one of which was sacred to Hades, Ammon and Poseidon. The Greek god Hades and the Egyptian Osiris are considered parallel. Hades, like Osiris, was the ruler of the underworld. His wife Persephone, like Isis, was a mother goddess among many other things. The god Ammon (Egyptian Amun or Amon) was a major Ancient Egyptian deity. With Osiris, Amun is the most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods. In the Papyrus of Nu, Amun is described as the chief chancellor.
Land of Punt The Land of Punt, also called Egyptians, was a trading partner exporting gold, incense, aromatic animals. The region is known expeditions to it.
Pwenet or Pwene by the ancient of Egypt. It was known for producing and resins, ebony, ivory, tortoise shells and wild from ancient Egyptian records of trade
The first clear mention of Punt comes from the Old Kingdom. As the so-called Palermo Stone tells us, about 2500 BCE during the reign of King Sahure, an expedition to Punt returned with 80,000 measures of 'ntyw (ånti), which scholars believe to be frankincense. Derived from a tree of the same name, frankincense Horus is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities, the son of Isis and Osiris, and he plays a key role in the Osiris myth as Osiris’ heir and the rival to Set, the murderer of Osiris. *
165
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations is a resin used to make incense, which the Egyptians coveted for temple rituals; incense was the most prized commodity from Punt. Sahure’s expedition also brought back 23,030 staves – wood being precious to a desert country like Egypt – and 6,000 measures of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver, among other items. Fragments from the decoration of this king’s mortuary temple at Abusir are interpreted as a representation of the inhabitants of Punt. The Egyptians called the Land of Punt Ta Netjer. Literally translated, this means the Land of the Gods. Since Ra, the sun god, held a very important place in the Egyptian pantheon, historians believe that Punt was referred to as the Abode of the Gods because of its location to the east of Egypt, in the direction of the sunrise. The name could also refer to the superior wood imported from Punt, which went into the building of Egyptian temples and to the incense brought from Punt that were used extensively in religious rituals of the ancient Egyptians. Older literature (and current non-mainstream literature) maintained that the label “Land of God”, when interpreted as “holy land” or “land of the gods/ancestors” or “divine land”, meant that the ancient Egyptians viewed the Land of Punt as their ancestral homeland. WM Flinders Petrie (1894) believed that the Dynastic Race came from or through Punt and EA Wallis Budge (1914) stated that the Egyptian tradition of the Dynastic Period held that the aboriginal home of the Egyptians was Punt. Queen Hatshepsut’s temple inscriptions at Luxor reveal that her divine mother goddess, Hathor, was from Punt – with strong indications that the pharaohs considered the origin of their culture to be the Land of Punt. The exact location of the Land of Punt is unknown, and through the years it has been cited as part of Arabia, the Horn of Africa, present-day Somalia, the Sudan or Eritrea. The debate goes on as to where Punt was located, with scholars and historians on every side offering plausible supports for their claims. A 4th Dynasty relief shows a Puntite with one of Pharaoh Khufu’s sons, and in the 5th Dynasty documents show regular trade between the two countries. Among the many treasures brought to Egypt from Punt were gold, ebony, wild animals, animal skins, ivory, tortoise shells, spices, precious woods, cosmetics, incense and incense trees. The roots found outside of her complex at Deir alBahari are believed to be the roots of the incense trees brought back from Punt by Hatshepsut’s expedition in 1493 BCE. 166
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In the 12th Dynasty, Punt was immortalized in Egyptian literature in the very popular Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor in which an Egyptian sailor converses with a great serpent who calls himself the “Lord of Punt” and sends the sailor back to Egypt laden with gold, spices and precious animals. Perhaps because of this tale Punt became more and more a semi-mythical land to the Egyptians and, after Hatshepsut’s voyages there, no more is written about it in any factual way. Punt came to hold a strange fascination for the Egyptian people as a “land of plenty” and was known as Ta Netjer, the Land of the Gods, from which all good things came to Egypt. Punt was also associated with Egyptian ancestry in that it came to be seen as their ancient homeland and, further, the land where the gods lived. Exactly why Punt was elevated from reality into mythology is not known but, after the 18th Dynasty, the land receded further and further in the minds of the Egyptians until it was lost in legend and folklore. The most evidence about the land of Punt comes from a temple dedicated to the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled for more than 20 years circa 1465 BCE. A large relief of a trading mission to Punt is featured on the walls of the temple, known for Queen Hatshepsut’s famous expedition in 1493 BCE, which brought back living trees to Egypt, marking the first known successful attempt at transplanting foreign fauna. We even know the names of the rulers of Punt during Hatshepsut’s reign: Parehu and his wife Ati. Reliefs on the walls of her temple there show the chief of the Puntites and his wife receiving the envoys from Egypt. From the descriptions that survived, the land of Punt was a peaceful and prosperous country that seemed to have a wide variety of highly valued goods to trade. Egyptian Expeditions to the Land of Punt The earliest recorded Egyptian expedition to Punt was organized by Pharaoh Sahure of the 5th Dynasty (25th century BCE). However, gold from Punt is recorded as having been in Egypt as early as the time of Pharaoh Khufu of the 4th Dynasty. Subsequently, there were more expeditions to Punt in the 6th, 11th, 12th and 18th dynasties of Egypt. In the 12th Dynasty, trade with Punt was celebrated in popular literature in the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. In the reign of Mentuhotep III (11th Dynasty, ca 2000 BCE), an officer named Hannu organized one or more voyages to Punt, but it is uncertain whether he personally traveled on these expeditions. Trading missions of the 12th Dynasty pharaohs Senusret I, Amenemhat II and Amenemhat IV had also successfully navigated their way to and from the mysterious Land of Punt. 167
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, Hatshepsut built a Red Sea fleet to facilitate trade between the head of the Gulf of Aqaba and points south as far as Punt to bring mortuary goods to Karnak in exchange for Nubian gold. Hatshepsut personally made the most famous ancient Egyptian expedition that sailed to Punt. During the reign of Hatshepsut in the 15th century BCE, ships regularly crossed the Red Sea in order to obtain bitumen, copper, carved amulets, naphtha and other goods transported overland and down the Dead Sea to Elat at the head of the gulf of Aqaba where they were joined with incense coming north both by sea and overland along trade routes through the mountains running north along the east coast of the Red Sea. Hatshepsut’s 18th dynasty successors, such as Thutmose III and Amenhotep III also continued the Egyptian tradition of trading with Punt. The trade with Punt continued into the start of the 20th Dynasty before terminating prior to the end of Egypt’s New Kingdom. From here on, trade contacts seem to have been non-existent and with but a single exception, references to Punt envisage it as a fabled and magical land. The exception is a reference to the Mountain of Punt which occurred as an inscription on a damaged stela found at Tel Defenneh dating back to the 26th Dynasty. It also declares a miracle and a blessing that there was rain upon the Mountain of Punt in late December or early January. Hatshepsut Expedition Hatshepsut is a daughter of Thothmes I, third Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, and of his wife, Ahmes Nefertari. She inherited sovereign rights in virtue of her maternal descent from the old 12th Dynasty line. The story of Hatshepsut’s expedition to the Land of Punt is recorded for posterity in the Egyptian art on the wall of her memorial temple at Deir elBahari (Arabic for “The Northern Monastery”), a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile. It is separated from the Valley of the Kings by the peak of El-Qurn (Arabic for “The Horn” known to the Egyptians as “Dehent”) and lies directly across the water from the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor in Thebes. The mountain formed a natural pyramid towering over the Valley of the Kings and Deir el-Bahari, and was sacred to Hathor and Meretseger. The first to leave a description of the abandoned Coptic monastery that had once stood on top of the ruins of the Temple of Hatshepsut was the famous English explorer Richard Pococke who stopped here in 1737. Jean-François 168
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Champollion copied the texts from the temple’s granite portals and the walls of the Main Sanctuary of Amon-Ra. John Gardner Wilkinson introduced the name Deir el-Bahari (“Northern Monastery”) in world literature in 1835. Richard Lepsius followed with the identification of the ruins as a Temple of Hatshepsut.
Figure 60 – The Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari complex. Source: Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Avala.
Regular excavations were started by French archaeologist Auguste Mariette (1821 – 1881), the founder of the Egyptian Antiquities Service. Archaeological investigations of the Deir el-Bahari complex were begun in 1881, after objects belonging to the missing pharaohs began to turn up in the antiquities market. French archaeologist Gaston Maspero (1846 – 1916), director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service at the time, went to Luxor in 1881 and began to apply pressure to the Abdou El-Rasoul family, residents of Gurnah who had for generations been tomb robbers. The first institution of great merit for Egyptological studies was a mission of the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF) directed by French archaeologist Edouard Naville (1844 – 1926). Excavations at the temple began in the 1890s. Between 1893 and 1899 it managed to clear the Upper Terrace and most of the buried 169
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations courtyards, chapels and colonnades. Roofs were installed over the Portico of the Obelisks and the porticoes of the Middle Terrace. The walls of the Main Sanctuary of Amon-Ra were reinforced and a provisional protection was carried out of the Sun Altar, Royal Cult complex, Hathor Chapel and Lower Northern Portico. In 1911, Naville turned over his concession on Deir el-Bahari (which allowed him sole excavator’s rights), and the legendary Herbert Winlock began what would be 25 years of excavation and restoration. Winlock arrived in Deir el-Bahari at the head of a mission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art which stayed there for the next twenty years (1911 – 1931), penetrating the terraces and the two ramps of the uncovered temple. When Leszek Dąbrowski came with his group of specialists from Warsaw University’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA), they found row upon row of decorated blocks arranged by their illustrious predecessors, waiting to be restored to their original positions in the walls, columns and architraves of the temple. The Poles had been invited to take over the project by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization. Kazimierz Michałowski remained at the head of this mission from its inception in the autumn of 1961 to his death in 1981. Archaeological Discoveries
The first pharaoh to build at Deir el-Bahari was Nebhepetre Montuhotep II, of the Eleventh Dynasty who reunified the country after the First Intermediate Period. He chose to build his mortuary temple and tomb at Deir el-Bahari instead of with those of his predecessors at Dra Abu el-Naga and also pioneered a new architectural style which despite its fresh look seems to have been inspired by the form of Old Kingdom pyramid complexes. He constructed a valley temple (now completely destroyed) connected by a long causeway to a mortuary temple which he named Akh Sut Nebhepetre (“Splendid are the places of Nebhepetre”). The mortuary temple consisted of a terrace perched against the cliff with a large stone edifice (described as a mastaba by some and a pyramid by others) above it and a deep shaft to his tomb below it. The tombs of six princesses were found within the enclosure of the mortuary temple of Montuhotep. The tombs were excavated during the first phase of construction but their entrances were covered with masonry when the temple was enlarged. Each tomb contained a sarcophagus formed out of six large slabs joined together with metallic strips. Each sarcophagus was beautifully decorated with scenes of daily life and the presentation of offerings. 170
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Many of Montuhotep’s officials were buried in tombs excavated from the cliffs around his mortuary temple including; the chancellor Akhtoy, viziers Dagi (TT103 Sheikh Abd el-Qurna) and Ipi (TT315 Deir el-Bahari), the treasurer Khety (TT311 Deir el-Bahari), royal guardsman Horhotep (TT314 Deir elBahari) and chief steward Henenu (TT313 Deir el-Bahari). There is also a mass grave in which sixty soldiers were interred. It is thought that they all died during active service in Nubia and were given the honor of being buried close to their pharaoh. Amenhotep I built a temple at Deir el-Bahari and buried his Great Royal Wife (Ahmose-Meritamun) nearby in Theban Tomb. However, Amenhotep’s temple was in the prime spot chosen by Hatshepsut for her mortuary temple and so it was dismantled in order to allow her monument to be constructed. It seems that the original plan was to build her mortuary temple beside his, but the addition of the lower terrace meant that it had to be removed in its entirety. The only remaining evidence that the temple existed are a few bricks inscribed with Amenhotep’s name. The statues of the pharaoh were moved to Montuhotep’s mortuary temple. Hatshepsut built the largest, best preserved and arguably the most impressive temple at the site, her mortuary temple named Djeser-Djeseru (“Holy of Holies”), best-preserved of the three complexes. Her mortuary temple is clearly inspired by that of Montuhotep and was built so that the colonnades at each side of the central ramp her temple correspond with the two levels of Montuhotep’s mortuary temple. After her death her temple was vandalized by Thuthmosis II and then by Akhenaten (because of his antipathy towards Amon). Senenmut (who was Hatshepsut’s adviser, tutor to her daughter and possibly her lover) was given the honor of having a tomb (TT353 Deir el-Bahari) constructed within the precinct of her Mortuary Temple. He also had a tomb built in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna (TT71) and so the tomb at Deir el-Bahari is known as the “secret” tomb. It was badly damaged in antiquity, but some of the decoration is still visible. It is an unusually large tomb but it was not finished and Senenmut was buried in his other tomb. Unfortunately for him, his other tomb was also vandalized. Thuthmosis III also built a temple complex here which he dedicated to Amon. It was intended to replace Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple as the focus of the “Beautiful Festival of the Valley” but was badly damaged during the 20th 171
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Dynasty. After that time it was used a source of building materials and in Christian times became the site of a Coptic cemetery. During the 1870’s, a number of items from the ancient tombs appeared for sale in Egypt. Following investigations by Maspero and his assistant Brugsch it was confirmed that a family living in the village of Qurna had discovered a tomb and had been looting items over a period of years. Ironically, the tomb (listed as TT320 or DB320) turned out to house a number of pharaohs who had been moved there in order to protect them from tomb robbers. The cache held over fifty mummies including those of King Seqenenre Taa II, Ahmose I, Amenhotep I, Tutmosis I, II and III, Seti I and Ramesses II, III, and IX, Pinudgjem I and II and Siamun. A cache of 163 reburied mummies of the Priests of Amon were also found in a tomb at Bab el-Gasus. It is thought that these priests were the ones who organized the reburial of the pharaohs mummies in TT320. During the Ptolemaic period, Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple was adapted to form a shrine to Amenhotep son of Hapu and Imhotep. In the Late Period the place was frequented by a group of ironworkers from Hermonthis. In the mid-1970s, Abdel Monem Abdel Haleem Sayed of the University of Alexandria, Egypt, conducted test excavations at Wadi Gawasis, and found potsherds with painted (hieratic) inscriptions and inscribed stelae recording expeditions to Bia-Punt (the “mine” of Punt) from a locality called Sзww, from the reigns of Senusret I, Amenenhat II, Senusret II and Senusret III. Sayed also uncovered some carved, round-topped anchors and a fragment of carved cedar timber with a mortise, most likely from a ship. Based on this evidence Sayed suggested that Mersa/Wadi Gawasis was the pharaonic port of Sзww for seafaring expeditions to Punt in the 12th Dynasty. Another unearthing actual evidence of trade with Punt occurred during excavations beginning in 2001. Here, a team led by Kathryn Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich revealed ceremonial structures, ship timbers, stone anchors, ropes, and other artifacts dating to early and later 12th Dynasty. They also uncovered actual products presumably brought from Punt, including carbonized ebony woods and obsidian (a volcanic glass), as well as blades of a steering oar. They even found cargo boxes bearing painted hieroglyphic text describing the contents as the “wonderful things of Punt” (Bard 2011).
172
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Archaeological evidence including pictures on pottery and rocks suggest that a species of cattle, zebu or brahman (Bos indicus) originating in South Asia, were present in Egypt around 2000 BCE. Bos indicus are believed to have first appeared in Sub-Saharan Africa between 700 and 1500 CE, and were introduced to the Horn of African around 1000 CE (Marshall 1989). At the Radiology Clinic of the Bonn Universitätsklinikum, the corpus delicti – a plain flacon from among the possessions of Hatshepsut – was subjected to computerized axial tomography scan (CAT scan) in 2011. It became obvious very quickly that what they had found was not dried-up perfume. The mix contained large amounts of palm oil and nutmeg apple oil. Wall-sculptures in the Middle Colonnade
The walls at Djeser-Djeseru are illustrated with Hatshepsut’s autobiography, including stories of her fabled trip to the Land of Punt. Also discovered at Djeser-Djeseru were to be believed as the intact roots of incense trees, which once decorated the front façade of the temple. These trees were believed to be collected by Hatshepsut in her expedition to Punt; according to the histories, she brought back five shiploads of goodies, including flora and fauna. The illustrations of the wall-sculptures on the middle colonnade of the DjeserDjeseru were copied among others by Johannes Dümichen, a professor of egyptology in Strassburg, in the Historische inschriften altägyptischer Denkmäler (“Historical inscriptions of ancient Egyptian monuments”) in 1869; Auguste Mariette, a French archaeologist and egyptologist, in the Deir-El-Bahari, Documents Topographiques, Historiques et Ethnographiques (“Deir-El-Bahari, Topographical, Historical and Ethnographic Documents”) in 1877; Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards, an English egyptologist, in the Pharaohs Fellahs and Explorers, Chapter 8: Queen Hatasu, and Her Expedition to the Land of Punt in 1891; and Édouard Naville, a Swiss archaeologist and egyptologist, in The Temple of Deir El Bahari in 1898. The author presents illustrations of the wall-sculptures on the middle colonnade of the Djeser-Djeseru made by Duemichen (1869), Mariette (1877) and Naville (1898) as below. Most of the descriptions and hieroglyph transliterations are cited from Naville’s and Edwards’ reports, omitting their personal opinions and adding information by other authors.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Figure 61 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Johannes Duemichen (1869) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 62 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Auguste Mariette (1877).
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Figure 62 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Auguste Mariette (1877) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 62 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Auguste Mariette (1877) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 62 – Illustrations of wall-sculptures in the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru by Auguste Mariette (1877) (continued).
187
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations A report of five-ship voyage survives on reliefs in Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari. Throughout the temple texts, Hatshepsut maintains the fiction that her envoy Chancellor Nehsi, who is mentioned as the head of the expedition, had travelled to Punt “in order to extract tribute from the natives” who admit their allegiance to the Egyptian pharaoh. In reality, Nehsi’s expedition was a simple trading mission to a land, Punt, which was by this time a well-established trading post. Moreover, Nehsi’s visit to Punt was not inordinately brave since he was accompanied by at least five shiploads of Egyptian marines and greeted warmly by the chief of Punt and his immediate family. The Puntites traded not only in their own produce of incense, ebony and short-horned cattle, but also gold, ivory and animal skins. According to the temple reliefs, the Land of Punt was ruled at that time by Chief Parehu and his wife Ati. This well illustrated expedition of Hatshepsut occurred in year 9 of the Hatshepsut’s reign with the blessing of the god Amon: “Said by Amon, the Lord of the Thrones of the Two Land: ‘Come, come in peace my daughter, the graceful, who art in my heart, King Maatkare [ie Hatshepsut] ... I will give thee Punt, the whole of it ... I will lead your soldiers by land and by water, on mysterious shores, which join the harbors of ảnti ... They will take ảnti as much as they like. They will load their ships to the satisfaction of their hearts with trees of green [ie fresh] ảnti, and all the good things of the land.’ ” The description of the expedition begins with the two figures (Figure 63). Here we see five Egyptian ships arriving. The first two are already moored, and have struck their sails, while the three others are coming up with canvas spread; on the last one the reis or pilot gives the word of command: “to the port side”. The first ship has sent out a boat, which is unloading bags and large jars or amphoras, probably containing the food and drink which is to be presented to the chief of Punt. The inscription in large characters above the ships is as follows. “The navigation on the sea, the starting on the good journey to the Divine Land, they landing happily in the Land of Punt by the soldiers of the King, according to the prescription of the Lord of the Gods, Amon, lord of the thrones of the two lands, in order to bring the precious products of the whole land, because of his great love towards ... [here the name of Hatshepsut is erased with some signs which followed, and it has been replaced by the name of Rameses II] ... to the kings who were in this land eternally.”
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Figure 63 – Egyptian boats arriving at Punt (Naville 1898).
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Figure 63 – Egyptian boats arriving at Punt (Naville 1898) (continued).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The picture of the Land of Punt was divided into four rows (Figure 64). In two of them the separation is made by a line of water in which fishes and tortoises are swimming. What is seen above the water may be considered as taking-place in the immediate vicinity of the shore, whereas where there is a simple line under the figures they are meant to be further inland. On the shore we find the huts of the people; they are built on poles, with ladders giving access to them, evidently in order to protect the inmates against wild animals. These huts are made of wickerwork, probably of palm-stalks; they are all of the same shape and construction. They stand under the shade of palms, and of other trees having a conventional form, which, judging from the inscriptions, may signify incense and ebony trees. Near the huts they are certainly ebony trees, the branches of which are cut down by the Egyptians “in great quantities”, and which are high enough for the cows to rest under their shade. The Puntite, unlike ancient Egyptians, had longer hair and little facial hair. The Puntite is a tall, well-shaped man, his hair is brighter; his nose is straight, his beard long and pointed grows on his chain only; he wears only a loincloth with a belt in which a dagger is fixed. The inscription engraved in front of his body states that he is “The Great [Chief] of Punt, Parehu”. The left leg of the chief, Parehu, is covered with a bracing of rings. In one scene, his left hand holds a curved weapon. The Puntites are painted red, but not as dark as the Egyptians. He is followed by his wife, his two sons, and his daughter, to each of whom is attached a short inscription. The two youths are simply described as “his sons”, and the young girl as “his daughter”. His spouse, a very singular and unbeautiful person, is described as “his wife, Ati”. She wears a yellow dress, bracelets on her wrists, anklets on her ankles, and a necklace of alternate bead and chain work round her throat. Her hair, like that of her daughter, is bound with a headband on the brow. Her features are repulsive, and her cheek is disfigured by facial wrinkles. She is hideously obese, her limbs and body being weighed down by rolls of skin. Her daughter, though evidently quite young, already shows a tendency towards the same kind of deformity. The complexions of the whole family are painted of a light red, and their hair black, thus showing that they are not of negro race. The superimposed hieroglyphic inscription, which extends to some length beyond that of the illustration, states that “Hither come the Great [Chief] of Punt, their backs bent, their heads bowed, to receive the soldiers of His Majesty”. 191
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Figure 64 – The Land of Punt (Naville 1898).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations An ass or a pony, saddled with a thick cushion, and three attendants carrying short staves, bring up the rear of the procession. Over the ears of this beast of heavy burden is engraved in hieroglyphic characters, “The great ‘ass’ that carries his wife”. The men who guide and follow the ass wear the upward-curved beard everywhere characteristic of the natives of Punt in Egyptian art. On the shore Hatshepsut’s royal envoy having landed, accompanied by his military escort, arranges on a table, or stand, the gifts which he has brought for presentation to the Prince of Punt. The envoy is in civil dress, and leans upon his staff of command. The soldiers are armed with spear and hatchet, and carry a large shield rounded at the top – the ordinary equipment of infantry of the line. Their captain carries no shield, but is armed with a bow, in addition to the spear and hatchet of his followers. We know from another inscription the name of this messenger: “he is called Nehsi”, the negro. His mission is quite peaceful. On a small table he has placed the presents offered by the queen, which are not of great value: necklaces, probably made of blue porcelain beads, an axe, a dagger and a few bracelets. The text above the table reads: “The landing of the royal messenger in the Divine Land, with the soldiers who accompany him, in presence of the chiefs of Punt, to bring all good things from the sovereign (life, strength and health) to Hathor, the lady of Punt, in order that she may grant life strength and health to Her Majesty.” This is a circuitous manner of stating that the said good things are intended, not for the goddess, but as a means of exchange for the coveted products of Punt. Parehu seems afraid; he is raising his hands towards the Egyptians. “The coming of the chiefs of Punt, bowing and stooping in order to receive these soldiers; they give praise to ... Amon (probably put there instead of the queen).” Behind Parehu stood his wife, Ati, two sons and his daughter, as may be seen from Mariette’s publication. But this most valuable block has unfortunately disappeared, as well as the text it contained, which expressed the astonishment of the Puntites at the sight of the strangers. Naville gave a translation of their words as reproduced by Mariette: “They say in asking for peace: you arrived here on what way, to this land which the Egyptians did not know? Have you come through the ways of the sky, or have you travelled on water to the green land, the Divine Land to which Ra has transported you? For the king of Egypt there is no closed way, we live of the breath which he gives us.”
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations From what we see on the upper row the intercourse between the messenger and the Puntites soon becomes cordial. While the Egyptian sailors, assisted by the natives of Punt, are busily engaged in loading the ships, Hatshepsut’s envoy offers an official reception to Parehu, his wife and family. This parting interview is conducted with great ceremony on both sides. A tent has been pitched by order of the messenger, before which Parehu and his family, “the chiefs of Punt”, appear again. “... the coming of the Chief of Punt, bringing his goods on the shore in presence of the royal messenger.” The Lady Ati is appareled as before, but the right leg of Parehu is covered from the ankle to above the knee with a close succession of metal rings. The objects which are brought, and which are called tributes, are properly goods to be exchanged against the products of Egypt; they consist of gold in rings, a heap of curved weapons, the same weapon which Parehu has in his hand, and a big heap of the famous incense called ảnti, of which there were several varieties, and of which the Egyptians made such great use that the procuring of it was the main reason which induced them to send expeditions to Punt. The sons of Parehu, one of them carrying a bowl of gold-dust; an attendant bearing a large jar on his shoulder; and the ass, which has again enjoyed the unenviable privilege of carrying the Lady Ati, bring up the rear. The pile of ảnti is here represented in a very summary fashion by a mere outline, but in some of the other subjects the little irregularly shaped lumps of the precious gum are all elaborately defined. The envoy stands in front of his pavilion – omitted in the illustration – and is apparently in the act of inviting his guests to partake of the banquet which, by order of Hatshepsut, he has prepared for them. The messenger is said to receive these things, but his queen has ordered him to be generous, and to show something of her royal hospitality. Nehsi will entertain the chiefs of Punt to a banquet in his tent. The considerable part of this wall which is lost contained very interesting scenes, of which fragments only have been recovered (Figure 65). The places where the fragments were found would make us think that this wall was ruined before the occupation of the temple by the Copts. There could be seen the huts of the negroes with the big dog crouching at the door; the Egyptians felling branches of ebony-trees, “cutting ebony in great quantity”, the wood being carried to the ships by the negroes, who brought also their dogs, which may have been used in Egypt for the chase of the antelope 194
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations and the wild bull. In the ebony trees, under the shade of which the huts are built, birds have made their nests and laid eggs, which are being taken away by the Egyptians. It is difficult to recognize what birds they are, owing to the incorrectness of the proportions. The Egyptians were seen also taking the eggs from the nests of the birds. A small fragment, the top of which is destroyed, shows the lower part of an animal which looks like a rhinoceros. The later discovered top part shows that it is a one-horned rhinoceros. The various scenes on the wall shown on Figure 66 are not arranged with the same regularity as on the other side of the colonnade. They sometimes occupy the whole height of the wall, as for instance the description of the Land of Punt, or they are put one over the other, as is the case here. In the very interesting subject now before us, we see the Egyptian sailors, some carrying the saplings in baskets slung from poles, as before; others laden with big jars; and all hurrying on board along inclined planks reaching presumably from the shore, which, however, is not shown in the picture. The decks are already piled high with their precious cargo, among which may be observed three macaques, who make themselves perfectly at home. Slung to the mainmast of the nearest vessel, a harp is depicted, of a shape which may even now be seen in the hands of native musicians in Cairo and other large towns. The captain stands on the platform at the prow, issuing his commands; and, small as is the scale, the very natural action of the man in front of him, who shouts the order with his hand to his mouth, must not be overlooked. Some more are being brought by the sailors. The loading is described as follows: “The loading of the cargo-boats with great quantities of marvels of the land of Punt, with all the good woods of the Divine Land, heaps of gum of ‘ảnti’, and trees of green ‘ảnti’, with ebony, with pure ‘ivory’, with green nub of ‘ảamu’, with ‘tesheps’ wood, ‘khesit’ wood, ‘balsam’, ‘soter-incense’, ‘åhemtu’, with ‘ảnảu’, monkeys, dogs, and with skins of ‘leopards’ of the south, with inhabitants of the country and their children. Never were brought such things to any king, since the world was.” While these last two vessels are receiving their cargoes, the other three have already weighed anchor, and are seen with their sails set and filled by a favorable wind. A short inscription states that this is “the peaceful and prosperous voyage of the soldiers of his Majesty returning to Thebes, bringing with them the men of Punt. They bring such marvels of the Land of Punt as have never been brought by any King of Egypt, on account of the greatness of the King of the Gods, Amon, Lord of Thebes”. 195
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Figure 65 – Fragments of the scene of the Land of Punt (Naville 1898).
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Figure 66 – Loading Egyptian boats in Punt (Naville 1898).
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Figure 67 – Laden boats leaving Punt (Naville 1898).
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Figure 68 – Chiefs of Punt bowing before Egyptians (Naville 1898).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations From this point, the sculptured posterities form a continuous scene, those in the lower register being almost perfect, whereas those in the upper register are unfortunately so much broken away that in many places there remain only the feet of the figures and the water lines of the river. In several of the best preserved, we see the Egyptian sailors carrying half-grown saplings which have been taken up with a ball of earth about the roots, and are being transported in baskets slung upon poles, each pole carried by four men. These, as they wend their way towards the ships, are accompanied by natives of Punt. In one place where there is a great gap in the wall, the remains of the inscription show that an elephant and a horse were among the animals embarked from Punt for the gratification of Hatshepsut. A running commentary of short inscriptions is interspersed here and there between the figures. “Stand steady on your legs, Bohu!” says one of the bearers. “You throw too much weight upon my shoulders”, retorts Bohu. Over the saplings which are being carried in baskets, is inscribed “nehet ảnti”; that is to say, the sycamore of ảnti. Elsewhere we see the full-grown trees. The trunk is massive; the leaf is a sharp-pointed oval; and at the junction of the trunk and the larger branches are seen little copper-colored lumps of irregular form, representing the resinous gum which has exuded through the bark. The next scene (Figure 67) describes the voyage back to Egypt, and the happy arrival of the expedition at Thebes. “The navigation, the arrival in peace, the landing at Thebes with joy by the soldiers of the king; with them are the chiefs of this land, they bring such things as never were brought to any king, in products of the Land of Punt, through the great power of this venerable god Amon Ra, the lord of the thrones of the two lands.” The return voyage, like the outward voyage, is passed over; and the next incidents of this curious panorama in stone take place in Thebes. We are shown nothing of the arrival of the squadron, nor of the unlading of the ships; the rest of the posterities consisting mainly of processions of priests, soldiers and sailors. The order in which these processions meet and succeed each other is somewhat confusing. The hieroglyphic inscriptions in this part of the building are also greatly mutilated, so that the subjects in many instances have to be taken as their own interpreters. It seems possible that they do not all represent the return of the expedition from Punt, but that some may have reference to the ceremonies which accompanied the opening of the temple. The unity of the composition as an historic whole is 200
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations moreover impaired by the introduction of other foreign tributaries besides those brought from Punt; whence it may be concluded that the artist, in order to produce a more brilliant effect, introduced the representatives of various nations who on other occasions, had laid their tribute at the feet of Hatshepsut. Figure 66 and Figure 68, which is to be placed over Figure 67, shows us the landing from the ships at Thebes in the presence of the queen. This representation, of which nearly all the upper part has been lost, is particularly interesting, because we see Africans in great number who have come to Egypt with the ships. Beginning at the end of the long train which marches towards the queen, we see Puntites carrying ebony, curved weapons, and driving cows. Before them are Egyptians bringing the precious incense-trees. Next come two rows of men, each row being divided in two at the beginning. In the lower one we find again Puntites with amphoras, probably filled with balsam, and baskets containing ảnti. One of them leads a macaque. The long pointed loaves and the obelisks are resin to which that shape has been given. In front of the procession of Puntites are four chiefs kneeling, with hands raised towards the queen, and imploring her to be merciful to them. “... they say, imploring her Majesty, hail to thee, King of Egypt, Lady Ra, shining like the solar disk ...” The Puntites have the same type and dress as we saw in the description of their country. Above them are the chiefs of “the Irem”. As far as we can judge from what is left of the head of the kneeling chief and from the standing man who follows bringing gold and a leopard or a panther, and who may be one of them, the Irem are not negroes. Above are two negroes, called the chiefs “of Nemyuw”; these men are the same as those seen near the huts. The block on which they are represented was recovered in pulling down one of the upper walls. According to Brugsch, the Irem are the Blemmyes. Like the Egyptians, they belong to the Hamitic branch; they bring gold and a leopard or a panther. In the eighth year of Seti I (1283 BCE), Irem revolted. However, the campaign against Irem was far less serious than any one of Seti’s Levantine campaigns. Seti I, setting off from the Nile, managed to take five wells and 400 people with the use of chariots. The importance of wells and the use of chariots (not boats, as might be expected for a place inside the Nile Valley) suggest that Irem was a pastoral area outside the Nile Valley. This location of Irem makes its identification with the Yam of the Old Kingdom all the more likely. 201
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Since Nemyew’s chiefs are portrayed as negroes, it should be placed somewhere in the Nile valley above Kurgus. All these men are supposed to be in presence of the queen, who, however, does not seem to have been herself represented. On a kind of stand adorned like a throne was her cartouche and her ka (life force) name. The text which was next to it is destroyed to nearly half of its height. “... the bowing down before Usertkau (Hatshepsut) by the chiefs of Punt ... the ảnti of Nubia of Khenthunnefer, all lands ... of ... stooping, bringing their goods in the place where is her Majesty. ... roads which never had been trodden by others; it was reckoned ... the lord of Thebes, as a tribute for each year. ... as was ordered to her by her father, who put all lands under her feet living eternally.” Nubia is a region along the Nile river located in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. The name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century CE, with the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. Before the 4th century CE, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or Khent Hunnefer, or Khent-hen-nefer, or Khenthennofer, or, in Classical Greek usage, included under the name Ethiopia (Aithiopia). Nubia had a great influence on Egypt. Even the way the Nubians wore their hair was copied by the Egyptians. In order to express her thankfulness to Amon, who had shown the way to her ships and brought them back safely, Hatshepsut must consecrate the best things of Punt to the god. This we see her doing in a scene (Figure 69) which occupies the whole height of the wall. Hatshepsut standing, wearing the atef crown, holding the insignia of royal power, and followed by her ka, dedicates to Amon the choice products of the foreign countries. “The king himself, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ramaka takes the good things of Punt, and the valuables of the Divine Land, presenting the gifts of the Southern Countries, the tributes of the vile Kusch, the boxes [of gold and precious stones] of the land of the negroes to Amon Ra, the lord of the throne of the two lands. The King Ramaka, she is living, she lasts, she is full of joy, she rules over the land like Ra eternally.”
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Figure 69 – The queen offering to Amon the products of the expedition (Naville 1898).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The valuable cargo which the queen feels bound to offer to Amon is represented in the four following figures (Figure 70, Figure 71, Figure 72 and Figure 73). The wall here is divided into two rows. Beginning at the bottom, we see first the products which are properly those of the Land of Punt, four large trees, incense-trees planted in the garden of Amon, where they have prospered and reached such a height that cows may easily walk under their branches. Various things have been collected in the shade of the trees: uảb, which means ivory. Under the tusks is a substance called kash, the meaning of which is doubtful, but Naville considers being tortoise-shell judging from the determinative. The cattle are the short-horned cows, further we see ebony, bags of the substance called mesţem (Naville and Mariette allege it as antimony, used for dyeing the eyes), then the curved weapons similar to the one held by Parehu (the ảamu of the Puntites), and rings and boxes full of the metal åsem (Naville assumes as an alloy of gold and silver). The incense ảnti, of which there were as many as fourteen different sorts, was the most important product of Punt. We see here that the numerous bags of that substance which were the chief part of the cargo of the ships, have been emptied, and the incense, after having been measured by means of bushels, is gathered in large heaps. The text explains: “... these are heaps of green [fresh] ảnti in great number; the measuring of green ảnti in great quantity to Amon, the lord of the thrones of the two lands, from the marvels of the Land of Punt, and the good things of the Divine Land”. Above the heaps are incense-trees in pots. “Trees of green ảnti thirty-one, brought among the marvels of Punt to the Majesty of this god, Amon Ra, the lord of the throne of the two lands; never was such thing seen since the world was.” Behind the four men emptying their bushels stood a man whose figure has been rubbed off. He is called “the writer, the steward Thoth”. We do not know why his figure has been erased; he may have been one of the friends and supporters of Hatshepsut, and therefore his name and figure were destroyed. We shall see other instances of names of officials being erased. The god Thoth himself acts as writer, and keeps a record of all that has been brought from Punt and offered to the god: “... to record in writing, to make up the accounts; altogether millions, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, thousands, hundreds [an infinite number] of good things of the Land of Punt, given to Amon Ra.”
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Thoth, who is said to reside in a temple, the name of which is doubtful, and who is called the chief of the rekhytu, has been erased. This destruction is certainly not the work of any of the Thothmes, and must be assigned to a later date. Above the products of Punt are those which are supposed to come from the Southern Countries (Upper Nile), viz the regions of the Upper Nile, inhabited by the negroes whom we saw represented before, and by the ảnti of Nubia. These goods must have been brought by caravans, showing that there was already a regular trade established between the valley of the Nile and the coast. We see here a giraffe, long-horned cows, two kinds of leopards: the “southern”, which is larger, and which seems to have been only an object of curiosity, while “those of the north” are held by collars, and were probably more or less tame, so as to be used for hunting. As in the case of Punt we see great quantities of åsem, in rings and boxes, curved weapons and ebony, besides skins of leopards, bows, feathers and ostrich eggs. Above the large gap in the middle of the figure we see the tops of several columns of text and fragments of a cartouche which seems to be that of Thothmes I. It probably refers to his campaign in Asia, towards the Euphrates, as far as a place called Niy, where Thothmes III, his grandson, as we know from the biography of one of his officials, hunted elephants, killing a great number of them. The few signs • left point to an inscription of the same kind as that which relates the deeds of the younger king. All the good things from the southern countries are brought to Amon by the god Tetun, the god of Nubia, who is present at the weighing of the precious metals. This weighing is superintended by Horus: “The balance, the right one of Thoth, for weighing silver, gold, lapis lazuli, malachite.” On the sculpture there is only the weighing of åsem in rings; below are the weights ţebennu, some of which have the form of bulls. As Thoth did in the case of Punt, Safekhabui here records an unlimited number of good things from the lands of the south.
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Figure 70 – Incense trees planted in the Garden of Amon (Naville 1898).
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Figure 71 – Measuring the heaps of incense from Punt (Naville 1898).
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Figure 72 – Products of the Southern Lands (Naville 1898).
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Figure 73 – Weighing precious metals from the southern countries (Naville 1898).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Existing Location Hypotheses The debate over Punt’s place on the map began in the 1850s, when the newly formed Antiquities Service of Egypt began clearing the great temples in and around Thebes. Based on newly revealed hieroglyphic texts that described Punt as a source of aromatic substances situated to the east of Egypt, Heinrich Karl Brugsch first suggested, in the late 1850s, that Punt lay on the Arabian Peninsula. It seemed straightforward enough. After all, the Greeks had glorified the “perfumes of Arabia”, a land that lies due east of Egypt. Auguste Mariette changed this thinking with two discoveries. One was a hieroglyphic list that the Pharaoh Tuthmosis III left at Karnak Temple in Thebes that included Punt in those lands south of Egypt. The other was Hatshepsut’s bas-relief, which, among other evidence it bears that points to Africa, shows distinctly African animals as products or natives of Punt, including the giraffe and rhinoceros, neither of which is found in Arabia. For the location of Punt, Mariette settled on the Somali coast, which also is known for its aromatics, including the fabled incense. Mariette’s hypothesis held well into the next century. Then, in the 1960s, based on a detailed study of the flora and fauna and other elements of Punt represented in Hatshepsut’s bas-relief, Rolf Herzog placed Punt along the Upper Nile south of Egypt, specifically between the Atbara River and the confluence of the White and Blue Niles. Punt, Herzog felt, was reached overland and by river, but not by sea. Yet Hatshepsut’s relief appears to contradict that stance, as Kenneth Kitchen pointed out in a 1971 review of Herzog’s work. Most indisputably, Kitchen notes, the fish that Hatshepsut’s carvers depicted beneath the Punt ships, along with other marine creatures such as spiny lobster and squid, are clearly recognizable as species that swim to this day in the Red Sea. Kitchen, in nearly four decades of writing on the subject of Punt, has succeeded in establishing what today is the most widely accepted position on the location of Punt. It was situated, he proposes, in what is today eastern Sudan and northern Ethiopia, extending from the Red Sea to the Nile. Arabia was out of the question, Kitchen says. Perhaps the most contrary evidence is linguistic, he writes: “As for Parehu, the only named chief of Punt, the consonant p in his name and that of Punt itself also firmly excludes Arabia”. Old South Arabian languages possess an f but no p. Thus, Kitchen writes, “Arabia would have had a 210
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Farehu, chief of Funt”! Egyptian has both consonants, so the transcription is reliable, he adds. Other experts, while acknowledging the p problem, are not so quick to dismiss Arabia as the Land of Punt. In a 2003 paper – one that Kitchen himself called “a brilliant, most impressive tour de force” even as he challenged its premise – Dmitri Meeks advanced the notion that Punt lay along the entire western coast of the Arabian Peninsula, from the Gulf of Aqaba to Yemen. Meeks says that when one takes all ancient references to Punt into account, the picture becomes clear. “Punt, we are told by the Egyptians, is situated – in relation to the Nile Valley – both to the north, in contact with the countries of the Near East of the Mediterranean area, and also to the east or southeast, while its furthest borders are far away to the south”, he writes. “Only the Arabian Peninsula satisfies all these indications.” In one of the most recently proposed hypotheses, Stanley Balanda, in a 2005 – 2006 paper, offers a sort of compromise between the Kitchen and Meeks theories. Balanda argues that a key expression within Hatshepsut’s text has been misinterpreted as saying “by the sea” or “along the sea front” when it really means “on both sides of the sea”. If Hatshepsut’s expeditionaries had indeed, as Balanda translates one bit of hieroglyphs, “pitched tents for the king’s representative and his expedition to the incense terraces on both sides of the sea in order to receive the chiefs of this land”, then one place on the Red Sea presents itself above all others. This is the straits of Bab el-Mandeb at the sea’s southern end, where today Djibouti and Yemen face each other across narrows no wider than the English Channel. Punt, Balanda proposes, was a region of indeterminate size stretching out on both sides of the strait, which lay at the heart of Puntite commercial activities. Sumatera Hypothesis The most famous Egyptian expedition to Punt, and the one from which we derive most of our information is the one conducted by Hatshepsut (1473 – 1458 BCE) and recorded in the splendidly detailed reliefs on the walls of her Djeser-Djeseru mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari. This expedition was led by the Nubian officer, Nehsi. The route “by land and sea” most probably went from Koptos overland via Wadi Hammamat to the Red Sea port of Queisir, the dismantled five ships being transported by donkey to be re-assembled on arrival at the port (Kitchen 1993). The text accompanying the Djeser-Djeseru reliefs specifically repeats three times that the expedition went “by land and sea” and 211
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations this same method of travel was used on the expedition led by Henu in the reign of king Mentuhotep III and on the expedition mounted by king Ramesses III. The expedition of Senusret I provides some of the clearest evidence of a major Egyptian expedition to Punt using the Red Sea route. Papyrus Harris I, a contemporary Egyptian document which detailed events that occurred in the reign of the early 20th dynasty king Ramesses III, includes an explicit description of an Egyptian expedition’s return from Punt: “I hewed great galleys with barges before them. They were sent forth into the great sea of the inverted water, they arrived at the countries of Punt. They were laden with the products of God’s Land. They arrived safely at the desert-country of Coptos: they moored in peace, carrying the goods they had brought. They [the goods] were loaded, in travelling overland, upon asses and upon men, being reloaded into vessels at the harbor of Coptos. They [the goods and the Puntites] were sent forward downstream, arriving in festivity, bringing tribute into the royal presence.” Sayed in the mid-1970s found potsherds with painted (hieratic) inscriptions and inscribed stelae recording expeditions to Bia-Punt (the “mine” of Punt), some carved, round-topped anchors and a fragment of carved cedar timber with a mortise, most likely from a ship. He suggested that Mersa/Wadi Gawasis was the pharaonic port of Sзww for seafaring expeditions to Punt in the 12th Dynasty. Bard and Fattovich in 2001 revealed ceremonial structures, ship timbers, stone anchors, ropes, and other artifacts dating to early and later Twelfth Dynasty. They also uncovered carbonized ebony woods and obsidian (a volcanic glass), as well as blades of a steering oar. They even found cargo boxes bearing painted hieroglyphic text describing the contents as the “wonderful things of Punt”. Such clear evidence for a sea route to Punt is practically irrefutable, and it is now generally accepted by most scholars that some if not most expeditions used the Red Sea to travel to Punt. The attribution of Punt as “Land of the Gods”, “Land of the Ancestors”, “Holy Land” or “Divine Land” referred to as the Abode of the Gods where its location is to the east of Egypt in the direction of the sunrise, means that Punt definitely located east of Egypt. The expeditions to travel to Punt used the sea route began at the Red Sea. The expedition to Punt by Hatshepsut is recorded in the splendidly detailed reliefs on the walls of her glorious Djeser-Djeseru mortuary temple at Deir ElBahari. Her reputation and magnified accomplishment achieved by the 212
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations successful return upon the dangers of the sea, ritual and celebration after the achievement and the indicator of her leadership and skill in motivating and governing the Egyptian society to high achievement, exhibit how difficult the voyages leading to and returning from Punt was. The Egyptians were not particularly well versed in the hazards of sea travel, and the long voyage to Punt is a situation involving exposure to danger. The rewards of obtaining incense, ebony and other valuable goods clearly outweighed the risks. Such things were also accomplished by the former and following pharaohs, though not well documented. These complications and achievements would indicate that the voyages did not take place solely in the Red Sea, but in the open sea, in the Indian Ocean. The very long distance would explain why so few voyages were made there, unlikely in the Red Sea alone. The inscription on the wall of Deir elBahari “traversing the Great Sea on the Good Way to the Land of the Gods” and from the Papyrus Harris I “They were sent forth into the Great Sea of the inverted water...” depict the route was an ocean (the “Great Sea”) beyond the horizon (the “inverted water”). The colonnade reliefs at Djeser-Djeseru are clearly of crucial importance since they show in great detail its flora and fauna and its inhabitants. The scenes illustrate not only the trade products which the Puntites traded with the Egyptians but also some of the fauna and flora of Punt. The former may be classed as luxury goods of which the most important is incense (ảnti), used widely in Egyptian religious ritual worship. Other goods include ebony, ivory, gold/electrum, cinnamon wood, khesit wood, balsam, resin, tortoise shells and weapons. The fauna depicted include such diverse species as short-horned cows, pig-tailed macaques, one-horned rhinoceros, monkeys, dogs, skins of clouded leopards and a wide variety of fishes are also displayed. The floras have been identified as betel palm tree, ebony tree, styrax tree and cinnamon tree. The huts of the people are built on poles, with ladders giving access to them, made of wickerwork of the same shape and construction. Archaeological evidence is so far somewhat sparse and unless additional evidence turns up, it is unlikely that anyone will ever be able to pinpoint the location of Punt with total certainty. All that one can do is make a hypothesis for its whereabouts with a fair degree of probability, by gathering evidence shaping a compound of observable characteristics (term similar to “phenotypes” in biology). The evidence shall be of genuine proofs strongly or most probably representing the phenotypes. The richer the compound of the phenotypes, the stronger the likelihood of the hypothesis. Relying on this method and after 213
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations gathering evidence, the author makes a hypothesis that the Land of Punt is located in Sumatera, Indonesia. Sumatera Island
Sumatera is an island in western Indonesia, the largest island that is entirely in Indonesia (two larger islands, Kalimantan and Papua, are shared between Indonesia and other countries) and the sixth largest island in the world. The Indian Ocean borders the west, northwest, and southwest sides of it with the island chain “Barrier Islands” of Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, Pagai and Enggano bordering the southwestern coast. On the northeast side the narrow Strait of Malaka separates the island from the Malay Peninsula, an extension of the Eurasian continent. On the southeast the narrow Sunda Strait separates it from Java. The northern tip borders the Andaman Islands, while on the eastern side are the islands of Bangka and Belitung, Karimata Strait and the Java Sea. Sumatera was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit names of Swarnadwīpa (“Island of Gold”) and Swarnabhūmi (“Land of Gold”), because of the gold deposits of the island’s highland. Arab geographers referred to the island as Lamri (Lamuri, Lambri or Ramni) in the 10th to 13th centuries CE, in reference to a kingdom near modern-day Banda Aceh which was the first landfall for traders. Late in the 14th century CE the name Sumatera became popular in reference to the kingdom of Samudra Pasai, which was a rising power until it was replaced by Sultanate of Aceh. Sultan Alauddin Shah of Aceh, on letters written in 1602 addressed to Queen Elizabeth I of England, referred to himself as “king of Aceh and Samudra”. The word itself is from Sanskrit samudra, meaning “gathering together of waters, sea or ocean”. Odoric of Pardenone in the story of his voyage in 1318 mentioned that he sailed to the east of the Coromandel, India, for 20 days, and came to the kingdom Sumoltra. Ibn Bathutah told in the book of Rihlah ila l-Masyriq (“Wandering to the East”) that in 1345 CE he was stopped in the kingdom of Samatrah. In the following century, the name of Samudra, a kingdom in Aceh, was taken by travelers to mention the whole island. European writers in the 19th century CE found that the indigenous inhabitants did not have a name for the island. Many travelers including Ibn Majid, Roteiro, Amerigo Vespucci, Masser, Ruy d’Araujo, Alfonso Albuquerque and Antonio Pigafetta recorded the names: Samatrah, Camatarra, Samatara, Samatra, Camatra, Camatora, Somatra, Samoterra, Samotra, Sumotra, Zamatra and Zamatora. Records of the Dutch and English colonials, since Jan Huygen van Linschoten and Sir Francis Drake 214
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations in the 16th century CE, have always been consistent in the writing of Sumatra (Indonesian: Sumatera).
Figure 74 – Sumatera Island with typical Indian Ocean currents.
Sumatera is the cradle of Malay civilization. A name Bhumi Malayu, written in the Padang Roco Inscription dated 1286 and 1347 CE found in Dharmasraya (central Sumatera), Adityawarman declared himself as the ruler of Malayupura. The Majapahit record, Nagarakretagama dated 1365 CE, mentioned that the land of Malayu was dominated by Majapahit Empire. From these records, the name Malayu seems to be identified with the area around the Batanghari valley from estuarine to hinterland in present-day central-eastern of Sumatera. The people inhabiting the eastern coast of Sumatera and parts of the Malay Peninsula identified themselves as Malay with a common language called the Malay language. After the arrival in the 16th century CE, the Europeans identified the 215
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations native people living on both coasts of the Malaka Strait as Malay people. This term extended to neighboring peoples with similar traits. While searching the ancient culture of Sumatera is very vogue today, the author focuses on the remote islands off the southwestern coast of Sumatera to trace back its culture. The island chain of Andaman, Nicobar, Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, Pagai and Enggano are isolated island facing the Indian Ocean. These islands have similar nature conditions and cultures but Enggano is the most isolated and undeveloped. There is a considerable early traveler literature on Enggano from as early as 1596 CE. The Engganese
The Engganese is a native population occupies the Island of Enggano. Enggano Island is a small island about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Sumatera. There are six villages on the island, which are all located on the island’s only main road, which traverses the island’s northeast coast: Kajaapu, Kaana, Malakoni, Meok, Apoho and Banjarsari. Malakoni, Apoho and Meok have more Engganese natives, and the other villages have larger immigrant populations. There are ferries from Kajaapu and Malakoni to Bengkulu in the Sumatera main island. The name of the island suggests some early contact with Portuguese traders (engano in Portuguese means “mistake”). The earliest published account is that of Cornelis de Houtman. On the 5th of June 1596 four ships under the command of Cornelis de Houtman approached a Figure 75 – Enggano Island. land. It appeared to be an island. Although some crew members tried to go ashore to get fresh supplies, they returned to their ships after seeing some natives who appeared to be very aggressive. In 1602, 1614, 1622 and 1629 other Dutch ships came to Enggano and sometimes succeeded in trading some goods. However, in general the population was not inclined to seek much contact with the visitors. 216
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In 1645, the Dutch colonial administration in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) sent two ships to get slaves from Enggano. In the fierce fighting two Dutch soldiers were killed, but the other soldiers succeeded in capturing 82 people. On the way back to Batavia six of the Engganese died. The fate of the other captives is not known. It is likely that they never returned to Enggano, and died as slaves in Batavia. The expedition was not considered a success, so for a long time the Dutch lost their interest in Enggano. In 1771, the Englishman Charles Miller visited Enggano. His experiences were published in 1778, and translated into Dutch in 1779. Miller succeeded in landing and meeting the indigenous population. He described as follows: “With great difficulty and danger we beat up the whole South-west side of it, without finding any place where we could attempt to land; and we lost two anchors and had very near suffered shipwreck before we found a secure place into which we might run the vessel. At last, however we discovered a spacious harbor at the southeast end of the island and I immediately went into it in the boat, and ordered the vessel to follow me as soon as possible, for it was then a dead calm. We rowed directly into this bay; and as soon as we had got round the point of an island which lay off the harbor, we discovered all the beach covered with naked savages who were all armed with lances and clubs; and twelve canoes all full of them who, till we had passed them, had lain concealed, immediately rushed out upon me, making a horrid noise: this, you may suppose, alarmed us greatly; and as I had only one European and four black soldiers, besides the four lascars that rowed the boat. I thought it best to turn, if possible under the guns of the vessel before I ventured to speak with them.” Eventually, he met these “noble savages” and learned something of their natural, feminist, atheist and property-sharing culture. “They are a tall, well-made people; the men in general are about five feet eight or ten inches high; the women are shorter and more clumsily built. They are of a red color, and have straight, black hair, which the men cut short, but the women let grow long, and roll up in a circle on the top of their heads very neatly. The men go entirely naked, and the women wear nothing more than a very narrow slip of plantain leaf. They seemed to look at every thing about the vessel very attentively; but more from the motive of pilfering than from curiosity, for they watched an opportunity and unshipped the rudder of the boat, and paddled away with it.” R Francis, a trader in coconut oil, stayed on Enggano during the periods 1865 – 1866 and 1868 – 1870. He must have made a deep impression on the Engganese people, for they were still talking about this Francis in the 1930s when the German linguist Hans Kähler visited the island. Italian explorer Elio Modigliani 217
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations visited Enggano between April 25 and July 13, 1891. He detailed the apparently dominant role of women in Enggano culture in L'Isola delle Donne (“The Island of Women”), first published in 1894, and still an important source of information, not only because of the text, but also because of the illustrations. In 1994 those illustrations were greeted with great surprise on Enggano. When Modigliani was on Enggano some villages were still located in the hills. Soon after this, all the Engganese moved to the coastal areas. In fact, in the nineteenth-century the Buginese traders from Sulawesi seemed to have been attracted to Enggano by the large quantities of coconuts. The Dutch Rijksmuseum has an important collection of Enggano artifacts and their publication by Pieter J ter Keurs reproduces Modigliani’s drawings. The population went into severe decline in the 1870s, possibly from disease or disaster. The population figure dropped from 6,420 in 1866 to only 870 in 1884 and after this dramatic decline the population decreased even further (Suzuki 1958, Winkler 1903, Keurs 2011). The Dutch sent medical officers to investigate. Since the island’s highest point is only 281 meters (922 feet) above sea level, it would have been severely affected by the tsunami associated with the Krakatau eruption in 1883, as well as by the massive volcanic debris. The indigenous population never recovered and numbered only about 400 in the early 1960s. Therefore, the Indonesian government uses the island for rehabilitation of juvenile offenders from Java, who perform forced labor, clearing bush and constructing rice fields. As noted above, the population has recovered somewhat since that time. There are five Engganese sub-clans: Kauno, Kaitora, Kaarubi, Kaohoa and Kaaruba. The subdivision of the clans seems to vary (Keurs 2011). Many of these sub-clans, however, no longer exist. This is because people migrated to other islands and married non-Engganese, thus creating an inactive situation for the sub-clans concerned. Especially when Engganese, matrilineal, women married non-Engganese men, usually patrilineal, the sub-clan lost an opportunity for survival; for the children were normally incorporated in the family of the man. The island of Enggano represents a major linguistic and historical puzzle. Its inhabitants are said to be Austronesian speakers, yet their language shows few cognates with mainstream Austronesian vocabulary (Blench 2014). They had no cloth, grew no cereals, but only vegetative crops and lived in beehive-shaped houses on stilts, and quite unlike any peoples in neighboring regions. There is a 218
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations considerable early traveler literature in Dutch cited in the bibliography, but little in the way of ethnographic accounts except Modigliani (1893, 1894). Around the turn of the twentieth century, when missionaries were gearing up to convert the population, the former systems of housing and social organization were in breakdown and it is hard now to reconstruct their exact nature. In recent years Keurs (2006, 2008, 2011) has been the main ethnographer to take an interest in this topic and his internet publication (Keurs undated) includes a summary of what can be extracted from the literature, photographs of remaining items of material culture in European museums and a valuable bibliography. The Rejangese
The Rejangese is a native ethnic group belong to some parts of Bengkulu and South Sumatera Provinces in the southwestern part of Sumatera Island. They occupied some area in an cool mountain slopes of the Barisan mountain range in both sides of Bengkulu and South Sumatera Provinces. They speak the Rejangese language, which is not obviously close to other Malayo-Polynesian languages. McGinn (2009) classified it among the Bidayuh and Melanau languages of Kalimantan. Rejangese is not to be confused with the RejangBaram group of languages spoken in Sarawak and Kalimantan, which are quite different.
Figure 76 – The spread of Rejang culture.
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The Rejangese have an alphabet belongs to a group of scripts known as surat ulu (“upstream script”), which includes Bengkulu, Lembak, Lintang, Lebong and Serawai script variants. It is also sometimes known as Kaganga, after the first three letters, and is related to the Batak and Buginese alphabets. Rejang alphabet is one of the more commonly used indigenous terms to refer to the three main groups of the southern Sumateran
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations scripts: Surat Incung thus refers to the script of the people of Kerinci, Surat Ulu to the script of Lebong, Lembak, Lintang, Pasemah, Rejang and Serawai, and Surat Lampung to the script of Lampung, Abung and Komering. Rejangese is the original Sumaterans, least tainted by later-introduced Malay and Javanese customs (Marsden 1784). The Rejangese have been isolated from the outside world for centuries. They hold a deep appreciation for their history and a keen dissatisfaction for anyone else’s culture. These factors alone make them highly mistrustful and somewhat closed-minded to outsiders. The name Rejang is derived from the words ra and hyang, meaning the noble god (“Hyang”). Ra-hyang can also mean the “God Ra”, the Egyptian sun god. According to the Egyptian tradition, the Land of Punt was referred to as Ta Netjer, the Abode of the Gods and its location is eastward from Egypt, in the direction of the sunrise, the abode of the sun god Ra. The inscriptions on the colonnade walls of Djeser-Djeseru also refer Punt as the “Divine Land”. Basemah Megalithic Culture
The Basemah (or Pasemah) Plateau, tucked away in the Barisan mountain range west of Lahat, southern Sumatera, are famous for the mysterious megalithic monuments that dot the landscape. The stones have been dated back about 3600 years, but little else is known about them or the civilization that carved them. While the museums of Palembang and Jakarta now house the pick of the stones, there are still plenty left in situ.
Figure 77 – The spread of Basemah culture.
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This megalithic site is considered to be one of the most remote and mysterious sites of Southeast Asia. In the area between Lahat and Pagaralam, there are about 26 sites that include chamber tombs, carved boulders and terraced sanctuaries. The structures are a collection of the monumental symbolic culture of the Sumateran. The stone art in this area is unique and consists of heroic figures with dramatic facial
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations expressions. The Basemah people still use these statues as sites for making sacred oaths, and calling upon their ancestors’ spirits for blessing and seeking their protection against natural disasters. The Basemah people are believed to have originated in Kalimantan before migrating to Sumatera and the Basemah Plateau. Today, the Basemah people cluster encompasses the Basemah and several related ethnic groups, centered in the volcanic peak, Mount Dempo. Basemah communities spread from the volcano’s slopes to the west, south and southwest along the Barisan mountain range. The Basemah people live in Figure 78 – One of the megalithic statues South Sumatera Province across parts of made by the Basemah culture. the Lahat Regency and the entire Pagaralam municipality. Some Basemah also live in the South Ogan Komering Ulu Regency and in North Kaur District in Bengkulu Province. Converging Evidence
Comparison of features depicted in the Djeser-Djeseru reliefs with those of the present-day and ancient Engganese, Rejangese, Basemah and the surrounding cultures shows abundant of close matches. Ancient Engganese features are cited from Modigliani’s book and artefact collections in the Dutch Rijksmuseum and Bengkulu Museum. 1) Native Houses
Naville (1898) describes the huts of the Puntite; they are built on poles, with ladders giving access to them, evidently in order to protect the inmates against wild animals. These huts are made of wickerwork, probably of palm-stalks; they are all of the same shape and construction. Modigliani (1894) describes the native Engganese houses are called cacario and differ much from those in Malaysia and other intermediate. The floor is usually made with two or four large pieces of wood, and round cut; the houses of ordinary size ranges from 3 to 4 meters (9.8 to 13.1 feet) in diameter.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
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Figure 79 – Native houses: (a) Punt, Naville (1898); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) Enggano, Modigliani (1894); (d) Enggano, The Rijksmuseum; (e) Enggano, Bengkulu Museum; (f) Nicobar, Modigliani (1894); (g) Enggano, Modigliani (1894); (h) Rejang, Bengkulu Museum; (i) Nias, Dewoz Art Collection; (j) Mentawai.
The Rijksmuseum describes the Engganese houses are very typical. They now no longer exist, the last was demolished in around 1903. This model shows a wooden bird figure attached on the roof. In addition, the narrow doorway clearly visible. The door is not shown. This house model has no central pole. Beehive houses on Enggano were for men and women, and sometimes used for the youngest child of a family. It was too small and uncomfortable, with no opening for fresh air to be used by an extended family. Various beehive houses stood in a circle and thus formed a settlement. The main house was standing in the middle and was slightly larger than the remainder of the houses. House models in the museums in Florence and Jakarta also show this picture. The figures on the lower row, (f) to (j), are developed houses similar to Engganese architecture around the region.
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Figure 80 – Engganese house door and frame: (a) Modigliani (1894); (b) The Rijksmuseum.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 2) Betel Palm Trees
As described by Naville (1898), the native houses of Punt stand under the shade of palms. There are many of these trees grown in Punt as shown on the reliefs of colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru. On a fragment illustrated by Naville, shown a macaque climbing a palm tree, seemingly the same animal and tree in Punt which then bred and cultivated in the Southern Countries.
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Figure 81 – Betel palm tree: (a) Punt, Naville (1898); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) Sumatera; (d) to (f) the corresponding nuts.
The author identifies the palm tress as betel or areca palm trees, among the popular trees in Sumatera and generally the regions in Southeast Asia. Betel or areca palm (Areca catechu) is a species of palm which grows in much of the tropical Pacific, Asia and parts of East Africa, where the later was probably brought by Austronesians. The palm is believed to have originated in the Philippines, but is widespread in cultivation and is considered naturalized in southern China (Guangxi, Hainan, Yunnan), Taiwan, India, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Guinea, many of the islands in the Pacific Ocean, and also in the West Indies. The species is known as pinang or penang in Indonesian and Malaysian, jambi or jambe in Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese and Old Malay. Betel or areca palm is grown for its commercially important seed crop, the betel or areca nut. The color of the young nuts is green and the matures are varieties of yellow, light brown to red. Tanjungpinang and Pangkalpinang cities in Indonesia, Indonesian province of Jambi and Penang Island off the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia are some of the places named after a local name for betel nut. Actually, there are numerous city and areal names in Indonesia and Malaysia 223
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations using the words pinang or jambe. This shows how important betel nut in the Austronesian civilization, especially in the modern day Indonesia and Malaysia. The betel nut is also popular for chewing throughout some Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, China (mainly Hunan), Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, India and the Pacific, notably Papua New Guinea, where it is very popular. Chewing betel nut is quite popular among working classes in Taiwan. The betel palm is also used as a landscaping species. Betel log climbing contest (lomba panjat pinang) is the most popular attraction to celebrate the Independence Day of the Republic of Indonesia. The habitat of the Rejang people was named Pinang Belapis (literally means “layered betel trees”), now the name of a sub-district. Rejang people allegedly have similar culture with the Egyptian as will be discussed here afterwards. 3) Styrax Trees
The inscriptions on the colonnade reliefs at Djeser-Djeseru mention (Edwards 1891): “... They will take ảnti as much as they like. They will load their ships to the satisfaction of their hearts with trees of green [ie fresh] ảnti, and all the good things of the land.” “The loading of the cargo-boats with great quantities of marvels of the land of Punt, with all the good woods of the divine land, heaps of gum of ảnti, and trees of green ảnti ...” “... in the harbors of ảnti of Punt ...” “these are heaps of green (fresh) ảnti in great number; the measuring of green ảnti in great quantity to Amon, the lord of the thrones of the two lands, from the marvels of the Land of Punt, and the good things of the Divine Land” “Trees of green ảnti thirty-one, brought among the marvels of Punt to the Majesty of this god, Amon Ra, the lord of the throne of the two lands; never was such thing seen since the world was.” Ảnti
(Naville, 1898), anå (Mariette, 1877) or 'ntyw (some other writers) including the trees with the same name is believed by the author to be styrax trees and benzoin resin.
Naville (1898) and Edwards (1891) describes with so many words of ảnti or benzoin found in the inscriptions on the colonnade reliefs at Djeser-Djeseru. Ảnti (benzoin) is classed as luxury goods used widely in Egyptian religious ritual 224
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations worship. The main purpose of the Hatshepsut’s expedition to the Land of Punt is the exploration of ảnti. The ảnti (styrax), of which there were as many as fourteen different sorts, was the most important product of Punt. These trees were collected by Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt; she brought back five shiploads of goodies, including flora and fauna, and then cultivated in the Garden of Amon. Ảnti resin from the re-cultivation in the Southern Countries then became the main product of the area. It is believed that the intact roots discovered at Djeser-Djeseru were from ảnti trees, which once decorated the front façade of the temple.
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(f) (g) (h) (i) (j) Figure 82 – Styrax trees: (a) Punt, Naville (1898); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) at Gunungpadang pyramid site; (d) and (e) forests in Sumatera; (f) Styrax benzoin; (g) sap; (h) and (i) resins; (j) resin burnt by a shaman.
Styrax benzoin was used by the ancient Egyptians in the art of perfumery and incense. The Apothecary of Shemot (Book of Exodus) would have been familiar with its aromatic uses. Styrax benzoin has a history steeped in antiquity and was once employed as an incense in Egypt. All the compounds identified in benzoin resin were detected in an archaeological organic residue from an Egyptian ceramic censer, thus proving that this resin was used as one of the components of the mixture of organic materials burned as incense in ancient Egypt (Modugnoa et al 2006). An ancient Egyptian perfume formula (1200 BCE) contained benzoin as one of its chief ingredients (Keville et al undated). Ảnti
or anå is probably the same incense as onycha (Greek: ονυξ), one of the components of the consecrated Ketoret (incense) which appears in the Torah Book of Exodus (Exodus 30:34-36) and was used in the Jerusalem’s Solomon Temple. The internationally renowned Bible scholar Bochart stated, at one point in his research, that onycha was actually benzoin, a gum-resin from the Styrax sp 225
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations (Abrahams 1979). Abrahams states that the use of benzoin in the biblical incense is not inconceivable since Syro-Arabian tribes maintained extensive trade routes prior to Hellenism. Styrax benzoin was available via import to the biblical lands during the Old Testament era. Herodotus of Halicarnassus in the 5th century BCE indicates that different kinds of styrax resins were traded. The name “benzoin” is probably derived from Arabic lubān jāwī (لبان جاوي, “Javan frankincense”); compare the mid-eastern terms gum benjamin and benjoin. The Hindustanis refer to benzoin as lobanee or luban. The word “storax” is an alteration of the Late Latin styrax. In the Orphic Hymns it is stórakas (στόρακας) or stóraka (στόρακα). The original word shecheleth was replaced with onycha by the Septuagint translation. Onycha in turn is derived from the onyx stone meaning “fingernail”. Another writer says that the Hebrew shecheleth identifies with the Syriac shehelta which is translated as “a tear or distillation” and that the context and the etymology seem to require the gum of some aromatic plant. The Book of Ecclesiasticus lists storax as one of the ingredients when alluding to the sacred incense of the biblical Tabernacle. The Hindustanis use benzoin to burn in their temples – a circumstance strongly in favor of the hypothesis that benzoin is part of the incense formula of Exodus. Benzoin has long been stuff of legend in Southeast Asia. Benzoin resin is locally known as kemenyan in Malay from Ancient Malay root kamanyang, or menyan in Java and Bali. The Arab account refers to Java, lubān jāwī (“Javan frankincense”), where menyan is the original word. If we remove the prefixes ke and me then the root is nyan. Also, the word is sometimes abbreviated to nyan. A place named Trunyan in Bali is from the words taru-nyan mean “styrax tree” that a lot grow there. The root word nyan is phonetically in close resemblance with the inscribed word ảnti (Naville 1898), anå (Mariette 1877) or 'ntyw (some other writers) in Egypt. Benzoin resin is produced by several species of styrax trees. It is used as a component in incenses, perfumes and medicines. In Southeast Asia, two types of this resin are produced: Siam benzoin, extracted from Styrax tonkinensis in Laos, Vietnam and southern China; and Sumateran benzoin, extracted from Styrax paralleloneurum and Styrax benzoin in Sumatera. Sumateran benzoin is a resin produced by styrax trees, widely managed in forest gardens in the highlands of Sumatera and scattered in the whole island. The styrax leaves are rounded to elongated oval-shaped, measuring 4 – 15 cm long and 5 – 7.5 cm wide, in close resemblance to those on the colonnade reliefs at Djeser-Djeseru. 226
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Styrax benzoin is a species of tree native to Sumatera in Indonesia. Common names for the tree include gum benjamin tree, loban (in Arabic), kemenyan (in Indonesia and Malaysia), onycha and Sumateran benzoin tree. It is a common member of the forests of Sumatera, where it grows to about 24 to 48 meters in maximum height. Styrax benzoin is cultivated in Sumatera as a main source of benzoin resin in Indonesia. Benzoin is misleadingly called frankincense, a term usually applied to the resinous exudate from Boswellia spp of Arabia and Africa. It is possible that this use of the term frankincense derives from benzoin of Indonesian origin that was traded by the Arabs, who regarded it as a form of frankincense, at least 700 years ago. In the 9th century, both types of benzoin resin were already being traded in China and used as components of traditional medicine (Sumateran benzoin) and perfumes (Siam benzoin). Arab traders were instrumental in the expansion of its trade, as it was fast becoming one of the most expensive trade products from the East. Arab geographical texts from the 9th century onwards refer to Fansur and Bâlûs as the sources of high quality grades of camphor and benzoin. There is evidence to suggest that, in the tenth century, Arab merchants visited Fansur and Bâlûs via Ceylon, in trading expeditions which were specifically aimed at purchasing the region’s famous camphor and benzoin. Fansur is identified as Pancur and Bâlûs is Barus, two regions in the southwest coast of Sumatera. Some authors write that Pancur was allegedly Punt. Benzoin resin has been extracted for centuries from wild trees that occur naturally on Sumatera, and as the market expanded local people started to plant benzoin trees in their gardens. It is not clear when cultivation began but it has existed for at least 200 years. The management system was described in Dutch reports in the late 19th century, and today’s practice does not differ much from the one reported then. Today, Sumateran benzoin has the bigger modern market share of around 4,000 tons per year compared to 70 tons for Siam benzoin (Katz et al 2002), though it is less valued on the international market. Bukit Kemenyan in Bengkulu, from its name meaning “the hill of benzoin” was a styrax forest. This place is in the area of Rejang people which allegedly has similar culture with the Egyptians as will be discussed here afterwards. 227
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 4) Ebony Trees
As described by Naville (1898) and Edwards (1891), the Egyptians were trading ebony wood from Punt. The colonnade reliefs at Djeser-Djeseru show the Egyptians felling branches of ebony-trees (as in the figure below), with inscription “cutting ebony in great quantity” (Edwards 1891), the wood being carried to the ships by the negroes. The inscribed habni (Naville, 1898) generally translates “ebony”. The ships were loaded with ebony. Beginning at the end of the long train which marches towards the queen, the Puntites were carrying ebony. Piles of ebony wood in the Garden of Amon were among the trading goods.
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Figure 83 – Ebony trees: (a) Punt, Naville (1898); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) to (g) various kinds of ebony trees found in Indonesia; (h) to (j) ebony woods.
Ebony is a dense black wood, most commonly yielded by several different species in the genus Diospyros. The majority are native to the tropics, with only a few species extending into temperate regions. Ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely-textured and has a very smooth finish when polished, making it valuable as an ornamental wood. Southeast Asian ebonies include more than 65 species. Ebony has a long history of use, with carved pieces having been found in Ancient Egyptian tombs. By the end of the 16th century, fine cabinets for the luxury trade were made of ebony in Antwerp. The wood’s dense hardness lent itself to refined moldings framing finely detailed pictorial panels with carving in very low relief (bas-relief), usually of allegorical subjects, or with scenes taken from classical or Christian history. Within a short time, such cabinets were also
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations being made in Paris, where their makers became known as ébénistes, which remains the French term for a cabinetmaker. 5) Cinnamon Wood
The inscription on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru describe that cinnamon wood is the product of Punt. The inscribed tesheps (Naville 1898) is translated by Naville as cinnamon wood. The inscribed khesyt (Naville 1898) can probably mean cassia wood.
(a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 84 – Cinnamon: (a) trees in Kerinci, Sumatera; (b) wood transported by people; (c) drying barks; (d) barks.
Cinnamon or cassia wood is obtained from several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that the bark is used in both sweet and savory foods. While Cinnamomum verum is sometimes considered to be “true cinnamon”, most cinnamon in international commerce is derived from related species, which are also referred to as “cassia” to distinguish them from “true cinnamon”. Cinnamon is the name for perhaps a dozen species of trees and the commercial spice products that some of them produce. All are members of the genus Cinnamomum in the family Lauraceae. Cinnamon was so highly prized among ancient nations that it was regarded as a gift fit for monarchs and even for a god: a fine inscription records the gift of cinnamon and cassia to the temple of Apollo at Miletus. The Greeks used kásia or malabathron to flavor wine, together with absinth wormwood (Artemisia absinthium). While Theophrastus (ca 371 – ca 287 BCE) gives a good account of the plants, he describes a curious method for harvesting: worms eat away the wood and leave the bark behind. Egyptian recipes for kyphi, an aromatic used for burning, included cinnamon and cassia from Hellenistic times onward. The gifts of Hellenistic rulers to temples sometimes included cassia and cinnamon as well as incense, myrrh and Indian incense (kostos), so one might conclude that the Greeks used it for similar purposes. Through the Middle Ages, the source of cinnamon was a mystery to the Western world. From reading Latin writers who quoted Herodotus, Europeans 229
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations had learned that cinnamon came up the Red Sea to the trading ports of Egypt, but where it came from was less than clear. When the Sieur de Joinville accompanied his king to Egypt on crusade in 1248 CE, he reported – and believed – what he had been told: that cinnamon was fished up in nets at the source of the Nile out at the edge of the world (ie the Land of Punt). By way of background, cinnamon is grown primarily in Indonesia, Vietnam and China, while its rarer and more expensive relative, Ceylon cinnamon, comes from Sri Lanka. 85% of the cinnamon in today’s world market originates from Indonesia, in great measure originates from central Sumatera, an area also better known as Kerinci. The fertile soils of the slopes of the Kerinci high valley with abundant rainfall are widely grows cinnamon trees producing high quality cinnamon. 6) Camphor
Camphor laurel tree (Cinnamomum camphora) is a tree that produces camphor. Cinnamomum camphora is a large evergreen tree found in Asia (particularly in Sumatera and Kalimantan). Camphor is also found in the kapur tree (Dryobalanops sp), a tall timber tree from the same region.
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Figure 85 – Camphor: (a) tree; (b) leaves and seeds; (c) crystal.
The fragrant camphor tree and its products, such as camphor oil, have been coveted since ancient times. Having a rich history of traditional use, it was particularly used as a fumigant during the era of the Black Death and considered as a valuable ingredient in both perfume and embalming fluid in Ancient Egypt and Babylon. The word camphor derives from the French word camphre, itself from Medieval Latin camfora, from Arabic kafur, from Sanskrit, कपरूर् म ् (karpūram). The term ultimately was derived from Old Malay kapur barus which means “the chalk of Barus”. Barus was the name of an ancient port located near modern Sibolga city on the western coast of Sumatera (today North Sumatera Province, Indonesia). This port was initially built prior to the Indian-Batak trade in camphor, benzoin 230
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations and spices. Traders from India, East Asia and the Middle East would use the term kapur barus to buy the dried extracted ooze of camphor laurel trees (Cinnamonum camphora) from the local Batak tribesmen; the camphor tree itself is endemic to that region. In the proto-Malay-Austronesian language, it is also known as kapur barus. Even now, the local tribespeople and Indonesians in general refer to aromatic naphthalene balls and moth balls as kapur barus. The Quran Surah Al-Insan includes the word kafur ( )كافورrecommended to be mixed into drinks, which indicates that camphor has been known in Arabia at that time. 7) Balsam
An inscription on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru describes that balsam is the product of Punt. The inscribed åhemtu (Naville 1898) is translated by Naville as balsam. Åhemtu probably also means camphor, as camphor is one of the ingredients to concoct balsam. Balsam is a solution of plant-specific resins in plant-specific solvents (essential oils). Such resins can include resin acids, esters or alcohols. The exudate is a mobile to highly viscous liquid and often contains crystallized resin particles. Over time and as a result of other influences the exudate loses its liquidizing components or gets chemically converted into a solid material (ie by autoxidation). Camphor is considered as a valuable ingredient in the embalming fluid in Ancient Egypt and Babylon. Some authors require balsams to contain benzoic or cinnamic acid or their esters. As mention above, this material are numerous in Sumatera. 8) Nutmeg oil
The corpus delicti – a plain flacon from among the possessions of Pharaoh Hatshepsut – contained large amounts of palm and nutmeg oil (Wiedenfeld et al 2011). Nutmeg and its sister-spice mace are both products of the nutmeg tree, derived from several species of tree in the genus Myristica. The genus comprises about 100 species found throughout the tropics, especially in the Malayan region; but of these, the most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Maluku of Indonesia which contains enough of an aromatic essential oil to make it valuable for 231
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations cultivation. Nutmeg is the dried seed of the plant; mace is the dried aril surrounding the shell enclosing the seed. Several other commercial products are also produced from the trees, including essential oils, extracted oleoresins and nutmeg butter.
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Figure 86 – Nutmeg: (a) and (b) trees; (c) fruits; (d) seeds; (e) oil.
Nutmeg is also cultivated on Penang Island in Malaysia, in the Caribbean, especially in Grenada, and in Kerala, a state formerly known as Malabar in ancient writings as the hub of spice trading, in southern India. Other species used to adulterate the spice include Papuan nutmeg Myristica argentea from New Guinea, and Myristica malabarica from India. In the 17th-century work Hortus Botanicus Malabaricus, Hendrik van Rheede records that Indians learned the usage of nutmeg from the Indonesians through ancient trade routes. 9) Short-horned Cows
As described by Naville (1898) and Edwards (1891), the Egyptians were also trading short-horned cattle from Punt. From Naville’s illustration and the reliefs at Djeser-Djeseru, the cattle are identified as cows. These are much different with the long-horned cattle, also on the reliefs, from the Southern Countries, viz the regions of the Upper Nile which are more like sanga cattle. Southeast Asian name for cow is banteng or tembadau (wild), sapi or lembu (domesticated). Banteng (Bos javanicus) is a species of wild cattle found in Southeast Asia. Banteng have been domesticated in several places in Southeast Asia, and there are around 1.5 million domestic banteng, which are called Balinese cow (Bos javanicus domesticus), sapi or lembu. These animals have high economic value in the region and are used as working animals and for their meat. Banteng have also been introduced to Northern Australia, where they have established stable feral populations. In their myth, cow is regarded as a divine animal in the archipelago. Batara Guru having the highest status of god in the upper world is symbolized as always rides a divine cow, named Lembu Andini. 232
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Figure 87 – Short-horned cows: (a) to (f) Punt, Naville (1898) and Punt, Djeser-Djeseru intermittent; (g) Sumatera; (h) Madura; (i) Bali; (j) Java.
The following subspecies are recognized: Javan banteng (Bos javanicus javanicus), found in Java and Bali, the males are black and females are buff. Kalimantan banteng (Bos javanicus lowi), from Kalimantan, they are smaller than the Javan banteng and the horns are steeper; bulls are chocolate-brown. Burmese banteng (Bos javanicus birmanicus), in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, these males and females are usually buff, but in Cambodia, 20% of the bulls are blackish, and on the Malayan Peninsula in Thailand, most of the bulls are black. Bos palaesondaicus occurred on Pleistocene Java and belongs to the Bovinae subfamily. It has been described by the Dutch paleoanthropologist Eugène Dubois in 1908. The holotype of Bos palaesondaicus is a skull from Trinil. This species is the likely the ancestor to the banteng (Bos javanicus). Zebu (Bos primigenius indicus or Bos indicus or Bos taurus indicus), sometimes known as indicine cattle, humped cattle or brahman, is a species or sub-species of domestic cattle originating in South Asia. Zebus are characterized by a fatty hump on their shoulders, a large dewlap and sometimes drooping ears. Zebu cattle are thought to be derived from Asian aurochs, sometimes regarded as a subspecies, Bos primigenius namadicus. Wild Asian aurochs disappeared during the time of the Indus Valley Civilization from its range in the Indus basin and other parts of the South Asia possibly due to inter-breeding with domestic zebu and resultant fragmentation of wild populations due to loss of habitat (Rangarajan 2001). Javan and Sumateran cows are believed to be derived from zebu (the words sapi, lembu and zebu are believed from the same origin). Archaeological evidence 233
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations suggest that the species were present in Egypt around 2000 BCE, almost coincidence with the Egyptian expeditions to Punt. It becomes an indication that the Punt expeditions, in which cow is among the trading animals, were towards the East through Indian Ocean. 10) Ponies
The inscriptions on the colonnade reliefs at Djeser-Djeseru mention “The great ass that carries his wife”, a translation by Naville (1898), referring to an equus. Remains of the inscription show that an elephant and a horse were among the animals embarked from Punt for the gratification of Hatshepsut.
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Figure 88 – Ponies: (a) Punt, Mariette (1877); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) West Sumatera; (d) Batak; (e) Java; (f) Sumba and Sumbawa; (g) Flores; (h) Sandalwood (Sumba).
The equus of Punt, one was for carrying the obese lady Ati and the other for transporting goods, has elongated back, slim belly, fine limbs, narrow chest and frame, long and thin neck, fine head with elongated, taper and straight profile; and small eyes which resembles a pony rather than an ass, except its ears are large and long. Its height is about 1 meter (3.3 feet), a little bit shorter than the Indonesian ponies which are around 1.2 meters (3.9 feet). The different breeds of native Indonesian horses are slender, but still strong and sturdy, so they deserve to be called ponies than horses. The ponies are thought to have descended from Mongolian Horse and Arabian blood or ancient Chinese stock. In general, they are well-conformed, and most of their faults are partly to blame on the poor forage to which they have access. The only other breed of the country which is of better quality is the Sandalwood Pony.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The ponies have a fine head or rather heavy with a straight or slightly convex profile. The neck is long for some breeds but short for the others, muscular and thin, the withers are low to prominent. The chest and frame are narrow, the back is usually long, and the quarters sloping. The legs are fine but tough with good hooves. They usually average about 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) but may stand up to 1.3 meters (4.3 feet), and are generally brown, but can be any colors. The ponies have continually been infused with additional bloods, mostly Arabian to improve their quality, so that it can be expected that the indigenous breeds were slenderer and shorter than what we can see now. So were the ears just possible larger and longer. Pony is the mascot of Bengkulu City, shown as a statue named Patung Kuda Kerdil (means the statue of pigmy horse, or pony) located at the city center. 11) Pig-tailed Macaques
The reliefs on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru show macaques, first on the decks of the laden ships and the others in the long train which marches towards the queen. On a fragment illustrated by Naville, shown a macaque climbing a palm tree, seemingly in the southern countries where they were breeded there. The other fragment of the upper register of the reliefs shows a macaque holding her baby. The inscriptions describe them as ånåu (Naville 1898) which generally translates “apes”.
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Figure 89 – Pig-tailed macaques: (a) Punt, Naville (1898); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) Siberut; (d) Sumatera; (e) Kalimantan; (f) Sabah; (g) Thailand; (h) Pagai; (i) Cambodia; (j) used for picking coconuts in Sumatera.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Pig-tailed macaques are found in the southern half of the Malay Peninsula (only just extending into southernmost Thailand), Kalimantan, Sumatera and Bangka Island, classified as “southern pig-tailed macaque” (Macaca nemestrina), and in Pagai Islands, Siberut Island, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, classified as “northern pig-tailed macaque” (Macaca leonina). The local name in Indonesian and Malaysian is beruk. Pig-tailed macaques live in elevations starting at sea level and ranging to above 2,000 m (6,560 feet). They live in forests, mostly rainforests and swamps. They prefer dense, humid rainforest. Within a group or colony, macaques like to go down to the ground to look for fell fruits. Sometimes they go to the river or lake to drink and play. The new master childbirth, sometimes seen carrying her baby. While the young macaques sometimes look up and down the tree and playing chase. Macaques are usually dare to approach human and can be friends of men. In the area of Pariaman, West Sumatera, macaques are taught to help people picking coconuts. In 2010, a genetic study was conducted on the mummified remains of baboons that were supposedly brought back from Punt by the ancient Egyptians. Led by a research team from the Egyptian Museum and the University of California, the scientists used oxygen isotope analysis to examine hairs from two baboon mummies that had been preserved in the British Museum. One of the baboons had distorted isotopic data, so the other’s oxygen isotope values were compared to those of modern-day baboon specimens from regions of interest. The researchers found that the mummies most closely matched modern specimens seen in Eritrea and Ethiopia as opposed to those in neighboring Somalia. However, this study has not proved anything for the following reasons. The researchers were only able to identify the origin of the baboon from the Valley of the Kings. The other baboon, from Thebes, appears to have spent some time living in Egypt as an exotic pet. While it was living in Egypt, and consuming the local diet, its oxygen isotope value changed. That change means that researchers could not tell where it was from. Therefore, isotopic signature could be identified only from one baboon and the localization is still very vague. There is a famous legend among the Rejangese which tells a story of a white pigtailed macaque (beruk putih). Rejang people allegedly have similar culture with the Egyptian as will be discussed here afterwards.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 12) One-horned Rhinoceros
Two fragments of the upper register of the reliefs on the colonnade at DjeserDjeseru show a one-horned rhinoceros in Punt. Naville (1898) argues that just possible the horns of the rhinoceros are among the products of Punt, bearing the name which generally translates “ivory”. On the relief, the objects called “ivory”, have a shape much more like rhinoceros horns than elephant tusks. However, the author argues that the objects in question are buffalo or cow horns, as will be described hereinafter.
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Figure 90 – One-horned rhinoceros: (a) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (b) Java; (c) Sumatera; (d) India; (e) Vietnam, declared extinct in 2011.
One-horned rhinoceros in Southeast Asia is known as Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus), Sunda rhinoceros or lesser one-horned rhinoceros. Once the most widespread of Asian rhinoceroses, the Javan rhinoceros ranged from the islands of Java and Sumatera, throughout Southeast Asia, and into India and China. The species is critically endangered, with only one known population in the wild, and no individuals in captivity. It is possibly the rarest large mammal on earth, with a population of as few as 58 to 61 in Ujung Kulon National Park at the western tip of Java in Indonesia. A second population in Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam was confirmed as extinct in 2011. The decline of the Javan rhinoceros is attributed to poaching, primarily for their horns, which are highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine. In the same family, the Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), also called the greater one-horned rhinoceros and great Indian rhinoceros, is a rhinoceros native to the Indian subcontinent. It once ranged throughout the entire stretch of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, but excessive hunting and agricultural development reduced their range drastically to 11 sites in northern India and southern Nepal. There is a legend among the Rejangese which tells a story about a man named Si Pahit Lidah (literally means “bitter tongue”) meeting with a group of rhinoceros, that one of them became a stone now called Batu Badak (rhinoceros stone) 237
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations because of his magic. Rejang people allegedly have similar culture with the Egyptians as will be discussed here afterwards. 13) Dogs
The reliefs on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru and a fragment illustrated by Naville show native dogs roaming around the houses and garden or guided. The inscriptions describe dogs as being the product of Punt.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) Figure 91 – Dogs: (a) and (b) Punt, Naville (1898); (c) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (d) and (e) ajag, native Southeast Asian dog.
Ajag (Cuon alpinus javanicus or Cuon alpinus sumatrensis) also known as the Asiatic wild dog is a canid native to Southeast Asia. The species is found on the islands of Sumatera and Java, inhabits mainly in mountainous areas and forests. It is medium in size with reddish brown fur, highlights along the lower neck from the lower chin to the front end of belly. The tail is long and heavy with blackish fur. Peter Savolainen of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden (2015) and Ya-Ping Zhang of the Kunming Institute of Zoology in China (2015) suggest that humans first domesticated dogs in Southeast Asia 33,000 years ago, and that about 15,000 years ago a subset of dog ancestors began to migrate toward the Middle East and Africa. Their movement was likely inspired by that of their human companions, but it’s also possible that they began their journey independently. One possible motivating factor could have been melting glaciers, which started retreating approximately 19,000 years back. It wasn’t until 5,000 years after they first began spreading out from Southeast Asia that dogs are thought to have reached Europe. Before finally making their way to the Americas, one of these groups doubled-back to Asia where they interbred with dogs that had migrated to northern China. If only more of today’s pets were that active.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 14) Clouded Leopards
The inscription on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru describes that leopard skins are the product of Punt. The inscribed ånemu nu åbyu (Naville 1898) generally translates “leopard skins”. The reliefs show a heap of leopard skins which Mariette and Duemichen illustrated them as clouded type but Naville did not. A fragment illustrated by Naville shows a roaring leopard in Punt.
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Figure 92 – Clouded leopards: (a) skins, Mariette (1877); (b) Punt, Naville (1898); (c) Sumatera; (d) Kalimantan; (e) Java.
Clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is found from the Himalayan foothills through mainland Southeast Asia into China. The Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) found in Sumatera and Kalimantan is genetically distinct and has been considered a separate species since 2006. The Sunda clouded leopard is the largest cat in Kalimantan, and has a stocky build. Its tail can grow to be as long as its body, aiding balance. Its coat is marked with irregularly-shaped, darkedged ovals which are said to be shaped like clouds, hence its common name. The Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas) is a leopard subspecies confined to the Indonesian island of Java, craniometrically distinct from leopards from the rest of Asia, and are a distinct taxon that split off from other Asian leopards hundreds of thousands of years ago. 15) Ivories or Horns
The inscriptions on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru describe that ivory is the product of Punt. The inscribed uåb (Naville 1898) or abw generally translates “ivory”. The reliefs show stacks of ivory loaded on the ship and in the Garden of Amon. Remains of the inscription show that an elephant and a horse were among the animals embarked from Punt for the gratification of Hatshepsut.
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Figure 93 – Elephants: (a) and (b) Puntite ivory, Naville (1898); (c) and (d) Sumatera; (e) Kalimantan.
Two of the four sub species of Asian elephants are found in Indonesia and Malaysia. The Sumateran elephant is found on the island of Sumatera, and the Kalimantan elephant on the island of Kalimantan. In general, Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants and have the highest body point on the head. The tip of their trunk has one finger-like process. Their back is convex or level. Females are usually smaller than males, and have short or no tusks. The Sumateran elephant (Elephas maximus Sumateranus) is one of three recognized subspecies of the Asian elephant, and native to the Indonesia island of Sumatera. The Kalimantan elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis), also called the Kalimantan pygmy elephant, inhabits northeastern Kalimantan. It has become commonplace to refer to Kalimantan elephants as a ‘pygmy’ subspecies. But adult elephants of Sabah of both genders are similar in height to their counterparts in Peninsular Malaysia. There was no significant difference in any of the characters between the two captive populations. The now extinct Java elephant (Elephas maximus sondaicus) once inhabited Java is identical to the Kalimantan elephant. The Sumateran forests abounding with elephants, ivory is consequently found in abundance, and is carried both to the China and Europe markets. The animals themselves were formerly the objects of a considerable traffic from Achin, Afghanistan to the coast of Coromandel, and vessels were built expressly for their transport. One of the habitats of Sumateran elephant is in Seblat, southeast Sumatera, within the area of Kerinci-Seblat National Park. This place is in the area of Rejang people which allegedly has similar culture with the Egyptians as will be discussed here afterwards. Naville (1898) argues that just possible the horns of the rhinoceros are among the products of Punt, bearing the name which generally translates “ivory”. But the author argues that they are cow or buffalo horns because they can be made 240
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations into ornaments and other valuables. It is unknown that rhino horn was used as medicines in Egypt. The reliefs on the colonnade wall of Djeser-Djeseru show figures which are more likely cow or buffalo horns rather than elephant tusks nor rhino horns.
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Figure 94 – Horns: (a) and (b) Puntite ivories/horns, Naville (1898); (c) and (d) inscriptions on cow/buffalo horns, Kerinci, Sumatera; (e) buffalo.
Buffalo is one of the animals of greatest economic and religious value used as a sacrificial victim in the Southeast Asia, Indian sub-continent and southern China. Buffalos are also commonly used to plough the rice fields, to prepare the soil for planting with handmade wooden plows, since the ancient time in Southeast Asia. A characteristic of Southeast Asian houses is the forked horn on the roof, which is considered to be a symbol of the buffalo, regarded throughout the region as a link between heaven and this world. The most famous stilt houses of Indonesia are those of the Dayak in Kalimantan, the Minangkabau and Batak in Sumatera, and the Toraja in Sulawesi. 16) Monkeys
The inscription on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru describe that monkeys are the product of Punt. The inscribed ķefu (Naville 1898) generally translates “monkey”. Fragments illustrated by Naville shows figures of monkeys.
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Figure 95 – Monkeys: (a) Punt, Naville (1898); (b) lutung putih (Sumatera dan Kalimantan); (c) Javan lutung; (d) Sumateran lutung; (e) Javan slow loris.
There are more than 200 primate (apes and monkeys) species in the world, 40 species or 25% of which live in Indonesia. Unfortunately, 70% of Indonesian primates are threatened by extinction due to habitat loss and degradation and 241
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations also the poaching for trade. Every year, thousands primate from various species are caught from the wild to be traded as pets or for meat consumption. The primates poached for their meat include Javan langur (Trachypithecus auratus), long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis), Sumateran langur (Presbytis thomasi, Presbytis melalophos), and the pig-tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina, Macaca leonina). The meats of these primates are falsely believed to have healing properties, for example to cure asthma. Most primates in Indonesia have been protected by law meaning that the trade and ownership is illegal. 17) Turtles and Tortoises
The reliefs on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru show lines of water in which fishes, turtle and tortoise are swimming. Things under the tusks in the shade of the trees is a substance called kash (Naville 1898), the meaning of which is doubtful, but Naville considers being tortoise-shell judging from the determinative.
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Figure 96 – Turtles and tortoises: (a) to (c) and (f) to (h) Puntite turtle, tortoise and shells, Mariette (1877) and Djeser-Djeseru; (d) Asian box turtle; (e) Asian forest tortoise; (i) Malaysian giant turtle; (j) tortoise shell.
Indonesia is a country which rich of freshwater turtles, tortoises and terrapins species. Most of them are facing extinction due to habitat loss, hunting and human consumption. Among the endangered are Southeast Asian narrowheaded softshell turtle (Chitra chitra), southern river terrapin (Batagur affinis), painted terrapin (Batagur borneoensis), Roti island snake-necked turtle (Chelodina mccordi), Sulawesi forest turtle (Leucocephalon yuwonoi), Cantor’s giant softshell turtle (Pelochelys cantorii), Asian forest tortoises (Manouria emys emys), and spiny turtle (Heosemys spinosa). 242
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Asian box turtles are turtles of the genus Cuora in the family Geoemydidae. There are about 12 species. The keeled box turtle (Pyxidea mouhotii syn Cuora mouhotii) is often included in this genus, or separated in the monotypic genus Pyxidea. Genus Cuora is distributed from China to Indonesia and the Philippines. Asian forest tortoise (Manouria emys), also known as Asian brown tortoise, is a species of tortoise found in India (Assam), Bangladesh, Burma (or Myanmar), Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia (Sumatera, Kalimantan). Malaysian giant turtle or Kalimantan river turtle (Orlitia borneensis) is a species of turtles in the Bataguridae family found in Indonesia and Malaysia. It is monotypic within the genus Orlitia. The Southeast Asian archipelago with its medicines, spices and aromatic substances, with precious timbers and tortoise shell was an important link in the ancient far-reaching trade network, interconnecting continents. An ancient Roman account, Taprobana, the present-day Kalimantan Island, produces pearls, transparent stones, muslins and tortoise shell. 18) Fishes
The reliefs on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru show lines of water in which fishes, turtle and tortoise are swimming. All those fishes, along with other marine creatures such as spiny lobster and squid, are clearly recognizable as species that inhabit the Southeast Asian seas and oceans. The engraved striated frogfish (Figure 98) is a tropical fish mainly found in Indian and Pacific Oceans coral reefs.
Figure 97 – Fishes and other marine creatures of the Punt (Mariette 1877).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Fisheries are integral to the way of life of many Southeast Asians. Twelve countries bordering on the region are all traditionally fishing nations though the magnitude of fishing effort varies from one to the other. They are Myanmar, Burma, China, including the mainland and Taiwan Province, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Cambodia, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The surface sea current in the region changes its direction completely in accordance with the two monsoon seasons, with the exception of the Malaka Strait where waters flow always in a northerly direction, although the intensity varies according to the season. These are the distinctions in the environmental characteristics of the region that determine the species and ecological features of the resources. The region-specific features of the resources, which have been derived from the above-mentioned environment in the region, are the multispecies nature of fish community; the fast growing and early maturing of the individual fish with relatively Figure 98 – Striated frogfish short life span; end the multiple or almost all engraved at Djeser-Djeseru. This fish year-round prolonged spawning. species is tropics mainly found in Indian and Pacific Oceans coral reefs.
The region is also characterized by the abundant distribution of coral reefs, especially in the western-most and eastern parts, while mangroves are numerous where there is substantial discharge of fresh water. The Coral Triangle is in the six Indo-Pacific countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste. Southeast Asia has a coastline of 173,000 kilometers and a sea area of over 4.4 million square kilometers (UNESCAP 2006). Southeast Asia has an estimated 2,500 fish species (ASEAN 2002). The coastal countries in the region are significant producers of fish. The Coral Triangle harbors 600 species of coral and more than 1,300 reef-associated fish species (ASEAN 2013). 19) Precious Metal
Gold from Punt is recorded as having been in Egypt as early as the time of Pharaoh Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty. The Fifth Dynasty Pharaoh Sahure’s expedition also brought back electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver, among other items. 244
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Figure 99 – Gold: (a) and (b) Punt, Naville (1898); (c) Lebongdonok ancient mine (Sumatera); (d) Sriwijaya traditional costume (Sumatera).
The inscriptions on the colonnade at Djeser-Djeseru mention precious metals including gold are the product of Punt. Several gold rings are shown on the reliefs. Naville describes the inscription as rings and boxes full of the metal åsem, ie the Greek electrum, also called in Egyptian papyri åsemos, an alloy of gold and silver. The reliefs show tributes brought by the people of Punt consist of gold in rings, among other items. The sons of Parehu, one of them carries a bowl of gold-dust. Ancient Chinese and Indian manuscripts speak of unbelievable gold treasures to be found in various parts of Southeast Asia. One of these areas was known by its Sanskrit name of Suvarnadvipa (“Island of Gold”), which according to some scholars refers to Sumatera, although others think that this name may correspond to a larger region in Southeast Asia. While textual evidence may be ambiguous, there are plenty of physical evidence to indicate that Sumatera was the site of a flourishing gold mining industry in pre-historic times. When early European explorers and traders came to the island, they found widespread abandoned alluvial and underground gold workings. The extensiveness of some of these workings suggests the presence of a very large, organized workforce. Some of the larger sites include Lebongdonok in Bengkulu, where large grinding stones and classical gold coins have been found, underground excavations in palaeo-alluvials covered by volcanic deposits in Jambi, and Salido in West Sumatera. Waste material found in the vicinity of Lebongdonok assayed 180 – 200 g/t Au and 300 – 1200 g/t Ag, suggesting that only very high bonanza grades were mined. There is also archaeological evidence indicating that gold was melted and worked at Kotacina, which was a major trading center between the 12th and 14th centuries, located 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) southwest of Belawan in northeast Sumatera, and that mercury was used for amalgamation. Local alluvial deposits were probably the main source of gold. The nearest hard rock workings are located 50 km southwest of Kotacina. 245
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In addition to this physical evidence there are stories, legends, and written reports suggesting that gold played an important role in the early history of Sumatera. Here are a few examples. In the 14th century, the Sumateran ruler Adityawarman, who had an honorific title of Kanakamedinindra (“Gold Land Lord”), is thought to have moved his capital to the coast of West Sumatera, because of rich gold deposits present in the hinterland. Many stories have been told over the ages in the Lebong district about Sultan Daula Mahkuta Alamsyah, a “descendant of Alexander the Great”, who once ruled the mighty empire of Pagarruyung and sent his explorers out over the mountains to search for precious metals. Captain William Dampier (1651 – 1715), an English navigator and accomplished naturalist and writer, who made three voyages around the world, reported in 1689 that significant amounts of gold were mined in Aceh. The first documented gold mining activity in Sumatera is the re-opening of the ancient silver-rich Salido gold mine in West Sumatera in 1669 by the Dutch East Indian Company, a trading company that for two centuries monopolized trade between Europe and Asia. The government of the Netherlands East Indies initiated geological investigations combined with mineral exploration in 1850 and private industry followed 30 years later. Between 1899 and 1940, 14 gold mines were developed, including two alluvial dredging operations, most of which were short-lived and uneconomic. Today Indonesia is a leading mining country in Asia for its tin, nickel, copper, gold and coalmines. This has been done with the help of foreign companies and foreign investment. As described by Naville, the gold of Punt is not pure gold but an alloy of gold and silver, inscribed as åsem. Same case is in the Pharaoh Sahure’s expedition. Waste material found in the vicinity of Lebongdonok ancient mine, southwest Sumatera, contains mixture of gold and silver, could be the gold mine site of Punt. Åsem phonetically resembles emas, means “gold” in Malay. Lebongdonok is in the area of Rejang people which allegedly has similar culture with the Egyptian as will be discussed here afterwards. 20) The People of Punt
The Puntite, unlike ancient Egyptians, had longer hair and little facial hair. They are painted red on the sculpture, but not as dark as the Egyptians. The Puntite is a tall, well-shaped man, his hair is brighter, neatly cut; his nose is straight, his beard long and pointed grows on his chain only; he wears only a loincloth with a belt in which a dagger is fixed. The inscription engraved in front of the chief states that he is “The Great [Chief] of Punt, Parehu”. His left leg is covered with a 246
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations bracing of rings. In one scene, his left hand holds a curved weapon. His spouse, a very singular and unbeautiful person, is described as “his wife, Ati”. She wears a yellow dress, without shirt at the first appearance, bracelets on her wrists, anklets on her ankles, and a necklace of alternate bead and chain work round her throat. Her hair, like that of her daughter, is bound with a headband on the brow. Her features are repulsive, and her cheek is disfigured by facial wrinkles. She is hideously obese, her limbs and body being weighed down by rolls of skin.
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Figure 100 – The people of Punt: (a) and (b) Punt, Mariette (1877); (c) to (e) Punt, DjeserDjeseru; (f) to (j) Enggano, Modigliani (1894); (k) Enggano, engraving (1855) (l) Nias (1854); (m) and (n) Mentawai; (o) Java, Borobudur temple relief (9th century CE).
The painted light red color of the skin indicates that its color is lighter than the painted dark red Egyptians. The skin color, the little facial hair, the straight nose and the on-chain-only beard are a typical of a mongoloid Malay. The chief’s hair and beard are grey, indicating that he is an old man. In the Malay tradition, the elder is considered to be wiser, called the tetua (“elder”). Derived from the same term, today’s Indonesian and Malaysian ketua (also “elder”) is a call to a chief though he is young. His gestures, in both scenes of heading off the royal envoy and in the offering of exchange, with his bowing and stooping, his raised hands with palms facing forward, his raised right hand in front of his chest with thumb pointing forward and fingers folding backward, his slightly weighted forward body, his feet positions and his face expression indicate that he is a wise man, 247
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations and these are typical gestures of Malay tradition in facing others with honor and politeness.
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Figure 101 – Puntite chief and his wife: (a) and (c) Mariette (1877); (b) and (d) DjeserDjeseru.
The same gestures of the lady but with strong bow and stoop, and in the scene of exchange offering her left arm is straightly downward with palm facing forward, are also a typical Malay tradition for a woman to honor others with politeness, especially to men. So she does not have a deformity sickness as some writers judge. Her facial wrinkles, her weighted down rolled limbs and body skin, and her passes that she must mount on a horse, show that she is an obese old woman. A note by Charles Miller (1771) – which describe that the Engganese are a tall, well-made people; the men in general are about 5 feet 8 or 10 inches (173 – 178 centimeters) high while the women are shorter and more clumsily built – confirms the above characteristics. The name of the chief of Punt, Parehu, is a typical Engganese name which may reflect the ancient Malay name. Modigliani (1894) mentions many similar man names, such as Paraúha, Puríhio, Pachèhu, Paradúa, Pahobèio and others which prefixed by a syllable “Pa” or “Pu”. While the name of the chief’s wife, Ati, the author believes that it is a nick name and the full name is unknown. Ati as well as other similar Eti, Ita, Yati, Tati and Tuti are very common nick names in the Figure 102 – Paraúha, an Engganese man (Modigliani 1894). archipelago. 248
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Puntites, like their chief, wear only a loincloth with a belt, bound hair with headbands and a necklace on their necks; they wear loin-cloths of the same fashion as that worn by the Egyptians but shawls are inside to cover their genitals. These are the typical of ancient Malay people which today are still observable in the Barrier Islands (Enggano, Mentawai, Nias, Andaman, Nicobar and some others). The Barrier Islands loin-cloth is a belly belt tucked into a cloth to cover the genital, Modigliani writes it as an eapi. The clothes vary from small size enough to cover the genital to fully envelop the hip and thighs. 21) The Petticoats
The lady wears shirt during the exchange offering but does not in the heading off. The shirt is allegedly a present from the envoy. Her petticoat is apparently a girdle, now still worn by the southwestern islanders of Sumatera, expressed as a transparent cloth in the Egyptian art. The chief’s daughter also wears the same type of petticoat. Modigliani (1894) describes the petticoat of Engganese woman as made of glass beads strung on thin plant fibers that hang down from a belt of woven strips of rattan, tie both ends with wires behind and then drives them to hide them inside. Above this is usually a belt which goes back towards the chest; and also made of woven rattan and plant fibers.
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Figure 103 – Petticoats: (a) Punt, Naville (1898); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) Enggano, Modigliani (1894); (d) Enggano, Rijksmuseum; (e) and (f) Engganese women wearing feast and mourn petticoats, respectively (Modigliani, 1894); (g) on a 1855 engraving. 22) The Woman Headbands
The hair of the chief’s wife, like that of her daughter, is bound with a headband on the brow. In Enggano, the headband was produced and worn by adult women and priests. The generic name for headband is tali (Rijksmuseum). 249
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Priests in daily life were recognizable by, among others wearing a tali (Kruyt 1938). Until the early 20th century, clothes and accessories from tree bark as everyday (undecorated) and ceremonial (decorated) were worn for clothing. Partly due to the introduction of woven fabrics became bark clothing into disuse. Decorated tree bark clothing and accessories were in the early 20th century still worn during ceremonies (Rijksmuseum).
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Figure 104 – Woman headbands: (a) Punt, Mariette (1877); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) and (d) Enggano, Rijksmuseum; (d) Mentawai. 23) The Man Head Wears
The headband of the Puntites encircles the head above the brow and tightened at the back. The other type of the headband is with a hat protruding upward and curled at its extremity.
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Figure 105 – Head wears: (a) and (b) Punt, Mariette (1877); (c) to (e) Enggano, Modigliani (1894); (f) to (j) Enggano, Rijksmuseum.
Modigliani (1894) describes the headband of the Engganese for men as a small circle, horse or boar hair fabric and adorned with feathers of various colors. It is called eprúru còio, means pig bristles. Rijksmuseum notes that the headbands were worn in daily activities. Because of the long hair that Engganese men had earlier, these bands were very suitable to keep the hair bent off the face. 250
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Puntite’s hat protruding upward and curled at the extremity is similar to the Engganese mourning hat. Modigliani (1894) describes the mourning hat, tciáua, as special sign on the head, a strange cap made of pandanus or nipa leaf resembling a Phrygian cap. Rijksmuseum notes that the mourning hat is worn by a widower during the three months that the mourning period lasts. The curl should point backwards. 24) Necklaces
The chief of Punt as well as his wife wear necklaces of alternate bead and chain work round their throats. Bead necklaces are described as necklaces for women, worn during festivals in Enggano. However, it is also possible that they were worn by men (Modigliani 1894). They are made with imported beads; in the 19th century and perhaps even before that, are a popular commodity. Often, such chains were provided with a decoration of pieces of a nautilus shells. It motifs were carved out (Rijksmuseum).
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Figure 106 – Necklaces: (a) and (c) Punt, Mariette (1877); (b) and (d) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (e), (j), (k) and (l) Enggano, Modigliani (1894); (f) and (g) Enggano, shell beads, Modigliani (1894); (h) and (i) Enggano, Rijksmuseum; (m) Enggano; (n) Mentawai; (o) Nicobar. 25) Bracelets and Anklets
The chief of Punt wears bracelets on his wrists while his wife wears bracelets on her wrists and anklets on her ankles. Bracelet and anklet in Enggano are worn 251
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations around the upper arms, wrists and ankles. They are made of woven dried leaves and ornamented with beads or as chaplets. Another type is from akar bahar (Anthipathes sp), a sea plant that would ward off illness.
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Figure 107 – Bracelets and anklets: (a), (c) and (e) Punt, Mariette (1877); (b), (d) and (f) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (g) and (h) Enggano, Modigliani (1894); (i) to (k) Enggano, Rijksmuseum; (l) Mentawai.
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Figure 108 – Bracing of rings: (a) Punt, Mariette (1877); (b) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (c) to (e) Batu Gajah stone, Palembang Museum; (f) to (j) Basemah culture prehistoric stones, South Sumatera.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The left leg of the chief, Parehu, is covered with a bracing of rings. Pre-historic stones found in Lahat Regency bordering the province of Bengkulu shows men wearing bracing of rings on both sides of the stones. These stones belong to the Basemah culture, the most renowned is Batu Gajah (“Elephant Stone”), now in the Palembang Museum, South Sumatera. Basemah people was an ancient group of peoples mainly inhabited the southwestern and southern Sumatera. They had great influence to other peoples inhabited western, central and northern Sumatera, such as Lampung, Rejang, Kerinci and Batak. Ring bracing is still in use today by the peoples of Padaung and Kayan tribes in Myanmar and several Dayak peoples in Kalimantan. 26) Daggers and Machetes
The chief of Punt wears only a loincloth with a belt in which a dagger is fixed. In one scene, his left hand holds a curved weapon probably with sheath. Most of the Puntites hold this kind of weapon in every scene. The inscription on the colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru also mentions that this weapon is a product called the ảamu of the Puntites (Naville 1898). Looking at the shape, these curved weapons assembles machetes which are known as golok in Indonesia and widely used for house, farm and forest works as well as for weapon. Modigliani (1894) mentions that the name of the Engganese dagger is eohoári. He also gives a list of other weapons: epèiti cacuhia, ie a large knife, the other epèiti canohè, a beautiful knife because of most ornate work. Epacamáio, epochipò and afíia, are used to cut wood in the forest and to work having wide blades which cacuhia would not resist. Other smaller knives that are used for culinary uses and for small jobs are called eachiebára and eáo. Helfrich (1891) mentions that the Engganese term for “knife” is pakamai. Epacamáio (Modigliani) and pakamai (Helfrich) are the same terms which mean “machete” or “knife”, or generally working tool or weapon composed of a sharp blade attached on a hilt. Epacamáio is the Italian style of the word pakamai, so pakamai is the native term. If we remove the prefix pa then the root is kamai. ảamu (read kh·a·mu) The Djeser-Djeseru inscription bearing the term for the Puntite weapon is the Egyptian tongue and hieroglyphic writing of the terms kamai. Engganese language is in particular having been isolated from language expansion in the western Indonesia. Nothofer (1986, 1994) refers to this language as “Palaeo-Hesperonesian”.
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Figure 109 – Daggers and machetes: (a), (c) and (e) Punt, Naville (1898); (b), (d) and (f) Punt, Djeser-Djeseru; (g) to (i) Enggano, Modigliani (1894); (j) to (l) Enggano, (m) to (o) Indonesia and Malaysia; (p) Betawi (Jakarta) machete dance.
The karambit (West Sumateran kurambik or karambiak) is a small Southeast Asian hand-held, curved knife resembling a claw. Known as kerambit in its native Indonesian and Malay, it is also called karambit in the Philippines and in most Western countries. If we remove the infix ar then the root is kambit, the same root as the Engganese kamai, which phonetically resembles the inscribed ảamu. Typical vegetation in Southeast Asia is woodier and the machete is therefore optimized for a stronger chopping action with a heavier blade and a “sweet spot” further forward of the handle; the blade is also beveled more obtusely to prevent it from binding in the cut. Parang is a collective term for swords, big knives and machetes hailing from all over the archipelago. A golok is a cutting tool, similar to a machete that comes in many variations and is found throughout the archipelago. It is used as an agricultural tool as well as a weapon. The word golok (sometimes misspelled in English as “gollock”) is of Indonesian 254
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations origin but is also used in Malaysia and is known as gulok or bolo in the Philippines. In Malaysia the term is usually interchangeable with the longer and broader parang. In the Sundanese region of West Java it is known as bedog. The badik or badek is a knife or dagger developed by the Bugis and Makassar people of southern Sulawesi. 27) Non Puntite Products
The wall-sculptures on the middle colonnade of Djeser-Djeseru also show non Puntite products, such as giraffes, long-horned cattle, southern and northern African leopards, gold, bows and ostrich eggs. Naville (1898) describes them as those which are supposed to come from the Southern Countries, viz the regions of the Upper Nile, inhabited by the negroes. As in the case of Punt, great quantities of gold, machetes and ebony were also produced in the Southern Countries. We can see also a macaque climbing a betel palm tree, seemingly the same animal and tree that was brought from Punt by the expedition which then bred or cultivated in the Southern Countries.
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Figure 110 – Non Puntite products: (a) giraffe (Duemichen 1869); (a) giraffe (Naville 1898); (c) long-horned cattle (Duemichen 1869); (d) long-horned cattle (Naville 1898); (e) southern and northern African leopards (Naville 1898); (f) gold (Naville 1898); (g) bows (Naville 1898); (h) ostrich eggs (Naville 1898). 28) Naga People
In the 12th Dynasty, Punt was immortalized in Egyptian literature in The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor in which an Egyptian sailor converses with a “great serpent” who calls himself the “Lord of Punt” and sends the sailor back to Egypt laden with gold, spices, incense, elephants’ tusks, and precious animals. “Serpent” in the Austronesian as well as Sanskrit languages is naga. The author interprets the serpent met by the Egyptians as the Naga people, possibly the 255
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations serpent-worshipers, who historically inhabited the Southeast Asian islands. The “great serpent” means the chief of the Nagas who called himself as the Lord of Punt, since the term “great” translated from the Egyptian hieroglyphics means “chief” likewise “the Great Punt” is meant “the Chief of Punt”. The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor caused a change in the Egyptians’ understanding about the Land of Punt to become a myth because of the emergence of a mythological serpent who conversed with humans. However, the story is derived from a papyrus that the writer may embellished it with the things from the myths. The early-century CE Tamil epic Manimekhalai states an island betwen Srilanka and Java – pressumably Sumatera – inhabited by the cannibalistic Nagas. The capital of Java was mentioned as Nagapuram, suggests that Java was also inhabited by the Nagas, in which their kings were Bhumichandra and Punyaraja who claimed descent from Indra. In Srilanka and Southern India, a place associated with the Nagas by Manimekhalai is Puhar, the capital of the Cholas, which was once the capital of the Nagas who were driven out by the first Chola king Muchukunta with the aid of the Indra’s demon. The sister epic Silappadikaram compares Puhar with the Naga capital, and Puhar has been known as Nagaram or Pattinam. The Naga people appear until the third century BCE as a distinct group in the early Sri Lankan chronicles as well as early Tamil literary works. In the 3rd century BCE they started to assimilate to Tamil language and culture, and lost their separate identity. There are modern people with the same name inhabiting the northeastern part of India and northwestern Myanmar. The Nagas being left undisturbed for such a long time, have retained the culture of the most ancient times till today. Some authorities traced their origin to the head-hunters of Malay and the races of Southern Seas. The folktale, folk songs and legends of Nagas pointed their origin to the southeast. Nagas custom and culture are similar to those tribes in the Southern Seas in many aspects. The embroidery on the Naga clothes resembles the kind done on the Indonesian clothes. The Nagas uses the cowries-shells and conch-shells in decorating their kilts, must have used marine shells during their sojourned and acquired the knowledge from the Southern Seas. Shakespeare, who wrote the history of Assam, also wrote that the Nagas are resembled to those tribes of Dayaks and they loved the marine-shells, which is not found in Naga villages. Headhunting practice was common up to the 20th 256
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations century and may still be practiced in isolated Naga tribes of Myanmar. Their many customs and way of life like headhunting, dormitory system, tattooing, platform burial, looms, terraces rice field and so on very similar to that of those living in the remote parts of Southeast Asia indicates that their ancient abode was near the sea, if not in some islands. Naga is a deity or a class of mythological beings found in Hinduism and Buddhism. They dwell in underground premises of the Earth. There are legends about Nagas in the folklore of present tribe of southern India (Adivasis) and the aboriginals of Australia. In these legends, the Nagas inhabited a large continent that existed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. It sank and the remnants of it formed the archipelago (Indonesian and Australia). These Nagas are said to have developed a subterranean civilization technologically much more advanced than ours and they are thought to possess superhuman powers. In a Cambodian legend, the Nagas were a reptilian race of beings who possessed a large empire or kingdom in the Southern Sea region. The seven-headed Naga serpents depicted as statues on Cambodian temples such as Angkor Wat possibly represent the seven races within the Naga society. Almost every temple in Indonesia is decorated with serpent heads called Makara, as well as houses, musical instruments and other ornamental arts. The Javan Naga is usually described as a protector or guardian, so commonly found in the carved gates, entrances, stairs or steps with a belief to protect the buildings he occupies. In Chinese art, dragons are usually depicted as a snake-like creature that is long, scaly, quadruped and horned. The Chinese dragon symbolizes strength and good luck, especially escorting water, rain and flooding. In the terminology of ‘yin and yang’, dragon is a ‘yang’ (male) that complements ‘fenghuang’ (the Chinese phoenix) that is a ‘yin’ (female). The Chinese dragon emblems the authoritative and magical culture. 29) Maritime Trade
Maritime Southeast Asia consists of more sea than land. There is the Malay peninsula, several large islands and tens of thousands of small islands. It is not surprising therefore that from the early times, power in Southeast Asia was associated with maritime market system.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The creation of a market system took place as early as the Pleistocene, with the advent of specialization and the start of the Neolithic Age. The earliest signs of the market system at work can be seen with the advent of bartering within tribes. Open-air or tented marketplaces were developed where merchants had their shops and where craftsmen made and sold their wares. The marketplaces are not only places for the purchase of goods, they are also places for the people to gather for many other purposes. The marketplaces were developed near rivermouths or other strategic waterways. Rice and other agricultural products were shipped down to them on the rivers from the more fertile and productive uplands. In exchange for their rice and other agricultural products, they received salt and dried fish from the downstream centers, and a variety of imported goods – precious metalware, ceramics and cloth in particular, often produced as far away as India and China. The demands of growing business and trade caused a money system to be developed. Earliest forms of money would usually be specie, or commodity money, examples range from seashells, to tobacco leaves, to large round rocks, to beads. Small islands were, along with alluvial valleys, a favored area for early settlement because of their abundance of fish and coastal palms, and the defensive advantages which local knowledge of reefs and passages provided. Many of the major river estuaries, on the other hand, were dangerously malarial until tamed for permanent rice fields. This left a role in some of the crucial sea-lanes to the boat- or island-dwelling orang laut (“sea people”). In line with population growth, those marketplaces also grew bigger, and generally transformed into seaports. The first dominant seaport to arise in the archipelago was Sriwijaya in Sumatera. From the 5th century, the capital, Palembang, became a major seaport and functioned as an entrepot on the Spice Route between India and China. Sriwijaya’s wealth and influence faded when changes in nautical technology in the 10th century enabled Chinese and Indian merchants to ship cargo directly between their countries and also enabled the Chola state in southern India to carry out a series of destructive attacks on Sriwijaya’s possessions, ending Palembang’s entrepot function. The great trading port of Malaka was founded at the beginning of the 15th century. Malaka grew to become the major trading port in Southeast Asia. The Chinese under the Ming dynasty had decided that they would establish direct trading links in the region. China extended its protection to Malaka and this 258
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations helped to deter other regional challenges to its power. Islam arrived with traders from India in the late 13th and 14th centuries and its influence had spread to the extent that by the mid-15th century, Malaka, the pre-eminent trading port in Southeast Asia, was a Muslim sultanate. In an effort to break the Arab monopoly on trade between Europe and Asia, the Portuguese decided to establish direct trading links in Asia. Portugal was the first European power to establish a bridgehead on the lucrative maritime Southeast Asia trade route, with the conquest of the Sultanate of Malaka in 1511. The Netherlands and Spain followed and soon superseded Portugal as the main European powers in the region. In 1599, Spain began to colonize the Philippines. In 1619, acting through the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch took the city of Sunda Kelapa, renamed it Batavia (now Jakarta) as a base for trading and expansion into the other parts of Java and the surrounding territory. In 1641, the Dutch took Malaka from the Portuguese. Economic opportunities attracted Overseas Chinese to the region in great numbers. In 1775, the Lanfang Republic, possibly the first republic in the region, was established in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, as a tributary state of the Qing Empire; the republic lasted until 1884, when it fell under Dutch occupation as Qing influence waned. Malay language, first developed around the estuary of Batanghari River in Sumatera, dominated the regions of Southeast Asia. Malay language shows the closest relationship to most of the other languages of Minangkabau, Kerinci, Rejang, and is clearly, but not so closely, related to the other Austronesian languages of Kalimantan, Java and to the Cham languages of Vietnam. Malay language spread through interethnic contact and trade across the archipelago as far as the Philippines. This contact resulted in a lingua franca that was called Bazaar Malay (melayu pasar, “market Malay”). It is generally believed that Bazaar Malay was a pidgin, a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. Bazaar Malay is still used to a limited extent in Singapore and Malaysia. The Malay word for “market” is pekan, derived from Old Malay pakan. Expression of “hari pekan” is known in some regions means “the day when the market is held”, which is usually held in the interval of 7 days (a week), then pekan is the common term for “week”. Pekan is also the term for the larger residential areas, mainly because these areas were developed from marketplaces. In the more advanced development, pekan becomes a term for a trading town. Pekanbaru, Pekan Labuhan, Pekan Nagori Dolog and Pekan Perigi in Sumatera; 259
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Pekan in Pahang, Malaysia; and Pekan Tutong in Brunei, are some of the places named after the trading town. The Land of Punt in Egyptian hieroglyphs, , transliteration p-wn-nt, Gardiner Code {Q3 E34 N35 X1 N25} are spelled pwenet. The last sign is the determinative for country, land. The feminine “t” ending was not pronounced during the New Kingdom, then the pronunciation is pwene or puene. Pwene is likely the pakan or pa’an in Old Malay. The Egyptians were continuously in trading relationship with the Puntites, as recorded in their history from the 4th to the 26th Dynasties (27th – 6th centuries BCE). They recognized the marketplace in Punt as what the people called pakan, “the market”, or the trading place. In the Rejang language, pun means “tree” (Malay: pohon). In a broader sense, “trees” can be meaningful as “forest” or “garden”. There is another possibility that pwene was derived from pun, meaning “trees”, as the Egyptians saw many trees, or forest, in the Land of Punt than in their region that they saw only few trees. The probable place for the trading between them was in southwest Sumatera, the present province of Bengkulu, where it was easily reached from the Indian Ocean. The Enggano Island is located off that coast of which the ancient culture of Bengkulu is still can be portrayed from the isolated Engganese. The ancient Bengkulu people was the cradle of the Neo-Malayan, spreads almost the whole archipelago. 30) Trading of Valuable Goods
In the early centuries CE, Indians and Westerners called Southeast Asia the “Golden Khersonese”, the “Land of Gold”, and it was not long thereafter that the region became known for its pepper and the products of its rainforests, first aromatic woods and resins, and then the finest and rarest of spices. Terms of “Silk Route”, “Gold Route”, “Incense Route”, “Ivory Route”, “Cinnamon Route” and “Spice Route” among others were created referring to routes to East and Southeast Asia. From the 7th to the 10th centuries Arabs and Chinese thought of Southeast Asia’s gold, as well as the spices that created it; by the 15th century sailors from ports on the Atlantic, at the opposite side of the hemisphere, would sail into unknown oceans in order to find these Spice Islands. They all knew that Southeast Asia was the spice capital of the world. From roughly 1000 CE until the nineteenth-century ‘industrial age’, all world 260
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations trade was more or less governed by the ebb and flow of spices in and out of Southeast Asia. During three millennia of pharaonic history Egyptians traded goods with other countries, while the Egyptian government tried to control this trade and profit from it. These included cedar wood from Lebanon; ebony and ivory from Africa; incense, myrrh and oils from Punt; lapis lazuli from Afghanistan; gold from Nubia, and even the important metals copper and iron from their best allies. Occasionally, they bought mud pottery or horses from other civilizations. During the Late Period much of Egyptian trade was in the hands of Phoenicians and Greeks, who had settled in the Delta. Naukratis on the western most arm of the Nile was for some time the only international port. The Persians under Darius I did much to further trade throughout their empire. The canal connecting the Nile and thus the Mediterranean with the Red Sea was reexcavated and remained in use until late Roman times. Shipbuilding was known to the Ancient Egyptians as early as 3000 BCE, and perhaps earlier. Ancient Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull, with woven straps used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. The Archaeological Institute of America reports that the earliest dated ship – 75 feet (23 meters) long, dating to 3000 BCE – may have possibly belonged to Pharaoh Aha. Austronesian traders had brought spices to African markets via a southern maritime route. Cultural items that came from Southeast Asia, or at least tropical Asia, were diffused first to the southeastern coast of Africa before moving northward. An important factor in ascertaining the old spice routes from Southeast Asia is the trail of cloves from Maluku and the southern Philippines north to South China and Indochina and then south again along the coast to the Strait of Malaka. From there the cloves went to India spice markets and points further west (Miller 1969). UNESCO recognize the north-south direction of commerce through the Philippines as part of the ancient maritime spice route. The Philippine-Maluku hub persisted into Muslim times and is chronicled in Arabic historical and geographic writings. The cinnamon route started in the cinnamon and cassia-producing regions of northern Indochina and southern China and then likely proceeded from South China spice ports southward during the winter monsoon down the Philippine corridor. The route likely turned southeast at that point to Sumatera and/or Java 261
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations to pick up different varieties of cinnamon and cassia along with ebony and benzoin. From southwestern Indonesia the voyage then took the Austronesian merchants across the great expanse of the Indian Ocean to Africa. 31) In the Tropical Region in the East
The colonnade reliefs at Djeser-Djeseru are clearly show flora and fauna, culture and social life of its inhabitants in the Land of Punt in great details. The scenes including betel palm trees, ebony trees, incense trees, ivory, gold/electrum, cinnamon wood, khesit wood, balsam, resin, tortoise shells, cows, macaques, monkeys, dogs, leopards and a wide variety of fishes are clearly specific of a green tropical region with high intensity of rainfall. One of the inscriptions at the site also mentions that the Land of Punt is a “green land”. The inscription on a damaged stela found at Tel Defenneh declares a miracle and a blessing that there was rain upon the Mountain of Punt in late December/early January also indicate a tropical region in the range of southern hemisphere. The obsidians uncovered during the excavations at Wadi Gawasis along with cargo boxes bearing painted hieroglyphic text describing the contents as the “wonderful things of Punt” indicate that the Land of Punt is located in a volcanic region. The Egyptians called the Land of Punt Ta Netjer or the Land of the Gods. Since Ra, the sun god, held a very important place in the Egyptian pantheon, it is believed that Punt was referred to as the Abode of the Gods and its location is in the east, in the direction of the sunrise. Archaeological evidence suggest that short-horned cows were present in Egypt around 2000 BCE, almost coincidence with the Egyptian expeditions to Punt. It becomes an indications that the Punt expeditions, in which cow is one kind of the trading animals, were towards the East. Location Hypothesis
The most probable place that allows for trade between the Egyptians and the Puntite is around the Bengkulu coast in southwestern Sumatera, where the region is easily accessed from the Indian Ocean by ships. Enggano Island is located just offshore where the ancient culture of Bengkulu can still be portrayed by the Engganese isolated population. Bengkulu has been inhabited from prehistoric times. Most go into the interior, while others inhabit coastal areas. Ancient Bengkulu, which is now composed of the peoples of Rejang, 262
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Serawai/Pasemah, Kaur, Lembak and Ketahun, is the cradle of the NeoMalayan, which spread almost all over the archipelago. When early European explorers and traders came to the island, they found widespread abandoned alluvial and underground gold workings. The extensiveness of some of these workings suggests the presence of a very large, organized workforce, where large grinding stones and classical gold coins have been found. Waste material found in the vicinity of Lebongdonok contains mixture of gold and silver, suggesting it was the gold mine site of Punt. Styrax trees producing benzoin resin are found a lot in the Bukit Duabelas National Park, part of the Kerinci-Seblat National Park, in the area of Barisan Mountain Range in the Bengkulu and Jambi Provinces. The Rejangese inhabit this region. Place names like Bukit Kemenyan (“benzoin hill”) and Tanjung Kemenyan (“benzoin peninsula”) around this region indicate that styrax trees were cultivated in the region. Kerinci high valley north of Bengkulu, where the Kerinci people inhabit, is the origin of cinnamon trees. Legends among the Bengkulu and Lampung tribes also tell stories related to contacts with foreign traders. Linguistic and alphabet studies of the Rejang culture conducted by among others Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1817), J Park Harrison (1896), EEEG Schroder (1927) and MA Jaspen (1983) show some correlations to the ancient Egyptian and Phoenician. A study by Dhani Irwanto (2015) shows that the scripts of Rencong (or Ancung) in Kerinci, Rejang in Bengkulu and Lampung in southern Sumatera are closely resemble the Phoenician’s Proto-Sinaitic rather than the Indian’s Brahmi. These three regions of Sumatera were very little influenced by Indian culture in their history. Based on the evidence above, the author make a hypothesis that the Land of Punt is located around the Bengkulu coast, in southwest Sumatera. This region is easily accessed from the Indian Ocean. The possible locations of the port of Punts are Ipuh, Bengkulu City, Mana and Bintuhan. The most probable is the Bengkulu City, for the reasons that the coast conditions support the ships to harbor and the closest distance to the main Rejang culture, the styrax habitat and the ancient gold mine of Lebong Donok. A new port was build at the area of Pulau Baai in 1984. The bay existed at the site and the gentle slope of the coast facilitate a good place for harboring.
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Figure 111 – Possible locations of the port of Punt.
The English East India Company (EIC) established a pepper-trading center and garrison at Bengkulu City (Bencoolen) in 1685. In 1714 the British built Fort Marlborough, which still stands. The trading post was never profitable for the British, being hampered by a location which Europeans found unpleasant, and by an inability to find sufficient pepper to buy. It became an occasional port of call for the EIC’s East Indiamen sailing ships. Despite these difficulties, the British persisted, maintaining their presence for roughly 140 years before ceding it to the Dutch as part of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 in exchange for Malacca. Bengkulu remained part of the Dutch East Indies until the Japanese occupation in World War II. The other probable locations are Ipuh, Manna and Bintuhan. At Ipuh, there is no bay that could protect the ships to harbor but the coast slope is gentle. It is 264
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations said that there was an ancient marketplace at Ipuh. Manna is an old town and marketplace that has been registered in the European maps from as early as the 16th century. Serawai, the second largest tribe in Bengkulu after Rejang, inhabit the area around Manna, among others in the districts of Talbot, Seluma, Talo, Pino, Kelutum, Manna and Seginim. The Land of Punt, designated as Ta Netjer by the Ancient Egyptians which literally can be translated as the Land of the Gods, is the abode of the gods, and its location is toward the sunrise, the abode of the sun god Ra. The Land of Gods or the Divine Land can be interpreted as “the land of the ancestors”, which means that the ancient Egyptians viewed the Land of Punt as their ancestral land. From the discussion above and the abundance amount of evidence, it is clearly reasonable to theorized that the Land of Punt is Sumatera. In connection with the Land of Punt as the ancestral land of the ancient Egyptians, it can be concluded that the ancestral land of the Egyptians is Sumatera, which was once located within the territory of Sundaland, with the most probable location is in the Bengkulu region. This conclusion adds another evidence to the language, cultural and other genetic studies which consistently support the theory of “Out of Sundaland” dispersal after the sea water rise during the Last Glacial period.
The Phoenicians The Phoenicians was an ancient civilization composed of independent citystates which lay along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea stretching through what is now Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel, though some colonies later reached the Western Mediterranean and even the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the most famous being Carthage. All were fiercely independent, rival cities and, unlike the neighboring inland states, the Phoenicians represented a confederation of maritime traders rather than a defined country. Phoenician city-states began to take form ca 3200 BCE and were firmly established by ca 2750 BCE. Phoenicia thrived as a maritime trader and manufacturing center from ca 1500 – 330 BCE and was highly regarded for their skill in ship-building, glass-making, the production of dyes and an impressive level of skill in the manufacture of luxury and common goods. As Egyptian and Near Eastern documents record, the Late Bronze Age (ca 1600 – 1200 BCE) was a time of economic prosperity for these trading centers. With the decline of Egyptian influence about 1200 BCE, the cities were freed from foreign domination. The ultimate collapse of Egyptian power in the region occurred about 1175 BCE at 265
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations the hands of the Sea Peoples, of whom the best known are the Philistines. By the late 8th century BCE, the Phoenicians, alongside the Greeks, had founded trading posts around the entire Mediterranean. Sea traders from Phoenicia and Carthage (a Phoenician colony traditionally founded in 814 BCE) even ventured beyond the Strait of Gibraltar as far as Britain Figure 112 – Trade routes of the Phoenicians. in search of tin. For more than a thousand years, the Phoenicians sailed under different flags in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The first recorded appearance of the Phoenicians in the Indian Ocean is connected with the establishment of the port of Ezion-Geber in 950 BCE. It is also possible for them to sail by their own trading expeditions since they knew about the benefits of sailing to the Far East. There is no doubt they were capable of crossing vast oceans using currents and winds. The Phoenicians were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as “traders in purple”, referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for the spread of their alphabet. The trade of precious commodity also involved precious gems, where rubies and diamonds were first cut and polished in India (Greater India, including Southeast Asia). The most credible scholars knew that the Phoenicians were very secretive with the sources of their trading empire. The source of the materials and the recipe for the preparation of the dye solution are still in mystery. The main natural resources of the Phoenician cities in the eastern Mediterranean were the prized cedars of Lebanon. Phoenician artisans were skilled in wood, ivory, and metalworking, as well as textile production. The Phoenicians used the cedar of Lebanon for building commercial and military ships, as well as houses, palaces and temples. There is no evidence of ancient cedar forests in Lebanon; the current cedar trees could very well have been 266
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations transplanted from elsewhere during ancient times. Other than that, the stories of tin credibly involve the Phoenician. The mystery still remains as to where the Phoenicians truly arose from, certainly not from the Mediterranean region because there is no story about it. There is no history of Indian sailors trading on the open seas; for they were better known as brokers or middlemen for the sake of logistics. The secretive of the Phoenicians makes unanswered question from where the Phoenicians arose. The oldest attested form of the name Phoenicia is the Mycenaean po-ni-ki-jo. Poni-ki, ultimately borrowed from Ancient Egyptian fnḫw (fenkhu) meaning “Asiatics, Semites”. Herodotus’ account (written ca 440 BCE) refers to the myths of Io and Europa (History, I:1): “According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria ...” The Indian Ocean was formerly named the Erythraean Sea (Herodotus, Dicaearchus, Eratosthenes, Posidonius and Strabo), where the Phoenicians formerly dwelt and need long voyages to migrate to the Mediterranean. Implicit in this account is that the Phoenicians were originated from the “East” or “Asiatic” at the shore of the Indian Ocean. Velikovsky (2006) relates the name Phoenicia to pontifex, which means “high priest”. The word “pontiff” is not of Latin origin. It is not derived from “pons”, but probably from “Punt”. When it is said that Hatshepsut, after visiting Punt, built a “punt” for the god Amon, this means a sacred place of worship. By erecting a “punt” in Egypt, Hatshepsut also introduced the institution of the high priest, copying the service of the temple in Jerusalem, built on a Phoenician model. Solomon’s alliance with Hiram, the king of the Phoenicians, explains the strong Phoenician influence in the life of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. This influence is stressed in the scriptures in the story of the erection of the temple, built with the help of Hiram, who provided Solomon with building material and with the chief craftsman, a man of Hebrew-Phoenician origin (I Kings 7:1314). Also the common expedition to Ophir and the peaceful transfer of territory from the domain of one king to that of the other (I Kings 9:11) might have brought it about that the whole of Palestine at that time was called 267
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Phoenicia. It is very likely that the Egyptian expeditions to the Land of Punt at the later period were also by the help of the Phoenicians. Perhaps the most significant contribution of the Phoenicians was an alphabetic writing system that became the root of the Western alphabets. Linguistic and alphabet studies of the Rejangese culture conducted by among others Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1817), J Park Harrison (1896), EEEG Schroder (1927) and MA Jaspen (1983) show some correlations to the ancient Phoenician and Egyptian. The author makes comparisons among the three main groups of the southern Sumateran scripts: Rencong (or Ancung) in Kerinci, Rejang in Bengkulu and Lampung in southern Sumatera, and the Proto-Egyptian and Proto-Sinaitic (Old Phoenician) as shown in Table 2 (Irwanto 2015). Also shown the Brahmin-influenced scripts, Ugarit and the modern Latin. As we can see from the comparison, the Lampung, Rejang and Rencong closely resemble the Phoenician’s Proto-Sinaitic rather than the Indian’s Brahmi. These three regions of Sumatera were very little influenced by Indian culture in the past. The Phoenician alphabet was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics and became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. Jones-Gregorio in 1994 made a study for his thesis about Egyptian and West Semitic words in the Rejangese culture base on Jaspen’s Rejang dictionary. He concludes that many of the Rejangese words seem to be unquestionably ancient Egyptian and Phoenician. The origins of the Egyptians as well as the Phoenicians are probably the Land of Punt, viz Sumatera. We could speculate that the Egyptians were the earlier Puntites and the Phoenicians the later. During the Late Period much of Egyptian trade was in the hands of the Phoenicians and Greeks. A long history of contacts with the Egyptians made the Puntites (or the Sumaterans) learned from the Egyptians how to voyage and to trade luxurious goods of their products. It is natural that the producers always keen to sell their products directly to the costumers to gain their own profit. They allegedly had a cooperation with the Buginese in Sulawesi to build the ship. Buginese traders were frequently visited Bengkulu and Enggano Island in the ancient times for the trading of supreme quality coconuts (Helfrich 1891). The Rejangese alphabet is also related to the Buginese. The Buginese has the pinisi ship – 268
Table 2 – Ancient Phoenician-Nusantara-Indian alphabet correspondences.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations phonetically in close resemblance with the name “Phoenicia” – which has been proven tough to sail the vast oceans. The abundance of wood with high quality in Sumatera could probably facilitate them to build more sophisticated ships than those of the Egyptians. The source of goods to trade, ie murex snail, incense, precious gems and cedar wood among others are typical of the Southeast Asian origins. Perhaps, these Puntites who had managed to do this trade were then called the Phoenicians, from the roots “Punt”, “Pwene” or “pinisi”. To have the monopoly of the Asian traded goods in the Mediterranean, the Phoenicians kept the secrecy of the sources until in the 18th century the Dutch and the British managed to explore the resources in great amount. The Indian Ocean coastal people of Sumatera as well as the Buginese are renowned for their proficiency in trade. Their legends and songs also tell stories about oversea trading (merantau, “to wander about”). The Buginese along with the Barito Dayak in Kalimantan are traced to have relationships to the Malagasy in the antiquity. Also, a long history of contacts with the Egyptians made the Puntites learn hieroglyphic writing, but then developed it further to become an alphabetic script. The Lampung, Rejang, Rencong and Bugis alphabets are the legacies of this script as has been discussed above.
Land of Ophir The renowned maritime skills of the Phoenicians amazed King Solomon (973 – 33 BCE) that he asked the King of Tyre to send him Phoenician carpenters and veteran sailors to join his fleet to the Land of Ophir in 945 BCE (Kings 1:926). There is no exact certainty though about the location of the Land of Ophir. The geographical location of Ophir is described in exactly the same way as the Land of Punt. Both countries lie “far away, to the south-east”; the ships set sail from a port on the Red Sea and the round voyage lasts three years. The goods brought from Ophir are more or less the same as those the Egyptians brought from Punt and their other ports. King Solomon received a cargo of gold, silver, “algum wood”, precious stones, ivory, apes and peacocks every three years. In pre-Islamic literature, Ophir is mentioned in the three pre-Islamic Arabic and Ethiopic sources: The Kitab-al- Magall, the Cave of Treasure, and the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan. The Kitab al-Magall states that in the days of Reu, a king of Saba (Sheba) named “Pharoah” annexed Ophir and Havilah to his 270
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations kingdom, and “built Ophir with stones of gold, for the stones of its mountains are pure gold”. The existence of the biblical Eldorado of the Land of Ophir (I Kings 10:11, II Chronicles 9:21) is believed to be the final destination of the Lost Tribes of Israel. In Genesis 10 (the Table of Nations) is said to be the name of one of the sons of Joktan. Joktan or Yoktan was the second of the two sons of Eber, the great grandson of Shem – the son of Noah. Onycha is one of the components of the consecrated Ketoret (incense) which appears in the Torah Book of Exodus (Exodus 30:34-36) and was used in the Jerusalem’s Solomon Temple. The internationally renowned Bible scholar Bochart stated, at one point in his research, that onycha was actually benzoin, a gum-resin from the Styrax sp (Abrahams 1979), which is likely imported from Sumatera. Styrax benzoin was available via import to the biblical lands during the Old Testament era. A passage may be cited from Josephus in his Antiquity of the Jews (93/94 CE) in speaking of the pilots furnished to Solomon by Hiram of Tyre. Solomon gave his command that they should go along with his stewards to the land that previously called Ophir, but then the Aurea Chersonesus identified by the author as a region in western Sumatera named Tanjungemas renowned in the ancient times for its gold mines, to fetch gold. From this he makes a definite statement, that Ophir and the Aurea Chersonesus are one. The 16th to 17th century maps mention Mount Ophir, which is the present-day Mount Talamau, located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of Tanjungemas. The name Ophir was still in use until the Dutch colonial era to name a district which is now in the Pasaman Regency, West Sumatera Province. These are other evidence that Ophir is located in Sumatera. The author concludes that the location of the Land of Ophir is the same as the Land of Punt or in the adjacent areas. Both locations concerned the Egyptian and Near Eastern kings because of their richness of precious metals, wood, precious stones, fragrances, animals and forest products. As the Land of Punt is the ancestral land of the Egyptians, the same thing can be applied to the Land of Ophir. The memories recorded in the Egyptian and biblical documentations are allegedly sourced from the Land of Punt, or the Land of Ophir, which is Sumatera and was a region in Sundaland.
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Kumari Kandam Kumari Kandam refers to a hypothetical lost continent with an ancient Tamil civilization, located south of present-day India, in the Indian Ocean. Alternative names and spellings include Kumarikkantam and Kumari Nadu. Most Tamil revivalists connect it with the Pandyan kingdom mentioned in the works of literary Tamil and Sanskrit. The words “Kumari Kandam” first appear in Kanda Puranam, a 15th-century Tamil version of the Skanda Purana, written by Kachiappa Sivacharyara (1350 – 1420). Although the Tamil revivalists insist that it is a pure Tamil name, it is actually a derivative of the Sanskrit words “Kumarika Khanda”. The Andakosappadalam section of Kanda Puranam describes the following cosmological model of the universe. “There are many worlds, each having several continents, which in turn, have several kingdoms. Paratan, the ruler of one such kingdom, had eight sons and one daughter. He further divided his kingdom into nine parts, and the part ruled by his daughter Kumari came to be known as Kumari Kandam after her. Kumari Kandam is described as the kingdom of the Earth.” Although the Kumari Kandam theory became popular among antiBrahmin anti-Sanskrit Tamil nationalists, the Kanda Puranam actually describes Kumari Kandam as the land where the Brahmins also reside, where Shiva is worshipped and where the Vedas are recited. The rest of the kingdoms are described as the territory of the Mlecchas. Multiple ancient and medieval Tamil and Sanskrit works contain legendary accounts of lands in South India being lost to the ocean. The earliest explicit discussion of a katalkol (“seizure by ocean”, possibly the sea water rise) of Pandyan land is found in a commentary on Iraiyanar Akapporul. This commentary, attributed to Nakkeerar, is dated to the later centuries of the 1st millennium CE. It mentions that the Pandyan kings, an early Tamil dynasty, established three sangams (“literary academies”). The first two sangams were not located in South India now but in an ancient Tamil country in the south which then sank. The first sangam flourished for 4,400 years in a city called Tenmaturai, attended by 549 poets (including Agastya) and presided over by gods like Shiva, Kubera and Murugan. The second sangam lasted for 3,700 years in a city called Kapatapuram, attended by 59 poets (including Agastya, again). The commentary states that both the cities were “seized by the ocean”, resulting in loss of all the 272
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations works created during the first two sangams. The third sangam was established in Uttara (North) Madurai, where it is said to have lasted for 1,850 years. The Pandyan capital of Kapatapuram finds mention in the Ramayana and Chanakya’s Arthasastra (ca 4th century BCE). Nakkeerar’s commentary does not mention the size of the territory lost to the sea. The size is first mentioned in a 15th-century commentary on Silappatikaram. The commentator Adiyarkunallar mentions that the lost land, mainly consisted of the Pandyan Kingdom, extended from Pahruli river in the north to the Kumari river in the South. It was located to the south of Kanyakumari, and covered an area of 700 kavatam (a unit of unknown measurement). It was divided into 49 territories (natu), classified in seven categories: elu teñku natu (“seven coconut lands”), elu maturai natu (“seven mango lands”), elu munpalai natu (“seven front sandy lands”), elu pinpalai natu (“seven back sandy lands”), elu kunra natu (“seven hilly lands”), elu kunakarai natu (“seven coastal lands”) and elu kurumpanai natu (“seven dwarf-palm lands”). A mountain range had forty-eight high peaks. Four rivers were originated from Meru Malai: Kumari Aaru, Peru Aaru, Pahruli Aaru and Kanni Aaru. The Pahruli river was excavated to irrigate the mountain valley by the Pandyan king Nediyon. Ruby was mined from the mountain Mani Malai and gold from Meru Malai. It is said that Chinese laborers were employed by the Pandyan King and when they went down the mines they appeared like a huge army of small ants, therefore, they were called “the gold mining ants”. Other medieval writers, such as Ilampuranar and Perasiriyar, also make stray references to the loss of antediluvian lands to the south of Kanyakumari, in their commentaries on ancient texts like Tolkappiyam. Another legend about the loss of Pandyan territory to the sea is found in scattered verses of Purananuru (dated between 1st century BCE and 5th century CE) and Kaliththokai (6th – 7th century CE). According to this account, the Pandyan king compensated the loss of his land by seizing an equivalent amount of land from the neighboring kingdoms of Cheras and Cholas. Kumari Kandam is a Tamil legend about ancient civilization geographically located in the Indian Ocean and then sank into the ocean. Though many Tamil writers do not assign any date to the submergence of Kumari Kandam, resorting to phrases like “once upon a time” or “several thousands of years ago”, but the stories are consistent with the theory of post-glacial been widely acceptable by scientists. This ancient Tamil civilization was located south to 273
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Tamil now, or they reached from the south to go to their new land. Vast land which sank in the geological past is not other than Sundaland. Previous theories hypothesized that the vast mainland of Kumari Kandam was located in the south of the Indian subcontinent in the Indian Ocean, but the theory of tectonic plate movement does not support the existence of such land within some thousands years back. The years of the three stages of the sangams are summed up to a date between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago, almost the similar time of the end of the Younger Dryas period. The mentions of mountain ranges which had forty-eight high peaks, the four rivers originated from the mountains, and the mining of gold and precious stones coincidentally match the biblical Garden of Eden hypothesized by the author Figure 113 – Probable location of Kumari Kandam. as a region in southern Kalimantan. The mountain Meru Malai, where there were mountain ranges having forty-eight high peaks coincidentally match the Malea Mountains in the Ptolemy’s account of Taprobana, in which the author hypothesizes as the Malawi region in Kalimantan on the Schwaner-Muller mountain ranges. These mountain ranges have tens of peaks, to the south lays an expanse of alluvial plain and the origins of four main rivers: Kahayan, Kapuas, Barito and Negara. The Pahruli river excavated for irrigation purposes also coincidentally match the Plato’s description of Atlantis.
Kangdez Kangdez refers to a mythical, paradise-like fortress in Iranian folklore, means “Fortress of Kang”. In Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, Kangdez becomes Gangdez. The Middle Persian Pahlavi texts mention Kangdez as being founded by Siyavakhsh (Siavosh in the Shahnameh). In the Bundahishn and Dadestan i-Denig, 274
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Kangdez was conquered by Kay Khosrow. In Zoroastrian Pahlavi eschatological works, Kangdez is the abode of Peshotan, son of King Vishtasp, and Khwarsheed-chihr, son of Zarathushtra, who will gather their righteous army there before the final battle against Ahriman and his creatures. In Dinkard the previous information is ascribed to the lost Sudgar Nask of the Sassanid Avesta. In the Shahnameh, Siavosh, having fled from Kay Kavus to Turan, is granted by Turan’s King Afrasiab a pleasant piece of land, where Siavosh erects the castle Kangdez by miraculous power. In other Persian texts, the construction of Kangdez is attributed to Kay Kavus, Kay Khosrow and even Legendary King Jamshid. The region around the castle Kangdez is described as being rich in water and game, and knowing neither the frost of winter nor the heat of summer. It is thirty farsakh square in size (1 farsakh is about 6.2 kilometers, 3.9 miles). The walled city of Kangdez is also called Kang-e Siavosh, Kang-e Siyavakhsh, Siavoshgerd or Siyavakhshgerd, in different texts. The combination of urban structures and gardens within the city walls, the absence of summer and winter, as well as several (usually seven) walls or buildings made of different materials is a characteristic description of towns in Iranian lore. According to the Bundahisn, the Kangdez was originally supported on the heads of dews (also in Pahlavi), but was placed on the ground by Kay Khosrow. It had seven ring walls made of gold, silver, steel, brass, iron, crystal and lapis lazuli (Bundahisn); or stone, steel, crystal, silver, gold, chalcedony and ruby (Pahlavi). It also had hands and feet, and there was eternal spring. Its dimensions were so enormous that it took a man with horse and chariot fifteen days to drive from one of its fifteen gates to the next (Bundahisn), set 700 parasangs (about 3,900 kilometers, 2,420 miles) apart (Pahlavi). Each gate was the height of fifteen men, and the castle itself was so tall that the arrow of the best archers might not reach the top (Pahlavi). According to the Pahlavi, the Kangdez was, apparently, at first in the other world, but was invited down to the earth by Kay Khosrow, who addressed it as his sister, since it had been made by his father (Siavosh). It came down in eastern Turan, in the area of Siavosh-kerd, and Kay Khosrow settled “the Iranians” in it, who would not leave it until the coming of Pisyotan (Wistasp’s eschatological son) at the end of time. It had a silver tower with golden crenellations, accommodating fourteen mountains and seven rivers in spate. After the end of the Kayanids, Pisyotan will be king and priest in the Kang until 275
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations the final battles, which he goes out to fight, but then returns and stays until the Renovation. Siavosh lived in Kangdez until he was cunningly killed by Afrasiab. When he learnt of his father’s murder, Siavosh’s son, Kay Khosrow, pledged vengeance. When Kay Khosrow ascended the throne of Iranshahr, he launched a series of expeditions against Turan and Afrasiab, who he eventually defeated. Afrasiab fled to China and from there sails to Kangdez. Kay Khosrow pursues Afrasiab, puts together a naval force, and sets sail for Kangdez which he reaches after a six-month-long voyage, but Afrasiab has already secretly escaped. Kay Khosrow resides in Kangdez for one year and then sails back to Iran through Turanian territory. In the Sassanid Avesta, the Vourukasha Sea lies in the extreme East from which all waters come with the wind and clouds. It is described as the “deep sea of salt waters”. Reference is made to tides, of the “waters rising up and going down” and of a southern sea into which the Vourukasha empties and from which it refills causing the tidal ebb and flow. In the Vourukasha Sea is Eranvej, where the peak Hukairya is located. On Hukairya is the world spring and world river known as Aredvi Sura Anahita, the source of water for all the “world’s rivers”. Also on this peak grows the sacred “white haoma”. In latter literature, Siavosh is said to have built Kangdez on the “frontier” of Eranvej. In the Vourukasha Sea is also mentioned the giant ox from whose back was taken the three sacred fires. In the Dadestan i-Menog i-Khrad, the location of Kangdez is described as “entrusted with the eastern quarter, near to Satavayes on the frontier of Airanvego”. Satavayes is a star or constellation. According to late Zoroastrian texts, Kangdez was located beyond Khotan (Hotan now) and China, a year’s voyage (six months for Kay Khosrow) to the East by sea from the Baluchi port of Makran. Arab geographer, Al-Biruni, identifies Kangdez with another land of Yamakoti, the legendary easternmost town of the Indian inhabited world map. The geographers who used Kangdez as the prime meridian belonged to what is known as the Al-Balkhi school, after Abu Mashar al-Balkhi, known in the West as Albumasar. During the Middle Ages, Albumasar was the most renowned of Muslim astronomer/astrologers in Europe. His theories of historical cycles linked with the planets influenced many European astrologers including Nostradamus whose key work Revolutions was based on such concepts. 276
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Abu Mashar al-Balkhi placed the meridian in the far East, based his geographical canon on Kangdez as 0 degrees longitude. The reference to 0 longitude alludes to the concept that Kangdez is considered the center of the Earth. Al-Kashi in the 15th century places Kangdez at the extreme East or 180 degrees East longitude, and at the equator (0 degrees latitude). The descriptions of Kangdez mentioned above, including its location at the extreme far east, in a sea (ocean) which could be reached from Iran by sea (a year or six- month’s voyage), situated around the equator, there was no snow, there were two seasons, outside of China, east of India (according to alBiruni), many rivers, water and mountains, and there was a row of volcanoes (a “giant ox” where from whose back was taken the three sacred fires) indicate that Kangdez is most likely located in Sundaland. The descriptions of the fortress town of Kangdez, among others, consists of rings of walls coated with precious metals and stones, plenty of water and games, there were eternal springs, there was a tower of silver and gold, built by leaders who glorified (Siavosh or Kay Khosrow) with miraculous power, there were rivers and mountains, consists of plains influenced by sea tides, rivers were fed from the mountains and flow towards the south, and was in the marine environment, show that Kangdez has the approximate characteristics of Atlantis.
Epic of Gilgamesh The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient Mesopotamian odyssey recorded on clay tablets in the Akkadian language about Gilgamesh, the king of the Mesopotamian city-state Uruk. Dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca 2100 BCE), it is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature, which pre-dates Homer’s writing by 1,500 years. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about king of Uruk “Bilgamesh” (Sumerian for “Gilgamesh”), “Gilgamos” in Greek, and associated closely with the figure of Dumuzi from the Sumerian poem The Descent of Inanna. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the “Old Babylonian” version, dates to the 18th century BCE and is titled after its incipit, Shutur eli sharri (“Surpassing all other kings”). Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later “standard” version dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BCE and bears the incipit Sha naqba imuru (“He who saw the deep”, in modern terms: “He who sees the unknown”). Approximately two thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have 277
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BCE Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Five earlier Sumerian poems have been partially recovered, some with primitive versions of specific episodes in the Akkadian version, others with unrelated stories. The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. The great king is thought to be too proud and arrogant by the gods and so they decide to teach him a lesson by sending the wild man, Enkidu, to humble him. Enkidu and Gilgamesh, after a fierce battle in which neither are bested, become friends and embark on adventures together. Together, they journey to the Cedar Mountain and defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sends to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. As a punishment for these actions, the gods sentence Enkidu to death. In the second half of the epic, distress about Enkidu’s death causes Gilgamesh falls into a deep grief and, recognizing his own mortality through the death of his friend, questions the meaning of life and the value of human accomplishment in the face of ultimate extinction. Casting away all of his old vanity and pride, Gilgamesh sets out on a quest to find the meaning of life and, finally, some way of defeating death. Gilgamesh sets out on a series of journeys to search for his ancestor Utnapishtim who lives at the mouth of the rivers and has been given eternal life. Utnapishtim counsels Gilgamesh to abandon his search for immortality but tells him about a plant that can make him young again. Gilgamesh obtains the plant from the bottom of the sea in Nisir but a serpent steals it, and Gilgamesh returns home to the city of Uruk having abandoned hope of either immortality or renewed youth. He eventually learns that “Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands”. Researchers have discovered a new clay tablet in 2015 that adds 20 previously unknown lines to the Epic of Gilgamesh. One of the researchers, Andrew George, stated that the new tablet continues where other sources break off, and mentions that the Cedar Forest is no place of serene and quiet glades. It is full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees. Humbaba views the noise of the jungle as a form of entertain, in a very vivid and rare description of the surroundings. The chatter of monkeys, chorus of cicadas, and squawking of many kinds of birds formed a symphony (or cacophony) that daily entertained the forest’s guardian. The passage gives a context for the simile “like musicians” that occurs in very broken context in the Hittite version’s description 278
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations of Gilgames and Enkidu’s arrival at the Cedar Forest. Humbaba emerges not as a barbarian ogre but as a foreign ruler entertained with music at court in the manner of Babylonian kings, but music of a more exotic kind, played by a band of equally exotic musicians. Various themes, plot elements and characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh have counterparts in the Hebrew Bible. The parallels between the stories of EnkiduShamhat and Adam-Eve have been long recognized by scholars. In both, a man is created from the soil by a god, and lives in a natural setting amongst the animals. He is introduced to a woman who tempts him. In both stories the man accepts food from the woman, covers his nakedness, and must leave his former realm, unable to return. The presence of a snake that steals a plant of immortality from the hero later in the epic is another point of similarity. Andrew George (2003) submits that the Genesis flood narrative matches that in the Epic of Gilgamesh so closely that “few doubt” that it derives from a Mesopotamian account. What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale “point by point and in the same order”, even when the story permits other alternatives. Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East. While not directly discussed in the epic itself, many of the characters in the epic also have myths associated with them with close biblical parallels, notably Ninti, the Sumerian goddess of life, was created from Enki’s rib to heal him after he had eaten forbidden flowers. Some scholars suggest that this served as the basis for the story of Eve created from Adam’s rib in the Book of Genesis. The Sumerian Eridu Genesis and the Akkadian Epic of Atrahasis have many parallels with the Epic of Gilgamesh, all continue to refer to Suruppak as the city of the flood hero. Utnapishtim is Ziusudra in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis and Atrahasis in the Akkadian Epic of Atrahasis. In the late version of The Instructions of Shuruppak and the youngest Babylonian version by Berossus, the origal name of Ziusudra return. In the Sumerian king list recension, Ziusudra, or Zin-Suddu of Shuruppak is recorded as having reigned as both king and gudug priest for 10 years. A similar story to the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Egyptian version, is found in the Book of Kolbrin, preserved by the Celtics in Great Britain. Gilgamesh is equal to Hurmanetar, Enkidu to Yadol, the goddess Ninsun to Nintursu, Humbaba to 279
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Hubabwara, Utnapishtim to Sisuda (Ziusudra in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis) and the city of Uruk to Eraka. The book also mentions the plain of Shinara (Shinar in the Book of Genesis). The descriptions about the Cedar Forest, told as full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees, fit the conditions in Sundaland. Archaeologically, monkeys and perhaps cicadas did not exist in the Near East nor Middle East. Statues depicting monkeys have been found in Mesopotamia which may depict monkeys brought from elsewhere and kept there, but can not multiply because of lack of food and the absence of forest environment. The statement that the god gives Utnapishtim immortality in the mythological country of Nisir (Dilmun in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis), locates its position in the far east, where the sun rises, and could refer to Sundaland. Linking with the story of the biblical Garden of Eden, as discussed earlier, the description of the forest is compatible to the region in southern Kalimantan where it has dense forests, and monkeys, birds and cicadas are animals that produce sounds in the forest. Cedar Forest is the translation of the text on the tablets that is not necessarily composed of true cedars. Similarly, the story of the great flood in the Bible is in parallel association with the Gilgamesh story so closely and there remains little doubt that all the Near East flood stories came from Mesopotamia, which later gave birth the flood heroes like the Sumerian Ziusudra, the Akkadian Utnapishtim and the biblical Noah.
Lemuria and Mu Lemuria and Mu are sometimes distinct and sometimes interchangeable names for a legendary lost continent, which, according to its proponents, existed in the Atlantic, Indian or Pacific Oceans and had many of the attributes associated with Atlantis. The mysterious lost lands of Lemuria and Mu were conceived of during the 19th century, when the theory of evolution was introduced and was among the advances in the sciences that challenged conventional ways of understanding life. Archaeological discoveries among the ruins of the Egyptians, Maya and other societies were forcing new interpretations of history, and radical forms of mysticism, such as theosophy, were becoming popular. Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical “lost land” variously located in the Indian or Pacific Oceans. A German naturalist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (1834 – 1919), proposed that a land bridge spanning the Indian Ocean separating Madagascar from India could explain the widespread distribution of lemurs, small, primitive 280
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations tree-dwelling mammals found in Africa, Madagascar, India and the Southeast Asian archipelago. Haeckel also suggested that lemurs were the ancestors of the human race and that this land bridge was the “probable cradle of the human race”. The name Lemuria originated with zoologist Phillip Lutley Sclater (1829 – 1913) in 1864 to gave the hypothetical continent in an article The Mammals of Madagascar in The Quarterly Journal of Science. Lemuria then entered the lexicon of the occult through the works of Russian occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831 – 1891). In her massive tome The Secret Doctrine (1888), Blavatsky describes a history originating millions of years ago with the ‘Lords of Flame’ and goes on to discusses five ‘Root Races’ which have existed on earth, each one dying out in an earth-shattering cataclysm. The third of these Root Races she called the ‘Lemurian’, which lived a million years ago, and who were bizarre telepathic giants who kept dinosaurs as pets. The Lemurians eventually drowned when their continent was submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean. The progeny of the Lemurians was the fourth Root Race, the human Atlanteans, who were brought down by their use of black magic, their continent of Atlantis sinking beneath the waves 850,000 years ago. Present humanity represents the Fifth Root Race. Blavatsky also describes survivors of the catastrophic destruction of Lemuria escaping to become the ancestors of some of the Aboriginal tribes of Australia. She maintained that she took all of her information regarding Lemuria from the Book of Dzyan, supposed to have been written in Atlantis and shown to her by the Indian adepts known as the ‘Mahatmas’. According to L Sprague de Camp, Blavatsky’s concept of Lemuria was influenced by other contemporaneous writers on the theme of lost continents, notably American congressman Ignatius L Donnelly, American cult leader Thomas Lake Harris and the French writer Louis Jacolliot. What Blavatsky and other occultists since have suggested concerning Lemuria could be partly interpreted as an ideal spiritual condition of the soul, a kind of spiritualhistorical vision. Nevertheless, there are some psychics and prophets who even today regard the existence of ancient Lemuria as a physical reality. Mu is the name of a suggested lost continent whose concept and name were proposed by 19th-century travelers and writers Augustus Le Plongeon and Alice Dixon, who claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of Egypt and Mesoamerica, were created by refugees from Mu – which he located in the Atlantic Ocean. Le Plongeon and Dixon constructed an imaginative “history”, 281
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations with the Maya sites in Yucatán being the cradle of civilization, with civilization then traveling east first to Atlantis and later to Ancient Egypt. In his books Sacred Mysteries Among the Mayans and Quiches (1886) and Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx (1896), Le Plongeon interpreted part of the text of what was then called the Troano Codex (also known as the Madrid Codex), as revealing that the Maya of Yucatán were the ancestors of the Egyptians and many other civilizations. He also believed that an ancient continent, which he called Mu, had been destroyed by a volcanic eruption, the survivors of this cataclysm founding the Maya civilization. Le Plongeon actually got the name “Mu” from Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, who in 1864 mistranslated the Troano Codex using the de Landa alphabet. Researchers who have tried to use the de Landa alphabet have reported that it is completely erroneous. Le Plongeon’s credibility was badly damaged by this attempted translation of the Troana Codex. Recent research into the Mayan “alphabet” has shown it to not consist of hieroglyphics but logograms. Recent translations of the Troano Codex have shown it to be a treatise on astrology. Actually, the existence of Mu was already being disputed in the Le Plongeon’s time. This concept of lost civilization of Mu was popularized and expanded by American Colonel James Churchward, who asserted that Mu was once located in the Pacific, with his publication of The Lost Continent of Mu in 1931. He claimed that the lost continent of Mu had once extended from an area north of Hawaii southwards as far as Fiji and Easter Island. According to Churchward, Mu was the original Garden of Eden and a technologically advanced civilization which boasted 64 million inhabitants. Around 12,000 years ago Mu was wiped out by an earthquake and submerged beneath the Pacific. Apparently Atlantis, a colony of Mu, was destroyed in the same way a thousand years later. All the world’s major ancient civilizations, from the Babylonians and the Persians, to the Maya and the Egyptians, were the remains of the colonies of Mu. Churchward claimed he received this sensational information when, as a young officer in India during a famine in the 1880s, he became friendly with an Indian priest. This priest told Churchward that he and his two cousins were the only survivors of a 70,000 year old esoteric order which originated on Mu itself. This order was known as the “Naacal Brotherhood”. The priest showed Churchward a number of ancient tablets written by the Naacal Order in a forgotten ancient language, supposed to be the original language of mankind, which he taught the officer to read. Churchward later asserted that certain stone artefacts recovered 282
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations in Mexico contained parts of the Sacred Inspired Writings of Mu, perhaps taking ideas from Augustus Le Plongeon and his use of the Troana Codex to provide evidence for the existence of Mu. Unfortunately, Churchward never produced any evidence to back up his exotic claims, he never published translations of the enigmatic Naacal tablets, and his books, though they still have many followers today, are perhaps better read as entertainment than factual studies of Mu. The Lemuria and Mu theories disappeared completely from conventional scientific consideration after the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift were accepted by the larger scientific community. The theory affirms that moving plates of the Earth’s crust supported on less rigid mantle rocks causes continental drift, volcanic and seismic activity, and the formation of mountain chains. Geologists regard the theory of a sunken entire continent beneath the Pacific and Indian Oceans as an impossibility. If the massive foundations of a continent to be blown apart by volcanic action, its enormous base rocks would be seen today on the ocean floor. Madagascar and India were indeed once part of the same landmass, but plate movement caused India to break away and move to its present location would take millions of years. They also point out that theories of lost lands in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans mostly originate in the 19th century, when knowledge of the area was limited and well before the ocean floor had been mapped.
Figure 114 – World ocean map in the Last Glacial Maximum period. Sundaland is the only inhabitable landmass which now partly disappear.
Lemuria and Mu existence is now considered to have no factual basis. The very facts that the theory was conceived to explain are now seen to be false. They are today considered to be fictional places, and books on the subject are generally found in the religion and spirituality sections of book stores. The vast land submergence and the population dispersal, occurred during and after the sea 283
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations level rise of the Last Glacial period, are indeed now widely accepted by the larger scientific community, but the 19th century approach of Lemuria and Mu to prove the existence is outdated and has no factual basis.
Taprobana Taprobana (Ancient Greek: Ταπροβανᾶ) or Taprobane (Ταπροβανῆ) was the historical name for an island in the Indian Ocean. Onesicritus (ca 360 – ca 290 BCE) was the first author that mentioned the island of Taprobana. The name was also reported to Europeans by the Greek geographer Megasthenes around 290 BCE, and was later adopted by Ptolemy in his own geographical treatise to identify a relatively large island south of continental Asia. Though the exact place to which the name referred remains uncertain, some scholars consider it to be a wild misinterpretation of any one of several islands, including Sumatera and Sri Lanka. The island entered European consciousness during the conquests of Alexander the Great. Alexander’s admirals Nearchus and Onesicritus described Taprobana in their reports to their king. Nearchus sailed around the southern tip of India, describing the smells of cinnamon that wafted from the fabulous island he passed along the way. Megasthenes, Seleucus’s ambassador to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, fleshed the place out a bit more. Several Roman cartographers and historians wrestled with the size, shape, and position of Taprobana before Claudius Ptolemy described an immense “Taprobana” in his Geographia, written about 150 CE, six times the size of the Indian subcontinent and straddling the equator. After the fall of Rome, European geography entered a Dark Age more profound than that of most other disciplines. Like many ancient books and scholarly works, especially those housed at the Library at Alexandria, the work of Ptolemy was lost for over a thousand years in Western scholarship. At the end of the 1400s, after Renaissance scholars studying the writings of the Muslim scholars who had preserved much of the classical knowledge that had been lost to the West, his work was rediscovered and translated into Latin, a more commonly used language of Western scholars at the time. Geographia became popular once again and more than 40 editions were printed. In his work Geographia, Ptolemy described and compiled all knowledge about the world’s geography in the Roman Empire of the 2nd century. A substantial undertaking in scholarship of the day, Geographia was written in eight volumes. 284
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The first part discusses the problems of projections, that is, representing spherical item such as the earth on a flat sheet of paper. The second part included seven volumes and was composed entirely of atlas. One problem modern historians have encountered when researching Ptolemy’s work is that his works were all copied by hand and redistributed. Many of his maps were not redrawn when copies were made and most copies known to exist today do not include his drawings; rather, the books include maps made many centuries later based on his descriptions or are missing maps altogether. One such source that points out this problem is an Arabian scholar by the name of al-Mas’udi who wrote around 956 CE that Ptolemy’s Geographia mentioned a colored map with more than 4,530 cities plotted and over 200 mountains. In Ptolemy’s world map he identifies many modern geographic areas including Taprobana and Aurea Chersonesus. This has been the primary subject of debate over Taprobana. Each succeeding generation has read vague descriptions of the island left by their predecessors, and wrangled over what their predecessors really meant. 18th and 19th century scholars began to think that Ptolemy confused Sri Lanka with Sumatera, or even the lower peninsula of India. In the end, it is impossible to assign a single place with all of the qualities that have been labeled with the name “Taprobana” over the ages. The name Taprobana had been applied to Sumatera from the 15th century onwards, after a misunderstanding by the Italian traveler Nicolo di Conti. Conti was the first European traveler who distinguished Sri Lanka from Taprobana and identified the latter as Sumatera, which it will be noted, athwart the equator. Subsequent geographers, historians, cosmographers and thinkers alike became engaged in a controversy over its proper identification. Considerable confusion began to exist as to whether Sri Lanka or Sumatera was the island of Taprobana and depicted in the Hereford, Ebstrof, Catalan Atlas’ Mappae Mundi and on Fra Mauro’s Planisphere and Martin Behaim’s Globe. The maps such as “Cantino”, “Caverio” and “Contarini” have misled the contemporary viewers who in their turn transmitted this confusion either through implicitly casual discussions or even deliberately explicit instructions to mapmakers who in their turn propagated it just as naively and with the same degree of intelligence as their informants through the documents they were producing for their immediate users. 285
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The peculiar geographical vicissitudes of Taprobana drew the attention of leading figures from western history, Ramusio, Gossellin, Kant and Cassini who concerned with the dilemma, attempted to resolve the question of Taprobana’s identification with countries ranging from Sumatera to Madagascar. Venetian geographer, historian and humanist Ramusio relying on an account of an anonymous Portuguese and based on geographical and astronomical data sought to reconcile the location and dimensions of Sumatera with the position and size of the island that Iambulus the Greek merchant claimed to have discovered. The aim of his argument thereby was to determine that this island was precisely the Taprobana of the classical authors. Sebastian Munster’s map of Taprobana drawn in 1580 carries the German title, Sumatera Ein Grosser Insel (“Sumatera, a large island”). The old debate was settled earlier in favor of Sri Lanka, but the more recent display of Munster’s map with its title has reignited the debate. Munster’s map was “a fine example” of the difficulties Renaissance map makers had in placing the continents of the world. It showed the cartographic confusion that Europeans had trying to understand the geography of Asia. What still baffles is the exaggerated size of Taprobana if Ptolemy really meant to represent the present day Sri Lanka. In contrast, the Indian sub-continent shown in the map is far smaller in dimensions. It was true that Sri Lanka by Ptolemy’s time was a well-known island as it was centrally situated in the Indian Ocean but India and her products were equally known from the pre-Christian era, starting with the Persian occupation of territory up to the river Sind and Alexander’s conquests following that as well as through sea-borne trade. On the contrary, Taprobana, despite its sheer size, was assigned by Ptolemy with trade in elephants and golden spices. Both Sri Lanka and Sumatera were known for these two commodities, and the latter more so for spices but it is Sri Lanka which had better historical record for elephants. The intelligence displayed by Sri Lankan elephants and easier transport across the Indian continent perhaps, accounted for preference for them. Sri Lankan elephants began to be exploited in a big way only after the East African resources dwindled. Trading with the Southeast Asians Under the Mongol Empire’s hegemony over Asia (the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the Silk Road to India 286
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations (the Indies, a far larger region than modern India which includes Southeast Asia) and China, which were sources of valuable goods such as spices and silk. In the early centuries CE, Indians and Westerners called Southeast Asia the “Golden Peninsula”, the “Land of Gold”, and it was not long thereafter that the region became known for its pepper and the products of its rainforests, first aromatic woods and resins, and then the finest and rarest of spices. From the 7th to the 10th centuries Arabs and Chinese thought of Southeast Asia’s gold, as well as the spices that created it; by the 15th century sailors from ports on the Atlantic, at the opposite side of the hemisphere, would sail into unknown oceans in order to find these Spice Islands. They all knew that Southeast Asia was the spice capital of the world. From roughly 1000 CE until the 19th-century ‘industrial age’, all world trade was more or less governed by the ebb and flow of spices in and out of Southeast Asia. Throughout these centuries the region and its products never lost their siren quality. Palm trees, gentle surf, wide beaches, steep mountain slopes covered with lush vegetation, birds and flowers of brilliant colors, as well as orange and golden tropical sunsets have enchanted its visitors as well as its own people through the ages. Indeed, it is said that when in the last years of the 16th century the first Dutch ship arrived at one of the islands of the Indonesian archipelago, the entire crew jumped ship, and it took their captain two years to gather them for the return trip to Holland. In the international trading by land and water several major empires were involved. At the western end of the caravan and sea routes (the famous Silk Roads) was the Roman Empire, which at the time included the countries around the Mediterranean, Egypt, the Levant and Arabia. From there the trade routes ran east through the kingdoms of the Parthians and the Kushans in Central Asia and northern India, through the land of the Shaka (Indo-Scythians) and Shatavahana in northern and central India, to the South Indian kingdoms of the Cheras, Pandyas and Cholas and, continuing via Sri Lanka and the Bay of Bengal, to Funan in present-day South Vietnam and to China, at the eastern end of the Silk Roads. The Chinese Han dynasty traded indirectly with Rome, be it on the caravan routes that led through Central Asia to India, the Persian Gulf and finally to the eastern Mediterranean, be it across the oceans, from the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea as far as Alexandria and Rome. The Southeast Asian archipelago with its medicines, spices and aromatic substances, with precious timbers and tortoise 287
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations shell was an important link in this far-reaching trade network, interconnecting continents. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators tried to find a sea way to Asia. In 1470 the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west would be a quicker way to reach the Spice Islands, Cathay (China) and Cipangu (Japan) than the route round Africa. Afonso rejected his proposal. Portuguese explorers, under the leadership of King John II, then developed a passage to Asia by sailing around Africa. Major progress in this quest was achieved in 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope, in what is now South Africa. Meanwhile, in the 1480s, the Columbus brothers had picked up Toscanelli’s suggestion and proposed a plan to reach the Indies (then construed roughly as all of South and East Asia) by sailing west across the “Ocean Sea”, ie the Atlantic. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, Columbus reached the New World, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named “San Salvador”. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming all of it for the Crown of Castile. Portugal was the first European power to establish a bridgehead on the lucrative maritime Southeast Asia trade route, with the conquest of the Sultanate of Malaka in 1511. The Netherlands and Spain followed and soon superseded Portugal as the main European powers in the region. In 1599, Spain began to colonize the Philippines. In 1619, acting through the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch took the city of Sunda Kelapa, renamed it Batavia (now Jakarta) as a base for trading and expansion into the other parts of Java and the surrounding territory. In 1641, the Dutch took Malaka from the Portuguese. Economic opportunities attracted Overseas Chinese to the region in great numbers. In 1775, the Lanfang Republic, possibly the first republic in the region, was established in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, as a tributary state of the Qing Empire; the republic lasted until 1884, when it fell under Dutch occupation as Qing influence waned. Englishmen of the United Kingdom, in the guise of the Honorable East India Company led by Josiah Child, had little interest or impact in the region, and were effectively expelled following the Siam-England war in 1687. Britain, in the 288
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations guise of the British East India Company, turned their attention to the Bay of Bengal following the peace with France and Spain in 1783. During the conflicts, Britain had struggled for naval superiority with the French, and the need of good harbors became evident. Penang Island had been brought to the attention of the Government of India by Francis Light. In 1786 a settlement was formed under the administration of Sir John Macpherson, which formally began British expansion into the Malay States of Southeast Asia. The British also temporarily possessed Dutch territories during the Napoleonic Wars; and Spanish areas in the Seven Years’ War. In 1819, Stamford Raffles established Singapore as a key trading post for Britain in their rivalry with the Dutch. However, their rivalry cooled in 1824 when an Anglo-Dutch treaty demarcated their respective interests in Southeast Asia. British rule in Burma began with the first Anglo-Burmese War (1824 – 1826). Early World Mapping Long before the era of global positioning satellites and multi-spectrum orthophotography, ancient cartographers frequently had to rely on word of mouth to describe far-away places. Sometimes, they would draw sea-monsters on maps to fill in the empty spaces. Other times, they would expand the size of a place they had heard of, and add their own detail. When the ancient mapmakers first began representing the earth’s surface on a map, they simply drew geographic features as they saw them or as travelers and explorers described them. Because so little was known about the world, information on maps was rather sparse and it was difficult to evaluate the map quality or accuracy. In fact, most maps created before the European Renaissance were so generalized and inaccurate that the mapmakers could have assumed we lived on a flat earth and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to the map’s usefulness. Hecataeus, a scholar of Miletus, probably produced the first book on geography in about 500 BCE. A generation later Herodotus, from more extensive studies and wider travels, expanded upon it. A historian with geographic leanings, Herodotus recorded, among other things, an early circumnavigation of the African continent by the Phoenicians. He also improved on the delineation of the shape and extent of the then-known regions of the world, and he declared the Caspian to be an inland sea, opposing the prevailing view that it was part of the “northern oceans”. 289
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Figure 115 – A reconstruction of the world map according to Hecataeus (ca 500 BCE).
Although Hecataeus regarded the Earth as a flat disk surrounded by ocean, Herodotus and his followers questioned the concept and proposed a number of other possible forms. Indeed, the philosophers and scholars of the time appear to have been preoccupied for a number of years with discussions on the nature and extent of the world. Some modern scholars attribute the first hypothesis of a spherical Earth to Pythagoras (6th century BCE) or Parmenides (5th century). The idea gradually developed into a consensus over many years. In any case by the mid-4th century the theory of a spherical Earth was well accepted among Greek scholars, and about 350 BCE Aristotle formulated six arguments to prove that the Earth was, in truth, a sphere. From that time forward, the idea of a spherical Earth was generally accepted among geographers and other scholars. About 300 BCE, Dicaearchus, a disciple of Aristotle, placed an orientation line on the world map, running east and west through Gibraltar and Rhodes. Eratosthenes, Marinus of Tyre, and Ptolemy successively developed the reference-line principle until a reasonably comprehensive system of parallels and meridians, as well as methods of projecting them, had been achieved. Eratosthenes (276 – 194 BCE) drew an improved world map, incorporating information from the campaigns of Alexander the Great and his successors. Asia became wider, reflecting the new understanding of the actual size of the continent. Eratosthenes was also the first geographer to incorporate parallels and meridians within his cartographic depictions, attesting to his understanding of the spherical nature of the earth. 290
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Figure 116 – A reconstruction of the world map according to Herodotus (ca 430 BCE).
Figure 117 – A reconstruction of the world map according to Dicaearchus (ca 300 BCE).
Posidonius (ca 150 – ca 130 BCE) work “about the ocean and the adjacent areas” was a general geographical discussion, showing how all the forces had an effect on each other and applied also to human life. He measured the Earth’s circumference by reference to the position of the star Canopus. His measure of 240,000 stadia translates to 24,000 miles, close to the actual circumference of 291
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 24,901 miles. He was informed in his approach by Eratosthenes, who a century earlier used the elevation of the Sun at different latitudes. Both men’s figures for the Earth’s circumference were uncannily accurate, aided in each case by mutually compensating errors in measurement.
Figure 118 – A 1883 reconstruction of Eratosthenes’ map.
However, the version of Posidonius’ calculation popularized by Strabo was revised by correcting the distance between Rhodes and Alexandria to 3,750 stadia, resulting in a circumference of 180,000 stadia, or 18,000 miles. Ptolemy discussed and favored this revised figure of Posidonius over Eratosthenes in his Geographia, and during the Middle Ages scholars divided into two camps regarding the circumference of the Earth, one side identifying with Eratosthenes’ calculation and the other with Posidonius’ 180,000 stadia measure. Depending on the value of the stadia that is adopted, it may be true that Posidonius, seeking to improve on Eratosthenes, underestimated the size of the earth, and this measurement, copied by Ptolemy, and was thereafter transmitted to Renaissance Europe. Strabo (ca 64 BCE – ca 24 CE) is mostly famous for his 17-volume work Geographica, which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known to his era. The Geographica first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469. Although Strabo referenced the antique Greek astronomers Eratosthenes and Hipparchus and acknowledged their astronomical and mathematical efforts towards 292
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations geography, he claimed that a descriptive approach was more practical. Geographica provides a valuable source of information on the ancient world, especially when this information is corroborated by other sources. Within the books of Geographica is a map of Europe. Whole world maps according to Strabo are reconstructions from his written text.
Figure 119 – A 1628 reconstruction of Posidonius ideas about the positions of continents.
Pomponius Mela (ca 43 CE) is unique among ancient geographers in that, after dividing the earth into five zones, of which two only were habitable, he asserts the existence of antichthones, people inhabiting the southern temperate zone inaccessible to the folk of the northern temperate regions due to the unbearable heat of the intervening torrid belt. On the divisions and boundaries of Europe, Asia and Africa, he repeats Eratosthenes; like all classical geographers from Alexander the Great (except Ptolemy) he regards the Caspian Sea as an inlet of the Northern Ocean, corresponding to the Persian (Persian Gulf) and Arabian (Red Sea) gulfs on the south. The greatest figure of the ancient world in the advancement of geography and cartography was Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy; 90 – 168 CE). An astronomer and mathematician, he spent many years studying at the library in Alexandria, the greatest repository of scientific knowledge at that time. He pioneered the use 293
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Figure 120 – A 1815 reconstruction of the world map according to Strabo.
Figure 121 - A 1898 reconstruction of Pomponius Mela’s view of the World.
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of curving parallels and converging meridians on maps. Ptolemy’s maps were “Mediterranean specific”, very generalized, and almost completely ignored the Southern Hemisphere. Still, they were a significant step forward in mapmaking and so far ahead of their time, they were used well into the Renaissance.
Figure 122 – Reconstruction of Ptolemy’s map of the world by Johane Schnitzer (Ulm: Leinhart Holle, 1482).
The Arab geographer, Muhammad Al-Idrisi incorporated the knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Far East gathered by Arab merchants and explorers with the information inherited from the classical geographers to create the most accurate map of the world at the time. It remained the most accurate world map for the next three centuries. The Tabula Rogeriana was drawn by AlIdrisi in 1154 for the Norman King Roger II of Sicily, after a stay of eighteen years at his court, where he worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map. The map, written in Arabic, shows the Eurasian continent in its entirety, but only shows the northern part of the African continent. Abraham Cresques of a family of Catalonian Jews who worked in Majorca created an atlas known as the Catalan Atlas in 1375, as requested by King 295
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Charles V of France from Peter of Aragon at a time when the reputation of the Catalan chart makers was at its peak. Abraham Cresques is the patron of the best Majorcan mapmaker of the time. The atlas that resulted contained the latest information on Asia and China and has subsequently been called “the most complete picture of geographical knowledge as it stood in the later Middle Ages”.
Figure 123 – The Tabula Rogeriana, drawn by Al-Idrisi for Roger II of Sicily (1154).
The Catalan Atlas originally consisted of six vellum leaves folded down the middle, painted in various colors including gold and silver. The leaves are now cut in half. The first two leaves contain texts in Catalan covering cosmography, astronomy and astrology. The four remaining leaves make up the actual map, which is divided into two principal parts. The first two leaves, forming the oriental portion of the Catalan Atlas, illustrate numerous religious references as well as a synthesis of medieval mappae mundi and the travel literature of the time, notably Marco Polo’s Book of Marvels and Mandeville’s Travels and Voyage of Sir John Mandeville. Many Indian and Chinese cities can be identified. South-east of the coast of Cathay are numerous islands – they number 7,548 – in which they are rich in gold, silver, spices and precious stones, so much so that “great ships of many different nations” trade in their waters. In the extreme corner is a portion of a great island which is named Taprobana (written as “Trapobana”). A legend states that it is the last island in the East, and is called by the Tartars ‘Great Caulij’. A German cartographer and a Benedictine monk Andreas Walsperger created a a Latin Mappa Mundi in around 1448. The map is atypical in its depiction of 296
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Africa and in its placing a large castle in China, where others including Fra Mauro’s place their grand castle to the north.
Figure 124 – Rotated 1375 Catalan Atlas in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
The world map of Henricus Martellus Germanus (Heinrich Hammer), ca 1490, was remarkably similar to the terrestrial globe later produced by Martin Behaim in 1492, the Erdapfel. Both show heavy influences from Ptolemy, and both possibly derive from maps created around 1485 in Lisbon by Bartolomeo Columbus. Although Martellus is believed to have been born in Nuremberg, Behaim’s home town, he lived and worked in Florence from 1480 to 1496. The Cantino planisphere or world map is the earliest surviving map showing Portuguese geographic discoveries in the east and west. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara, who successfully smuggled it from Portugal to Italy in 1502. The map is particularly notable for portraying a fragmentary record of the Brazilian coast, discovered in 1500 by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, and for depicting the African coast of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans with remarkable accuracy and details. It was valuable at the beginning of the sixteenth century because it showed detailed and up-to-date strategic information in a time when geographic knowledge of the world was growing at a fast pace. It is important in our days because it contains unique historical information about the maritime exploration and the evolution of nautical cartography in a particularly interesting period. The Cantino planisphere is the earliest extant nautical chart where places (in Africa and parts of Brazil and India) are depicted according to their astronomically observed latitudes. The Caveri Map, also known as Caverio Map or Canerio Map, is a map drawn by Nicolay de Caveri, ca 1505. It is hand drawn on parchment and colored, being composed of ten sections or panels, measuring 2.25 by 1.15 meters (7.4 by 3.8 297
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations feet). Historians believe that this undated map signed with “Nicolay de Caveri Januensis” was completed in 1504 – 1505. It was probably either made in Lisbon by the Genoese Canveri, or copied by him in Genoa from the very similar Cantino map. It shows the east coast of North America with surprising detail. If the east coast of North America is compared with modern-day maps, we will be struck by its immediately noticeable similarity with the coastline stretching from Florida to the Delaware or Hudson River, when we consider the general belief that the Europeans neither saw nor set foot on the beaches in the southern states of the present-day USA. It was one of the primary sources used to make the Waldseemüller map in 1507. Caveri Map is currently at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.
Figure 125 – Andreas Walsperger’s Latin Mappa Mundi (ca 1448).
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Figure 126 – Martellus world map (1490).
Figure 127 – Flattened Martin Behaim’s Erdapfel globe (1492).
The story of the small group of Renaissance intellectuals that worked at San Die, a small city in the Alzace (France) from 1500 onwards is well known. The team was financed by Duc Rene II de Lorraine, represented in the team by Walter Ludd. Martin Ringmann was the writer and Martin Waldseemüller was the geographer. They set themselves to analyze new geographical information coming from the earliest of voyages of discovery and integrate that information into existing maps and atlases. The effort led to the publication of an important booklet, Universalis Cosmographia (1507); one of the most important wall maps of the world ever published and a globe, published in the same year. From this revolution in cartography a new line of editions of Ptolemy’s Geographia was 299
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations born (1513; 1520; 1522; 1535; 1541) which brought together old with new knowledge of the world.
Figure 128 – Cantino planisphere (1502), Biblioteca Estense, Modena, Italy.
Figure 129 – Caverio Map (ca 1505), in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Waldseemüller’s large world map was the most exciting product of that research effort, and included data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages of 1501 – 1502 to the New World. Waldseemüller christened the new lands “America” in recognition of Vespucci’s understanding that a new continent had been uncovered as a result of the voyages of Columbus and other explorers in the late fifteenth century. This is the only known surviving copy of the first printed edition of the map, which, it is believed, consisted of 1,000 copies. 300
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Waldseemüller’s map supported Vespucci’s revolutionary concept by portraying the New World as a separate continent, which until then was unknown to the Europeans. It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing the European understanding of a world divided into only three parts – Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Figure 130 – Universalis Cosmographia, the Waldseemüller wall map (1507).
A physician, astrologer and geographer Lorenz Fries (ca 1490 – ca 1531) is perhaps best-known to cartophiles for his re-working of Martin Waldseemüller’s maps from Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia. Fries had studied at Vienna, Montpellier, Piacenza and Pavia before working in Schlettstadt, Colmar, Fribourg and Strasbourg. Fries’ early publications were related to medicine and he experienced some success in this field. His publisher was Gruninger, in Strasbourg, who was also known to have worked in collaboration with Waldseemüller on the Chronica Mundi, a cosmography planned for publication. It seems likely that this small volume was to help form Fries’ considerable involvement with Waldseemüller maps. The first of Waldseemüller’s map to receive a re-working by Fries, and also worked on by Peter Apian, was the Tipus Orbis Universalis in 1520, which was based on Waldseemüller’s 1507 map of the world. At the same time as this world map was being published, Fries was also working on an edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia. The aforementioned Chronica Mundi did 301
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Figure 131 - World map from Ptolemy’s Geographia, edited by Lorenz Fries (1522).
Figure 132 - Tipus Orbis Universalis, a re-working of Waldseemüller’s map by Lorenz Fries and Peter Apian (1520).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations not reach publication, perhaps because of Waldseemüller’s death in 1518, and Gruninger, the publisher, decided instead to have Fries work on an edition of Ptolemy using the maps that might have otherwise been included in the Chronica Mundi. Thus, Fries’ first edition of Waldseemüller’s Ptolemy appeared in Strasbourg in 1522 – it was very similar to Waldseemüller’s own 1513 version although Fries’ maps were cut at a slightly reduced size. Three maps were new to this edition (although were based on Waldseemüller’s map of 1507); the world, Southeast Asia and eastern Asia (showing China and Tartary). Fries’ woodblocks were used again in three subsequent editions of 1525, published in Strasbourg and edited by Willibald Pirkheimer in 1535, published in Lyons and edited by Michael Servetus in 1541, also published in Lyons – a reprint of the 1535 edition. Abraham Ortelius (1527 – 1598) was conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas. In 1564 he published his first map, Typus Orbis Terrarum, an eight-leaved wall map of the world, on which he identified the Regio Patalis with Locach as a northward extension of the Terra Australis, reaching as far as New Guinea. Many of his atlas’ maps were based upon sources that no longer exist or are extremely rare. Ortelius appended a unique source list (the Catalogus Auctorum) identifying the names of contemporary cartographers, some of whom would otherwise have remained obscure.
Figure 133 – Typus Orbis Terrarum by Abraham Ortelius (1564).
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Ptolemy’s World Map Claudius Ptolemaeus, better known as Ptolemy (ca 90 – 168 CE) made many important contributions to geography and spatial thought. A Greek by descent, he was a native of Alexandria in Egypt, and became known as the most wise and learned man of his time. Although little is known about Ptolemy’s life, he wrote on many topics, including geography, astrology, musical theory, optics, physics and astronomy. Ptolemy’s text reached Italy from Constantinople in about 1400 and was translated into Latin by Jacobus Angelus of Scarperia around 1406. The first printed edition with maps, published in 1477 in Bologna, was also the first printed book with engraved illustrations. Many editions followed (more often using woodcut in the early days), some following traditional versions of the maps, and others updating them. An edition printed at Ulm in 1482 was the first one printed north of the Alps. Also in 1482, Francesco Berlinghieri printed the first edition in vernacular Italian. Ptolemy’s work in astronomy and geography have made him famous for the ages, despite the fact that many of his theories were in the following centuries proven wrong or changed. Ptolemy collected, analyzed and presented geographical knowledge so that it could be preserved and perfected by future generations. These ideas include expressing locations by longitude and latitude, representing a spherical earth on a flat surface, and developing the first equal area map projection. Ptolemy’s accomplishments reflect his understanding of spatial relationships among places on earth and of the Earth’s spatial relationships to other celestial bodies. The greatest contribution of Ptolemy was not the maps themselves but the concepts behind the maps. Geographia, a work of seven volumes, the standard geography textbook until the 15th century, transmitted a vast amount of topographical detail to Renaissance scholars, profoundly influencing their conception of the world. Containing instructions for drawing maps of the entire oikoumenè (inhabited world), Geographia was what we would now call an atlas. It included a world map, 26 regional maps and 67 maps of smaller areas. He illustrated three different methods for projecting the Earth’s surface on a map (an equal area projection, a stereographic projection and a conic projection), and the calculation of coordinate locations for some eight thousand places on the Earth. He invented the concept of latitude and longitude, a 304
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations mapping system still commonly used today. Latitude was measured horizontally from the equator, but Ptolemy preferred to express it as the length of the longest day rather than degrees of arc (the length of the mid-summer day increases from 12h to 24h as one goes from the equator to the polar circle), while longitude was measured from the westernmost landmass known to date, El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain. Through his publications, Ptolemy dominated European cartography for nearly a millennium and inspired explorers like Christopher Columbus to test the spatial boundaries of the world. Ptolemy is well aware that he knew only about a quarter of the globe. Ptolemy had mapped the whole world from the Fortunat Insulae (Cape Verde or Canary Islands) eastward to the eastern shore of the Magnus Sinus. This known portion of the world was comprised within 180 degrees. In his extreme east Ptolemy placed Serica (the Land of Silk), the Sinarum Situs (the Port of the Sinae), and the emporium of Cattigara. On the 1489 map of the world by Henricus Martellus, which was based on Ptolemy’s work, Asia terminated in its southeastern point in a cape, the Cape of Cattigara. Cattigara was understood by Ptolemy to be a port on the Sinus Magnus, or Great Gulf, the actual Gulf of Thailand, at eight and a half degrees north of the Equator, on the coast of Cambodia, which is where he located it in his Canon of Famous Cities. It was the easternmost port reached by shipping trading from the Greco-Roman world to the lands of the Far East. His ability to take in and understand the incredible amount of information developed before his time, add to it, and synthesis it into a map or a book of maps changed how people understood, perceived and represented the world. Copies and reprints of Ptolemy’s world maps made up the majority of navigation and factual maps for centuries to come, providing the base information for early European explorers. Ptolemy also standardized the orientation of maps, with North on the top and East on the right, thereby placing the known world in the upper left, a standard that remains to this day. Geographia carried a list of the names of some 8,000 places and their approximate latitudes and longitudes. Except for a few that were made by observations, the greater numbers of these locations were determined from older maps, with approximations of distances and directions taken from travelers. In spite of the more accurate mapping of both Philo and Josephus 100 years earlier, Ptolemy 305
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations carries on the long tradition of Greek geographers (Strabo, Eratosthenes, Herodotus, Hesiod and Hecataeus). We know very little of Ptolemy’s life. He made astronomical observations from Alexandria in Egypt during the years 127 – 141 CE. The first observation which we can date exactly was made by Ptolemy on 26 March 127 while the last was made on 2 February 141. In fact there is no evidence that Ptolemy was ever anywhere other than Alexandria. It is not surprising that the maps given by Ptolemy were quite inaccurate in many places for he could not be expected to do more than use the available data and this was of very poor quality for anything outside the Roman Empire, and even parts of the Roman Empire are severely distorted. One fundamental error that had far-reaching effects was attributed to Ptolemy – an underestimation of the size of the Earth. He showed Europe and Asia as extending over half of the globe, instead of the 130 degrees of their true extent. Similarly, the span of the Mediterranean ultimately was proved to be 20 degrees less than Ptolemy’s estimate. So lasting was Ptolemy’s influence that 13 centuries later Christopher Columbus underestimated the distances to Cathay and India partly from a recapitulation of this basic error. The prevailing method of mapping in the ancient world was by means of topological itinerary maps and gazetteers that provided their users with useful travel guides. Of primary concern to most travelers was knowledge of definite and relatively unhazardous routes. The idea of a world map that placed locations relative to an independent spatial framework, whilst certainly a fascinating scientific curiosity, was both too inaccurate and too uninformative (of terrain, winds, sea currents, etc) to be of any practical use. Ptolemy was fully aware that copying a visual map was guaranteed to introduce a great quantity of error. It also makes vividly clear why attempts to correlate Ptolemy’s map with known locations are rendered more or less unviable. In order to reduce these problems of transmission, his Geographia is separated into two parts. The first, along with his methodology, describes how to draw a map according to two different projections. The second is a catalogue of locations, listing both towns and notable geographical features with their latitude and longitude. The continents are given as Europe, Asia and Libya (Africa). The World Ocean is only seen to the west. The map distinguishes two large enclosed seas: the Mediterranean and the Indian (Indicum Pelagus). Due to Marinus and Ptolemy’s mistaken measure of the circumference of the earth, the former is made to 306
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations extend much too far in terms of degrees of arc; due to their reliance on Hipparchus, they mistakenly enclose the latter with an eastern and southern shore of unknown lands, which prevents the map from identifying the western coast of the World Ocean. India is bound by the Indus and Ganges Rivers, but its peninsula is much shortened. Sumatera is given as Aurea Chersonesus (“Golden Peninsula”) instead of the earlier “Golden Island”, which derived from the works of his predecessor Marinus of Tyre of the mines on Sumatera. Beyond the Aurea Chersonesus, the Great Gulf (Magnus Sinus) forms a combination of the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea which is bound by the unknown lands thought to enclose the Indian Sea. China is divided into two realms – the Qin (Sinae) and the Land of Silk (Serica) – owing to the different accounts received from the overland and maritime Silk Roads. Definitions of India In medieval Europe the concept of “three Indias” was in common circulation. Greater India was the southern part of South Asia, Lesser India was the northern part of South Asia, and Middle India was the region around Ethiopia. The name Greater India (Portuguese: India Maior) was used at least from the mid-15th century. The term, which seems to have been used with variable precision, is sometimes meant only the Indian subcontinent; Europeans used a variety of terms related to South Asia to designate the South Asian peninsula, including High India, Greater India, Exterior India and India Aquosa. However, in some accounts of European nautical voyages, Greater India (or India Major) extended from the Malabar Coast (present-day Kerala) to India extra Gangem (“India, beyond the Ganges”, but usually the East Indies, ie present-day Southeast Asian archipelago) and India Minor, from Malabar to Sind. Farther India was sometimes used to cover all of modern Southeast Asia and sometimes only the mainland portion. In late 19th-century geography, “Greater India” referred to Hindustan (Northwestern Subcontinent) which included the Punjab, the Himalayas, and extended eastwards to Indochina (including Burma), parts of Indonesia (namely, the Sunda Islands, Kalimantan and Sulawesi), and the Philippines. German atlases sometimes distinguished Vorder-Indien (Anterior India) as the South Asian peninsula and Hinter-Indien as Southeast Asia.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations The Island of Taprobana Taprobana, under the name of the “land of the Antichthones” or OppositeEarth, was long looked upon as another world. The name was entirely unknown in Europe before the time Alexander the Great invaded India in 327 BCE. The writers who speak of Taprobana are Onesicritus, Eratosthenes, Megasthenes, Hipparchus, Strabo and Pliny. There are two distinct periods in which Taprobana is mentioned; and a third period when the site, with the name itself, have utterly vanished. The first period is that of the early and ancient writers from the time of Alexander the Great to that of the Emperor Claudius. It embraces notices from Onesicritus, Megasthenes and Pliny. They all use no other name than that of Taprobana. The second period embraces the time from Ptolemy to that of Cosmas Indicopleustes, late on into the Christian era. About twenty years after Alexander’s death, Megasthenes was sent as ambassador by Seleucus Nicator in 302 BCE to Sandracottus (Chandragupta Maurya). From information derived at the court of Sandracottus, Megasthenes described Taprobana as a very fertile island divided by a river. One part was infested by wild beasts and elephants, and the other inhabited by Prachii colonists, and producing gold and gems. Eratosthenes has also given the dimensions of this island, as being 7,000 stadia in length and 5,000 in breadth. He states also that there were no cities, but villages to the number of 700. It began at the Eastern sea, and laid extended opposite to India, east and west. This island was in former times supposed to be 20 days’ sail from the country of the Prasii, but in later times, whereas the navigation was formerly confined to vessels constructed of papyrus with the tackle peculiar to the Nile, the distance had been estimated at no more than 7 days sail, in reference to the speed which could be attained by vessels of their construction. According to Pliny, in the reign of Claudius (41 – 54 CE), a freedman Annius Plocamus, who had farmed from the treasury the Red Sea revenues, while sailing around Arabia was carried away by gales of wind from the north beyond Carmania. In the course of 15 days he had been wafted to Hippuri, a port of Taprobana, where he was humanely received, hospitably entertained by the king, and having in six months time to acquire the language. This king, moreover, was so impressed with the character of the Romans, as exhibited by the fact that the 308
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations denarii found in the possession of the freedman were all of equal weight, although the different figures on them plainly showed that they had been struck in the reigns of several emperors. He remained there sometime longer, and brought them acquainted with his own government. He dispatched the embassy in question to Rome, consisting of 4 ambassadors, of whom the chief was Rachia. Strabo gathered many details from the ambassadors. Taprobana contained 500 towns and villages, and that there was a harbor that lies facing the south, and adjoining the city of Palaesimundus, 10 the most famous city in the isle, the king’s place of residence, and containing a population of 200,000. There was a lake in the country called Megisba, 375 miles in circumference, from which one river called Palaesimundus, ran by the capital of that name, by 3 channels, the narrowest of which was 5 stadia in width, the largest 15; and the other, Cydara by name, northwards towards the coast of India. There were corals, pearls and precious stones; the soil was fruitful; life was prolonged to more than a hundred years; there was a trade with China overland. The king wears the costume of Father Liber. Their festivals are celebrated with the chase, the most valued sports being the pursuit of the tiger and the elephant. The lands are carefully tilled; the vine is not cultivated there, but of other fruits there is great abundance. They take great delight in fishing, and especially in catching turtles; beneath the shells of which whole families find an abode, of such vast size are they to be found. The mode of trade and barter among the inhabitants themselves was peculiar, being done at night. The country and people were maritime and highly commercial. These ambassadors made one statement of the country enjoying two summers and two winters, which clearly show that the country embraced on both sides of the equator. The ambassadors expressed great surprise at seeing the northern stars, and the sun rise on the left and set on the right hand. The nearest point of the [Greater] Indian coast was a promontory known as Coliacum, distant 4 days’ sail, and midway between them lay “the island of the Sun”; the sea was a greenish tint, having numerous trees (coral) growing in it, which the rudders of vessels broke off as they came in contact when sailing over it. The sea that lies between the island and the mainland is full of shallows, not more than 6 paces in depth; but in certain channels it is of such extraordinary depth, that no anchor has ever found a bottom. For this reason it is that the vessels are constructed with prows at either end; so that there may be no 309
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations necessity for tacking while navigating these channels, which are extremely narrow. The tonnage of these vessels is 3,000 amphorae. In traversing their seas, the people of Taprobana take no observations of the stars, and indeed the Greater Bear is not visible to them; but they carry birds out to sea, which they let go from time to time, and so follow their course as they make for the land. They devote only 4 months in the year to the pursuits of navigation, and are particularly careful not to trust themselves on the sea during the next 100 days after the summer solstice, for in those seas it is at that time the middle of winter. Ptolemy, referring to Taprobana, states that its name had been altered to Salike. While Pliny gives very few names of places in Taprobana, Ptolemy, on the contrary, supplies a mass of information concerning the island, which is surprising by its copiousness, including not merely a complete periplus of its coasts, with the names of the headlands, rivers and seaport towns, but also the names of many cities and tribes in the interior.
Figure 134. A reconstruction of Ptolemy’s map of Taprobana as published in the Cosmographia Claudii Ptolomaei Alexandrini (1535).
The Periplus Maris Erythraei (“Voyage around the Erythraean Sea”), an anonymous work from around the middle of the first century CE written by a Greek speaking Egyptian merchant, indicates that the course trending toward the east, lying out at sea toward the west is the island Palaesimundu, called by the ancients Taprobana. The northern part is a day’s journey distant, the 310
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations southern part trends gradually toward the west, and almost touches the shore of Azania. It produces pearls, transparent stones, muslins and tortoise-shell. Cosmas Indicopleustes (“Cosmas the Indian Voyager”), who wrote The Christian Topography in the early 6th century, took especial care several times to impress it on his readers that the island called Serendib by the Indians was the Taprobana of the earlier Greeks. In the time of Cosmas the name Taprobana had vanished. Kalimantan Hypothesis for Taprobana From the BCE until the Middle Ages followed by the New World, a wide variety of world maps had been created and can be observed, which shows the development of the Western knowledge about the whole Earth, from the simple to the almost complete. The development was driven by the need for more accurate maps of trade routes heading to the world in the east, known as “The Silk Road”, that is from the Mediterranean Sea, followed by the Red Sea, the Erythraean Sea, the Indian Ocean, and ending in China. At the early century, only that trade route was the most widely known, while outside those regions only little information obtained, owing from sailors who had visited them. Kalimantan Island is outside that route so that the location was not exactly known, or possibly deliberately kept in secret because this island has lucrative resources with superior quality that are very alluring for trade commodities. These become the subjects of the author to hypothesize that Taprobana is actually Kalimantan (Irwanto 2015). World Map Development
The island of Taprobana is shown on the maps of Dicaearchus (300 BCE), Eratothenes (220 BCE), Strabo (18 CE), Pomponius Mela (43 CE), Ptolemy (150 CE), Al-Idrisi (1154 CE), Andreas Walsperger (1148 CE), Martellus (1490 CE), Martin Behaim (1492 CE), Cantino (1502 CE), Caverio (1505 CE), Waldseemüller (1507 CE), Lorenz Fries/Peter Apian (1520 CE) and edited Ptolemy’s by Lorenz Fries (1522 CE), while it disappears on the Middle-Age maps by Abraham Ortelius (1570 CE) and threafter. Maps prior to Ptolemy are without advancement of geography and cartography, so that information on maps are rather sparse, so generalized and far from accurate. Geographic features were drawn as they saw them or as travelers and explorers described them. As begun by Dicaearchus in the 3rd or 4th century BCE, Taprobana is shown, on the world map – as what they heard from what 311
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations they saw or described by other travelers – in the Indian Ocean without knowing the exact position, at the south, west or further west of the Indian Peninsula. Ptolemy’s map shows the whole world from the Fortunat Insulae eastward to China, spanned 180 degrees of longitude and about 80 degrees of latitude. His book Geographia carries a list of the names of some 8,000 places and their approximate latitudes and longitudes. The greater number of these locations are determined from older maps (Strabo, Eratosthenes, Herodotus, Hesiod and Hecataeus), with approximations of distances and directions taken from travelers and more accurate mapping of both Philo and Josephus 100 years earlier, except for a few that were made by observations. Ptolemy is well aware that he knows about only a quarter of the globe and can not do more as the available data was of very poor quality for anything outside the Roman Empire. These make the maps given by Ptolemy are inaccurate in many places. If we look his world map and compare it with the modern map, we can clearly see the tremendous deviations, much largely in the Asian portion. His error of underestimation of the size of the Earth is another contribution of the inaccuracy. However, so far ahead of their time, they were used well into the Renaissance until 13 centuries later Christopher Columbus underestimated the distances to Cathay and India. Ptolemy also includes 26 regional maps and 67 maps of smaller areas. These maps are at the grater located in and around the Roman Empire, with only a few regional maps are in the Greater India and China, where among them is Taprobana. These regional maps and smaller area data are of better accuracy, whether they are obtained from his observations or data from other travelers or explorers. Incorporating these regions and areas on an inaccurate world map derived from the older maps creates his confusions to locate their exact positions. Allegedly, he locates Taprobana based on the older maps of whether Eratothenes or Strabo, that actually no such island is in the position, or he deliberately puts it in the wrong place or floats its location so that not everyone can get there. Another allegation is that since Ptolemy’s text was copied many times, copying errors might occur. For the case of Taprobana – which lies between 117 and 144 degrees longitude, including the surrounding islands – the Roman L numeral (for Arabic 50) was apparently not copied (intentionally or unintentionally) resulting a shift of 50 degrees longitude in the Ptolemy’s coordinate system.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. This resulted in a lack of information of the area encompassed by the Indian Ocean, until the Portuguese explorers developed a passage to Asia by sailing around Africa and with the conquest of the Sultanate of Malaka in 1511. Thus, the Asian portion of the world maps after Ptolemy still continues to rely on his information found in the Geographia, incorporates the knowledge obtained from the Arab explores and unknown sources, as shown on the maps of Al-Idrisi, Martellus, Cantino, Caverio, Waldseemüller, Fries and Apian. Al-Idrisi incorporates the knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Far East gathered by Arab merchants and explorers. Martellus’ map shows heavy influences from Ptolemy but incorporates Africa. Cantino’s map portrays Brazilian coast and depicts African coast of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans with a remarkable accuracy and detail. Caverio’s map shows the east coast of North America with surprising detail where its sources are still a mystery. Waldseemüller’s map is a new line of editions of Ptolemy’s Geographia with the integration of new geographical information coming from the earliest of voyages of discovery. Fries and Apian’s maps are the re-working of the Waldseemüller’s map. Most of these maps locate Taprobana more or less on the same position as Ptolemy’s map, except Cantino and Caverio’s maps which portray it as Sumatera. Observing and comparing Ptolemy’s and Martellus’ maps, we can clearly see that there were confusions in mapping the Indian Peninsula. Ptolemy describes it in two major regions, India Intra Gangem – where there are Laricæ, Ariasa and Lymirca – in the west that does not show a major protruding peninsula, and India Extra Gangem – where there is Aurea Chersonesus – in the east that shows a major protruding peninsula. He maps Indus and Ganges rivers on the west and east of India Intra Gangem, respectively, and Magnus Sinus and Cattigara on the further east. Martellus adds another peninsula on the east – where there is Cattigara – based on Ptolemy’s data, and keeps the others similar to Ptolemy’s. This peninsula is supposedly the Malay Peninsula so that the Indian Peninsula should be the Ptolemy’s India Extra Gangem. Maps thereafter by Cantino, Caveri, Waldseemüller, Fries and Apian confirm this. The Mela and Caveri’s map show two separate islands depicting Sri Lanka (“Solis”, “Seillam”) and Taprobana. The Ptolemy’s map show Barusæ, which is the present day Barus in Sumatera, and Taprobana separately. The Behaim, Waldseemüller, Fries and Apian’s maps show Sri Lanka (“Seilan”, “Seillam”, “Seyla”) and Sumatera (“Jaba Minor”, “Iava Minor”), beside Taprobana which is 313
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Figure 135 – Clarified reconstruction of Ptolemy’s map.
Figure 136 – Clarified Martellus’ map.
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Mare Caspium
Bactriana Media Aria
Persis
PE RSIS
Gedrosia
AR IANA
ARABIA
INDIA
INDIA
Carmania
Sinus Persicus
INDIA
Gedrosia
Mare Erythræum Taprobana
Mare Erythræum
Mare Erythræum
Eratosthenes (ca 220 BCE), reconstruction
Strabo (ca 25 BCE), reconstruction
Chryse Insula
Dicaearchus (ca 300 BCE), reconstruction
Taprobana
PERSAE
Babylonia
INDIA
Assia
Argyre Insula
Ogyris Ins.
Persicum Mare
Caspium M.
Persicus Sinus
Ray Dalthuris
ARIAN E
Thassia
Catyo Loray Dalli
Arabia Sabba
Illa Iana
Illa Trapobana
Taprobana
Pomponius Mela (ca 43 CE)
Tartaria Scithia
Caludius Ptolemy (ca 150 CE)
Tartaria
Sithia
Hyrbanisehe Mer
Cathaio
Abraham Cresques (1375 CE)
Cathaia
Serica Regio
Sinus Persious Cambaya
India India
India Intra Gäge
India Orientalis
Catiguam
Mare Indicum
India
Oceanus Indie Superioria
Sinus Magnus
Taprobana
Taprobana
Provincia Maibar
Loach Seillam
Oceanus Indicus
Maabarr Coilur
Aurea Chersonesus
Pentan
Sinus Gangeticus
Amgediba
Cattigara
Oceanus Orientalis
Jaba Maior Mare Barbarialis Angaman
Malagua
Zanzibar
Oceanus Indicus Meridionalis
Oceanus Indyais Meridionalis
Henricus Martellus (1490 CE)
Martin Behaim (1492 CE)
Nicolay de Caveri (1505 CE) Mongol
Chatay
Serica Regio Cithia Extra
ASIA
Mare Hircanusive Caspium
Sinus Persicus
Cithia Extra
India
S
Cathaio
A
I
Turchestan
India Superior
Cathaio
China
Persia Guzarate
India Extra Gangem
India Orientalis
Taprobana Sinus Gangeticus
Sinus Magnus Mallagua
Zeilan
Iava Maior Madagascar Oceanus Indicus Meridionalis
Seyla Seylam
Mare Prassodum
A
Arabia
Mare Indicum Mare Barbaricus
Cathaia
Serica Regio
Corasan India Intra Gangem
Sinus Magnus
Aurrea Chersonesus Taprobana Insula
ASIA
India Meridionalis
Sinus Gangeticus
Arabbia Felix
Cithia Intra
Cyamba Provincia Magna
Iava Maior
Cithia Intra
Tartaria
India Superior
Madagascar
Mare Indicu
Iava Minor
Iona
Martin Waldseemüller (1507 CE)
Peuta
Peter Apian (1522 CE)
Mare di India
Iava maior Lantacidol mare
Abraham Ortelius (1564 CE)
Figure 137 – Various locations of Taprobana on the ancient maps. Also shown Sri Lanka (“Solis”, “Seilan”, “Seillam”, “Seylam”, “Seyla” or “Zeilan”) and Sumatera (“Chryse”, “Aurea Chersonesus”, “Barusæ”, “Illa Iana”, “Jaba Minor”, “Iava Minor” or “Sumatra”).
situated further west. These become indications that Taprobrana is not Sri Lanka nor Sumatera, and raise a presumption that it deliberately put on the wrong place or floated its location to make it a secrecy. It is allegedly that the 315
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations sailors who tried to find Taprobana using Ptolemy based maps could not find it in the location but then sailed further, at the end they found Sumatera and assumed it as Taprobana. In spite of those, Taprobana is shown in the extreme southeast corner (Southeast Asia) on the Cresques’ Catalan Atlas (“Trapobana”), and in the Indian Ocean northeast of Java (“Argeria”) and Sumatera (“Crisa”) on the map of Walsperger (“Tapbana”). Sri Lanka (“Zeilan”) and Sumatera (“Sumatra”) appear on the Ortelius’ map, but Taprobana disappears, and Kalimantan (“Burneo”) and other islands in the archipelago added. Thus, it shows the incredibly improved knowledge of the cartographers in that time. A presumption raise that the knowledge of the archipelago have been understood since that time, and the cartographers should have found out that Taprobana is actually Kalimantan, making it disappear from the maps. Descriptions of Taprobana from the Ancient Writers
Eratosthenes mentioned that Taprobana is located in the Eastern sea, lies extended opposite to Greater India. He gave the dimensions of the island, as being 7,000 stadia (≈ 1,300 kilometers, 800 miles) in length and 5,000 stadia (≈ 925 kilometers, 575 miles) in width. When we measure the size of Kalimantan Island, we can find that these dimensions are highly accurate. Strabo states that Taprobana rises opposite to the cinnamon-producing country (Sumatera) and lies toward the east on the same parallel. The ambassadors dispatched to Rome, as written by Pliny and Strabo, made one statement of the country enjoying two summers and two winters, which clearly show that the country embraced on both sides of the equator. These become evidence that Eratosthenes, Pliny and Strabo are correct to refer Taprobana as Kalimantan. Pliny and Strabo states that the nearest point of the Greater Indian coast is a promontory known as Coliacum, distant 4 days’ sail, and midway between them laid “the island of the Sun”. The sea was a greenish tint, having numerous coral at the bottom, which the rudders of vessels broke off as they came in contact when sailing over it. The Coliacum promontory is allegedly the Malay Peninsula, probably they gave its name referring to Kelantan or its older name Kalantan located in the east coast of the peninsula. The early history of Kelantan traces distinct human settlement dating back to prehistoric times, and became an important center of trade by the end of the 15th century.
316
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Between Kalimantan and the Malay Peninsula lays the Karimata Strait, a shallow water which was a land mass during the Ice Age. Almost a hundred of islands and coral reefs are in this strait – administratively under the Riau Islands and Bangka-Belitung Provinces of Indonesia – with main islands among them are Natuna, Anambas, Bintan, Lingga, Bangka and Belitung. People in these islands are known for their sun worshiping. The sea is shallow and reefs are on its bottom so that it has greenish color. There are several islands around Kalimantan Island. Those in the Java Sea and Figure 138 – Kalimantan Island and its surroundings. Karimata Strait, where they have shallow depth of about 20 to 50 meters (66 to 164 feet), are a mix of real islands and coral reefs. In between the islands or the reefs, the depths are even shallower so that vessels have to be carefully prepared for such condition. These confirm Pliny’s and Strabo’s statements. The Dayak people inhabiting the Kalimantan Island are mostly hunters and farmers. Their leaders wear clothes and accessories just like Father Liber, as what Pliny and Strabo said. They have also the most ancient tradition of tattooing. Animals are abundant and the soil is fertile. The island is also rich of metal minerals such gold, silver and copper, and any kinds of precious stones. Oysters producing pearls are cultivated in the seas around the island, now become 40% of the world supply of pearl. Elephants, tigers and turtles were abundant in the island as depicted by the Dayak traditions, languages and legends of how they aware of the habitat and habits of these animals, but because of their hunting tradition, their present populations are dwindled or extinct. The now endangered Kalimantan pigmy elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis) are what remained in Kalimantan now, the same species in Java already extinct some 200 years ago. Kalimantan, as well as Sumatera, are the habitat of giant turtles (Orlitia borneensis) and clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa). These facts confirm Pliny, Strabo and Ptolemy’s statements. 317
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In daily life, helmeted hornbills (Rhinoplax vigil) are admired by the Dayaks in Kalimantan, for the lessons the community can learn from the behavior of the species. Using many different reverential names for the birds, the Dayaks have many myths and legends in which hornbills are envoys of the gods with the task of conveying divine messages. In their beliefs, the birds give living examples of fidelity to a spouse and responsibility for family life. The Dayaks teach their children not to hurt or kill the sacred birds. Such deeds are a taboo. Pliny and Strabo said that in traversing their seas, the people of Taprobana take no observations of the stars, but they carry birds out to sea, which they let go from time to time, and so follow their course as they make for the land. These birds were apparently the hornbill admired by the Dayaks. Pliny and Strabo stated that the island had a harbor at the south coast, adjoining the city of Palaesimundus. There was a large lake named Megisba from which Palaesimundus River ran by the city by 3 channels each having width of between 5 and 15 stadia (about 0.9 and 2.8 kilometers, 0.6 and 1.7 miles), and the Cydara River laid north of the lake. The author identifies these three rivers as the Barito, Kapuas-Murung and Kahayan Rivers. Barito River is nearly 3 kilometers (1.9 miles), Kapuas-Murung River is about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) and Kahayan river is about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 mile) in width, in those parts near the sea, that show conformities with those stated by Pliny and Strabo. A large lake was probably formed on the plain region due to occurrence of large floods from the mountains with higher flow velocity that could erode the upper part of the plain, but the lower part is flat and level so that the velocity was much reduced and the eroded material settled on that place forming a dam and a lake. A shallow lake on a flat plane may vanish only within hundreds of years. The existing condition now is a large swampy region. According to the old maps, Tanjungpura located on the south coast of Kalimantan was a prominent city. Several ancient manuscripts also mention the name. Its literal meaning is “the city (pura) of tanjung trees”. Tanjung tree (Mimusops elengi) is a medium-sized evergreen tree found in tropical forests in South Asia, Southeast Asia and northern Australia. English common names include Spanish cherry, medlar and bullet wood. Its Sanskrit name is bakula so that an ancient manuscript from the Javanese Singhasari Kingdom refers the city as Bakulapura. “Tanjung” can also mean “cape” or “peninsula” as used in some place names, but not for this case.
318
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations In the history records, there was a community near the present Tanjung town named Tanjungpuri. One of the remains is a Hindu temple Candi Agung located in Sungaimalang Village, Central Amuntai Sub-district, Hulu Sungai Utara Regency, South Kalimantan Province. Carbon dating to the remains resulted in around 200 BCE. Tanjungpuri was probably the primordial Tanjungpura. The port of Hippuri mentioned by Pliny was probably the Tanjungpuri. There is a remarkable resemblance between beads from Kalimantan and certain Mediterranean specimens. Several of the types are all but identical with Roman beads (Nieuwenhuis 1904), whereas others look as if they might be Greek of the 4th century BCE (van der Sande 1904, HC Beck 1930). This discovery of trade beads suggests that an earlier Mediterranean connection dating as early as the 4th century BCE may have once existed. At first, the indigenous people of Kalimantan did not apply the kingship system. Their social lives were based on customs and beliefs that were developed and transmitted from generation to generation. The community was formed from a small number of people and an amount of land necessary for living and farming. As the time over, they developed into a larger community that made their customs a more complex, and need more land too. Opening a new land would create a new community so that over time several communities were created but followed the same customs and inhabiting the same region. They called the whole community having the same socio-cultural practices and inhabiting in a region “banua”, meaning “world”, similar to “mundus” in Latin. The communities in Kalimantan strongly hold this “banua” concept until today. Their social leader is called “raja” or “rajah”. The name of the chief of the embassy to Roman as stated by Pliny, Rachia, is probably this “rajah”. In the 19th century, James Brooke was appointed as “rajah”, ruling the territory across the western regions of Sarawak. Kingship was introduced into the indigenous by the Malay settlers from Sumatera around the 4th or 5th century. Tanjungpura was probably a “banua” in the early centuries and BCE, so that the long name would be “Banua Tanjungpura”. Some old maps mention it as “Taiopuro”, which probably the European then called it with a long name “Taiopuro Banua”. To match the four consonants for a name, it was shortened to “Taprobana” and also to name the whole island, the same meaning as “Banua Tanjungpura”.
319
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Related to the name of “Salike” given by Ptolemy, there is an Austronesian word “salaka” that means “white-colored metal”. This is probably a mixture of gold and silver, an electrum. This metal can be found naturally in southern Kalimantan region as a byproduct of gold mining. The word is applied to a cape name, Tanjung Salaka, located at the south coast of Kalimantan almost around the location of Tanjungpura. The freedman Annius Plocamus was possibly stranded around the present-day Banjarmasin, in accordance with his statement that is on the southern coast of Taprobana. It was also said that its territory was divided into two separated by a river. One part was infested by wild beasts and elephants, and the other inhabited by Prachii colonists, and producing gold and gems. The river was possibly the present-day Barito River and the Prachii colonists was the presentday Banjar people which were inherently colonists in several islands in Indonesia. On the ancient maps, the Banjar people were mentioned as Paco, Bancy, Biajo, Bander and Banjar, and by Ptolemy as Bacchi. Gold and gems are among the famous produsts of the region. Banjarmasin on the bank of the Barito River by Odoric of Pordenone (an Italian Franciscan friar) was mentioned as Thalamasyn. Banjarmasin by the Roman tongue was perhaps changed into Palaesimundus. Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire possibly deliberately kept the actual name in secret and obscured it with another names because this island has lucrative resources with superior quality that are very alluring for trade commodities. Besides some other classic names of the island, Kalimantan bore the name of Nusakencana, literally means “the island of gold”, as stated in the Jayabaya Prophecy from the Javanese Kediri Kingdom in the 12th century. The Muarakaman inscriptions found in the upper region of Mahakam River in east Kalimantan dated to 4th century also attest that the king of Mulawarman held a charity of much gold. The word “nusakencana” is an Austronesian language; its translation into Sanskrit is “svarnadvipa”. Svarnadvipa is widely known as the island of Sumatera by the historians but there is no such inscription that clearly refers it as the said island, so that other alternative of Svarnadvipa is Kalimantan as this island is more abundant with gold than Sumatera. Moreover, Cosmas Indico-pleustes mentioned that “Serendip”, a European tongue of “Svarnadvipa”, was the island of Taprobana. 320
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Classic Maps of Kalimantan
Classic maps containing Kalimantan Island are abundantly available. The maps in the table below show the development of Kalimantan maps from the 16th until the 19th centuries. Table 3 – Classic maps containing Kalimantan. Map
Year
Map
Year
Map
Year
Giacomo Gastaldi
1548
Giovanni Battista Ramusio
1554
Abraham Ortelius
1570
Abraham Ortelius
1572
Petrus Plancius
1594
Jan Huygen van Linschoten
1596
Willem Lodewycksz
1598
Hondius Jodocus
1606
Petrus Bertius
1616
Gerard Mercator
1619
Petrus Bertius
1627
Ioão Teixeira
1630 1650
Johannes Cloppenburgh
1632
Joan Janssonius
1638
Willem Janszoon Blaeu
Frederik de Wit
1662
Pierre Duval
1680
Alain Manesson Mallet
1683
Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi
1687
Robert Morden
1688
Vincenzo Maria Coronelli
1689
Bowrey
1701
Pieter Vander
1706
Ioachim Ottens
1710
Herman Moll
1719
John Senex
1721
Nicholas de Fer dan J Robbe
1721
Chevigny
1723
Pierre Vander
1725
Christoph Homanno
1730
Isaac Tirion
1740
Nicolaus Bellin
1747
Robert de Vaugondy
1762
Thomas Salmon
1766
M Bonne
1770
M Bonne
1771
Antonio Zatta
1776
Thomas Jefferys
1778
M Bonne
1780
Clement Cruttwell
1799
John Cary
1801
Ambrosse Tardieu
1810
Pinkerton
1818
David H Burr
1835
Tallis
1851
Joseph Hutchins Colton
1855
JH de Bussy
1893
Richard Andree
1895
The author uses these maps to identify names of places, cities, beaches, ports, islands and indigenous people living in Kalimantan Island and to see its development to compare with the Ptolemy’s map. The cartographers of these maps should have known that Kalimantan was actually Taprobana, noticeable in the great similarities of the geographic names, layout, locations, features and descriptions of the island and its surroundings among Ptolemy’s and their maps. Geographic Name Identifications
The author identifies the geographic names and locations as mentioned by Ptolemy by correlating with those in the old maps and their modern names. Compass was not invented in the Ptolemy’s time so that the map has very low quality in terms of scale, orientation and geographic locations. Below are the identified names. We can see that numerous names as well as their locations are in close resemblance with those of Ptolemy’s. These are the so many proofs that Taprobana is actually Kalimantan.
321
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations
Figure 139 – Identified geographic names. See explanations of the development of the names below. Some names can not be identified, perhaps already disappeared or renamed. 1.
Cetęum, promontorium → (Cotan, Catalan, Satalang, Salaton, Salatan) → Tanjung Selatan “Tanjung” means “cape” or “promontory”. Tanjung Selatan is a significant promontory located at the southeastern part of Kalimantan.
2.
Nanigiri, region → (Nagara, Nagarra) → Negara Negara was a known place name and frequently mentioned in the old maps, now a village and a river name in South Kalimantan Province.
3.
Baracus, fluvius → Barito River 322
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Some maps show Barito River as Banjar River, Banjarmasin River or misplaced as Sukadana River. 4.
Nacaduma, place → Mandoemai → Mandomai Mandoemai is mentioned on the 1896 Dutch map. Mandomai is now a village in the region of Kapuas Barat Subdistrict, Kapuas Regency, Central Kalimantan Province.
5.
Bachi, civitas → (Paco, Bancy, Biajo, Bander, Banjar) → Banjar Banjar is an ethnic group in southern Kalimantan and formed a kingdom of Banjarmasin from 1520 to 1860. Banjarmasin is now a capital city of South Kalimantan Province. Some maps show Banjarmasin as Bandarmassin, Bendermassin, Bendermaβin, Bandermachri, Bendarmafsin, Bindermasin, Baniarmafseen, Brandermassin, Banjarmassen, Banjar Massin or Banjarmaffen. Odoric of Pordenone mentioned it as Thalamasyn. Banjar people were travellers; some of them had travelled to many places in the archipelago and set up pockets of settlement. Megasthenes described Taprobana was inhabited by Prachii colonists, this could be the Banjar people.
6.
Corcobara, place → (Tamiampura, Taiampura, Taiapura, Taiaopura, Taiaopuro, Tanjapura) → Tanjungpura Tanjungpura is a name of an ancient kingdom. Based on the old maps, its location was not static but mostly at the south and southwest coast of Kalimantan.
7.
Orneon, extrema → (Simanauw) → Sebangau “Orneo”, “ornis” and “ornêon” in Latin mean “bird”, “fowl” or “heron”. “Bangau” in local language means “hern”, “heron”, “stork” or “egret”. Sebangau is now the name of a river and a bay at the southern coast of Kalimantan.
8.
Azanus, fluvius → Kayan, Kahayan River There are several rivers with the name of Kayan (or Kahayan), in western, southern and eastern Kalimantan. Kayan is also the name of several 323
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Dayak tribes. Azanus River is probably the Kahayan River in Central Kalimantan. The Periplus Maris Erythraei indicates that the southern part of the region trends gradually toward the west, and almost touches the shore of Azania (or Azanus) which is the Kayan River located at the south coast. 9.
Louis, extrema → (Lao, Lave, Laue, Lava, Laua, Lawa) → Lawi, Lawai Lawi or Lawai is an ancient city in the Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan Province. The name is frequently mentioned on the old maps but the exact location is controverted. Tomé Pires, a Portuguese explorer, described it as an area rich of diamonds, four-day shipping distance from Tanjompure (Tanjungpura). Lawi is also the name of a river, a tributary of Kayan River. Lawi is sometimes associated with Melawi, a regency in West Kalimantan Province.
10.
Nubartha, civitas → (Sambuer, Sambaur, Sambor, Sobar, Sambar, Sambahar, Sambbae, Samban) → Tanjung Sambar Tanjung Sambar is a cape in the Muara Kandawangan National Park.
11.
Malea, mons → (Melahoei, Melawai) → Melawi Melawi is the name of a regency in West Kalimantan Province, also the name of a river, located and has its headwaters on the Schwaner-Muller, a mountain range with highest peaks in Kalimantan.
12.
Anubingara, place → (Matan, Mattan, Ketapan) → Ketapang Ketapang is the oldest town in the western Kalimantan, was once the center of the kingdom of Tanjungpura situated at Matan. Ketapang is now the capital of the Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan Province.
13.
Priapides, portus → (Tamaratas, Tamaratos, Tamarates, Tameorato, Iamanatos, Hormata, Carimata) → Cempedak, Karimata Cempedak is now the names of the two islands, off the coast of the port Siduk, Sukadana. Tamaratos and Hormata are frequently mentioned in the old maps, these are probably the modern town of Ketapang. Karimata is now the name of an island off the coast of Ketapang and a strait separating Kalimantan and Sumatera. 324
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 14.
Sindocanda, civitas; Sandocandę, region → (Succadano, Succaduno, Succudana, Succadana, Socadana, Sucadana) → Sukadana Sukadana is frequently mentioned in the old maps, it was an ancient kingdom with its products are diamonds and iron. Sukadana is now the capital city of North Kayong Regency, West Kalimantan Province.
15.
Poduce, place → (Landa, Salimbau) → Sekadau Landa is frequently mentioned in the old maps, this is probably Sekadau located at the bank of Kapuas River. Sekadau is now the names of a regency and also its capital, in West Kalimantan Province.
16.
Soana, fluvius; Soani, region → (Sonee, Senar, Soné, Sone, Sona, Soengi) → [Sungai] Sambas The above names are found on the 18th and 19th century maps indicating the three rivers (or places) around the Main Sambas River, literary mean “river” (“sungai”). These are written as Sone Sambas, Sone Luban and Sone Napor, probably the closely neighbored Sambas Kecil, Teberau and Subah Rivers. Sambas was a kingdom from before 14th century to 1950 CE, now the capital city of Sambas Regency in West Kalimantan Province.
17.
Anaris, promontorium → (Sisar, Soric, Siric) → Tanjung Sirik Tanjung Sirik is a cape located in Sarikei Division, Sarawak
18.
Anurogrammum, place, Anurogrammi, region → Dayak people Anurogrammum is in close resemblance to Anurognathus, a genus of small pterosaur. The indigenous Dayak people are hornbill admirers, have many myths and legends in which hornbills are envoys of the gods with the task of conveying divine messages. The Anurogrammum is allegedly meant “hornbill admirer”, ie the Dayak people.
19.
Iogana, civitas → (Malano, Malona, Melanoege) → Melanau Melanau people are an ethnic group native to Sarawak, the fifth largest group (after Iban, Chinese, Malays and Bidayuh), but forms a large part of Sarawak’s political sphere. The Melanau are considered among the 325
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations earliest settlers in Sarawak, at first settled in scattered communities along the main tributaries of the Rajang River in Central Sarawak. 20.
Margana, civitas → Miri Miri town is named after a minority ethnic group called “Jatti Meirek” or simply “Mirek”, or “Miriek”. This ethnic group is the earliest settlers in the region of Miri Division, Sarawak.
21.
Galiba, extrema; Galibi, region; Galibi, montres → (Balaba, Balabac) → Balabac Balabac is the southern-most island of the Palawan province in the Philippines, only about 50 kilometres north from Sabah, Malaysia, across the Balabac Strait. The Molbogs, which is also referred to as Molebugan or Molebuganon are concentrated in the island. The Molbogs allegedly migrated from North Borneo, related to the Tidung or Tirum people, an indigenous group found in the northeast coast of Sabah since they have similar dialect and socio-cultural practices. The names of Sabah, Balambangan Island and Teluk Labuk might also be derived from the same name.
22.
Talakori, emporium → (Cancirao, Cancyra, Canciaro, Cancerao, Cancorao, Cancirau) → Keningau This place is frequently mentioned in the 17th- and 18th-century maps. The exact place is not known, possibly Keningau, a district in the Interior Division, Sabah. It is the oldest and largest town in the interior part of Sabah. During the British colonial era, Keningau was one of the most important administrative centers in the British North Borneo.
23.
Modutti, emporium; Mudutti, region → (Marudo, Malloodoo) → Marudu or Murut people Marudu is a town and a district located in the Kudat Division of the state of Sabah. The Muruts are an indigenous ethnic group, inhabiting northern inland regions of Borneo, literally means “hill people”. A large percentage of the Murut communities are in the southwest interior of Sabah, specifically the districts of Keningau, Tenom, Nabawan and Pensiangan, along the 326
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Sapulut and Padas rivers. The Muruts were the last of Sabah’s ethnic groups to renounce headhunting. 24.
Phasis, fluvius → (Sisar, Sisor) → Kinabatangan River Kinabatangan River is located in Sabah, the second longest river in Malaysia. Its headwaters are in the mountains of southwest Sabah and its outlet is at the Sulu Sea, east of Sandakan.
25.
Anubingara, civitas → Lun Bawang people The Lun Bawang (formerly known as Southern Murut) is an ethnic group found in Central Northern Borneo. They are indigenous to the highlands of North Kalimantan (Krayan, Malinau and Long Bawan), Brunei (Temburong District), southwest of Sabah (Interior Division) and northern region of Sarawak (Limbang Division).
26.
Nagadiba, civitas → Negaradipa Negaradipa was a kingdom located in the interior of South Kalimantan. Its capital was originally at Candi Laras, Margasari, near the downstream of Bahan River at its tributary, then they moved to the upstream at Candi Agung, Amuntai. As well as some other tribes in Borneo, before establishing their empire they were tribal societies. Possibly, Negaradipa was a tribe before establishing their kingdom. The tribes in Kalimantan are generally nomadic and the tribe of Negaradipa was not necessarily located at the kingdom of Negaradipa.
27.
Maagrammum, metropolis; Ganges, fluvius → (Bamcamanican, Pomanakam, Markaman) → Muarakaman and Mahakam River Muarakaman, located in Kutai Kartanegara Regency, East Kalimantan Province, is known as the existence of stone manuscripts dated around 4th century CE, written on seven stone pillars in the Pallava alphabet and the Sanskrit language, considered as the oldest inscription existing in Indonesia. A Brahmin (Hindu) kingdom is attested by the manuscripts, located in Muarakaman, precisely in the bank of Mahakam River. There is no inscription that clearly mentions the name of this kingdom, but popularly known as Kutai Martadipura as has been given by the scholars.
327
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Several places sacred to Hindus lie along the banks of rivers and named the rivers as Ganges. Mahakam River where Muarakaman is located in its bank was most likely considered as the Ganges. 28.
Spatana, portus → Bontang Bontang is a port town in East Kutai Regency, East Kalimantan Province, located at the eastern coast of Kalimantan.
29.
Procuri, civitas → (Pasir, Pafsir, Passier, Passeir, Passir) → Dayak Paser people The Dayak Pasers is an indigenous ethnic group found in southeastern Kalimantan. Dayak Paser people are possibility have alliance with the Dayak Lawangan, a clump of the Dayak Ot Danum. They formed a kingdom namely Sadungaras (later Pasir Sultanate) from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. Paser is now a regency in East Kalimantan Province.
30.
Cumara, island → Semaras, Laut Island Semaras is a place name located in western coast of Laut Island, South Kalimantan Province.
31.
Alaba, island → (Alambai, Calamba, Calambua, Calaubua, Calabo) → Kalambau Islands Kalambau are islands located off the south coast of Kalimantan in the Java Sea. Administratively, the islands belong to the province of South Kalimantan.
32.
Arana, island → (Arents, Arentes, Arantel, Keramian) → Karamian Islands Karamian is an atoll island located off the south coast of Kalimantan in the Java Sea. Administratively, the island belongs to the province of East Java.
33.
Balaca, island → (Balachaia, Balacuan, Blacana, Ciombra, Solambo, Solonbo, Solombo, Somanbo) → Masalembu Islands Masalembu are islands located off the south coast of Kalimantan in the Java Sea. Administratively, the islands belong to the province of East Java. 328
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 34.
Bassa, island → (Lubok, Lubeck, Lubec, Lubek, Baboan, Bawean) → Bawean Island Judging from the position on the Ptolemy’s map, Bassa could be the Bawean Island. Bawean is an island located off the south coast of Kalimantan and northern Java, in the Java Sea. Administratively, the island belongs to the Gresik Regency, East Java Province.
35.
Calandradua, island → (Cirima Iaoa, Quirimanjaba, Quirimajaba, Cariman Iava, Carimun Iava, Carimao Iava, Carimoon Iava, Carimon Java, Carmon Java, Karimoen Djawa) → Karimunjawa Islands Karimunjawa are islands located off the north coast of Java, in the Java Sea. Administratively, the islands belong to the province of Central Java.
36.
Erene, island → (Clemencia, Klein Enkhnysen, Enkhnysen) → Enkhnysen Reef Enkhnysen Reef is a group of coral reefs located in Java Sea off the Tanjung Sambar peninsula near Mangkup Island.
Carcus, island → (Banca, Banka, Bangka) → Bangka 38. Phelicus, island → (Bibilitam, Billetoon, Billiton, Belitoeng) → Belitung 37.
The Bangka-Belitung Islands are a province lying off the island of Sumatera. The province comprises two main islands, Bangka and Belitung, and several smaller ones. The Bangka Strait separates Sumatera and Bangka, and the Gaspar Strait separates Bangka and Belitung. The South China Sea is to the north, the Java Sea is to the south, and the province is separated from Kalimantan in the east by the Karimata Strait. 39.
Ammine, island → (Ariabo, Anamba, Anambas; Natuna, Naima, Natuma) → Anambas and Natuna Islands The Anambas and Natuna Islands are located in the South China Sea, off the northwest coast of Kalimantan. Administratively, the islands constitute a regency within the Riau Islands Province.
40.
Monache, island → (Timao, Timaon, Timor, Timmoon, Timon, Timoan) → Tioman Island Tioman Island is an island in Pahang, off the east coast of the state. 329
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 41.
Cory, island → (Pulo Ciri, Pulo Cecir, Pulo Cili, Pulo Siri, Pulo Seir) → Cu Lao Re or Ly Son Island Cu Lao Re or Ly Son is an island off the coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea.
42.
Trinesia, island → (Pulo Tigao, Pulo Tigaon, Tigan) → Pulau Tiga Pulau Tiga (meaning “Three” Islands) is a group of three small uninhabited islands off the western coast of Sabah, Malaysia that make up Tiga Island National Park.
43.
Orneon, island → (Pulo Condor, Pulo Cador, Pulo Condore, Poulo Condore) → Côn Đảo/Condor Islands “Orneo”, “ornis” and “ornêon” in Latin mean “bird”, “fowl” or “heron”. Côn Đảo Islands are an archipelago of Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province, in the Southeast region of Vietnam, and a district of this province. Marco Polo mentioned the islands in the description of his 1292 voyage from China to India under the name Sondur and Condur. The name was interpreted as Condor, the Chinese mythological eagle.
44.
Susuara, island → (Calamianes, Paragoa, Paragua, Paragoya, Paragoy, Paragou, Parago, Palohan, Palawan) → Palawan Island Judging from the position on the Ptolemy’s map, Susuara could be the Palawan Island. Palawan Island is the largest island of the Palawan Province, Philippines. The northern coast of the island is along the South China Sea, while the southern coast forms part of the northern limit of the Sulu Sea.
45.
Nagadiba, island → (Baqueiraon, Biqueram, Boquerano, Bequeraon, Siboetoe) → Sibutu Island Sibutu is an island in the province of Tawi-Tawi, Philippines. It lies east of the coast of Sabah, Malaysia.
46.
Zibala, island → (Celebra, Celebus, Celebes, Cellebes) → Sulawesi Island Sulawesi is an Island located east of Kalimantan Island. This is the closest large island that can be seen from the eastern coast of Kalimantan. Several maps mention Celebes also as a place name at the west coast of 330
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Sulawesi, but the modern name of this place can not be identified. Ptolemy apparently only get one coordinate point on this island so the map drafter drew it as a small island on the map. 47.
Zaba, island → (Paternosters, Chapelat, Sebelasanak) → Sabalana Islands The Sabalana Islands are an atoll in the Flores Sea, lying just north of the Lesser Sunda Islands, closer to Sumbawa than Sulawesi. Administratively, the atoll belongs to the province of South Sulawesi. Table 4 – Identified geographic names.
No Ptolemy’s name 1 Cetęum 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Nanigiri Baracus Nacaduma Bachi Corcobara Orneon (bangau) Azanus Louis Nubartha
11 Malea 12 Anubingara 13 Priapides
14 Sindocanda, Sandocandę 15 Poduce 16 Soana, Soani 17 Anaris 18 Anurogrammum, Anurogrammi 19 Iogana 20 Margana 21 Galiba, Galibi
Classic map name Cotan, Catalan, Satalang, Salaton, Salatan Nagara, Nagarra Banjar, Banjarmasin Mandoemai Paco, Bancy, Biajo, Bander, Banjar Tamiampura, Taiampura, Taiapura, Taiaopura, Taiaopuro, Tanjapura Simanauw Lao, Lave, Laue, Lava, Laua, Lawa Sambuer, Sambaur, Sambor, Sobar, Sambar, Sambahar, Sambbae, Samban Melahoei, Melawai Matan, Mattan, Ketapan Tamaratas, Tamaratos, Tamarates, Tameorato, Iamanatos, Hormata, Carimata Succadano, Succaduno, Succudana, Succadana, Socadana, Sucadana Landa, Salimbau Sonee, Senar, Soné, Sone, Sona, Soengi Sisar, Soric, Siric
Malano, Malona, Melanoege Balaba, Balabac
331
Modern name Tanjung Selatan Negara Barito (River) Mandomai Banjar Tanjungpura Sebangau Kayan, Kahayan Lawi, Lawai Tanjung Sambar Melawi Ketapang Cempedak, Karimata
Sukadana Sekadau Sungai [Sambas] Tanjung Sirik Dayak Tribes Melanau Miri Balabac, Sabah, Balambangan, Teluk Labuk
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations No Ptolemy’s name 22 Talakori 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Modutti, Mudutti Phasis Anubingara Nagadiba Maagrammum, Ganges (sacred river) Spatana Procuri Cumara Alaba
32 Arana 33 Balaca
34 Bassa 35 Calandradua
36 Erene 37 38 39 40
Carcus Phelicus Ammine Monache
41 Cory 42 Trinesia 43 Orneon 44 Susuara
45 Nagadiba 46 Zibala 47 Zaba
Classic map name Cancirao, Cancyra, Canciaro, Cancerao, Cancorao, Cancirau Marudo, Malloodoo Sisar, Sisor
Bamcamanican, Pomanakam, Markaman Pasir, Pafsir, Passier, Passeir, Passir Alambai, Calamba, Calambua, Calaubua, Calabo Arents, Arentes, Arantel, Keramian Balachaia, Balacuan, Blacana, Ciombra, Solambo, Solonbo, Solombo, Somanbo Lubok, Lubeck, Lubec, Lubek, Baboan, Bawean Quirimanjaba, Quirimajaba, Cariman Iava, Carimun Iava, Carimao Iava, Cirima Iaoa, Carimoon Iava, Carimon Java, Carmon Java, Karimoen Djawa Clemencia, Klein Enkhnysen, Enkhnysen Banca, Banka, Bangka Bibilitam, Billetoon, Billiton, Belitoeng Ariabo, Anamba, Anambas Timao, Timaon, Timor, Timmoon, Timon, Timoan Pulo Ciri, Pulo Cecir, Pulo Cili, Pulo Siri, Pulo Seir Pulo Tigao, Pulo Tigaon, Tigan Pulo Condor, Pulo Cador, Pulo Condore, Poulo Condore Calamianes, Paragoa, Paragua, Paragoya, Paragoy, Paragou, Parago, Palohan, Palawan Baqueiraon, Biqueram, Boquerano, Bequeraon, Siboetoe Celebra, Celebus, Celebes, Cellebes Paternosters, Chapelat, Sebelasanak
332
Modern name Keningau Marudu, Murut Kinabatangan (River) Lun Bawang Negaradipa Muarakaman, Mahakam (River) Bontang Paser Semaras Kalambau Karamian Masalembu
Bawean Karimunjawa
Enkhnysen Bangka Belitung Anambas Tioman Cu Lao Re Pulau Tiga Côn Đảo/Condor Palawan
Sibutu Sulawesi Sabalana
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Taprobrana and The Search for Atlantis Plato told the story of Atlantis about 360 BCE. About 30 years later, Alexander the Great invaded India. Nearchus and Onesicritus who accompanied him on his campaigns described Taprobana for the first time. About another 30 years later, Seleucus Nicator sent Megasthenes as ambassador to Sandracottus (Chandragupta Maurya) in 302 BCE where Taprobana was also described. The story of Atlantis has been an object of fascination among western philosophers and historians. Naturally, Alexander the Great did not lost his attention on the supreme land. Alexander was the student of Aristotle, a student of Plato. The descriptions of Atlantis by Plato are very clear and in great details, but the search for Atlantis around the Mediterranean Sea did not return any result. Presumably, Alexander thought that Atlantis was not in the area but in the Far East, in the Indian Ocean. During his invasion to India, Atlantis was allegedly discovered, but this discovery was kept into confidential and obscured with other name, Taprobana by Nearchus and Onesicritus, including its location. After his death, Seleucus continued the alliance and the secrecy of Atlantis and Taprobana were still kept. In the reign of Claudius, four people from the island of Taprobana were dispatched as embassy to Rome. Again, Claudius and the former emperors should not have lost his attention about Atlantis. Being described very clearly and in details, he should think that Taprobana was part of the Atlantis. The next emperors should know that Taprobana was part of Atlantis but they kept on continuing the secrecy. Taprobana was spoken by some writers during this time. In the reign of Antoninus Pius (138 – 161 CE), Taprobana was mapped in details by Ptolemy. Again, the Roman Empire possibly deliberately kept the location in secret and obscured it. The last part of Critias, a Plato’s dialogue, which allegedly describes more detailed information about Atlantis have been lost. The original maps of Ptolemy were also lost, an indication that they wanted to hide. In the 6th century CE, the name Taprobana had vanished. After the fall of Rome, European geography entered a dark age more profound than that of most other disciplines, and facts about Taprobana and Atlantis were buried. Many ancient books and scholarly works, especially those housed at the Library at Alexandria, was lost for over a thousand years. At the end of the 1400s, Plato 333
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations and Ptolemy’s works were rediscovered; Atlantis and Taprobana became popular once again. The Western colonialization in Asia involving Britain, France, Portugal and the Netherlands was allegedly inspired by the allurement of Taprobana as well as Atlantis. This was sparked early in the 15th century by the search for trade routes to the Far East that led directly to the Age of Discovery, and the introduction of early modern warfare. By the early 16th century, the Age of Sail greatly expanded Western European influence and development of the Spice Trade under colonialism. The cartographers of this era should have known that Taprobrana is Kalimantan, noticeable in the great similarities of the geographic layout, locations, features, names and descriptions of the island and its surroundings among Ptolemy’s and their maps.
Aurea Chersonesus The 2nd century Ptolemy’s Geographia, based on the work by Marinus of Tyre a century earlier, contains a region named Aurea Chersonesus, meaning the Golden Peninsula in Latin (Χρυσῆ Χερσόνησος, Chrysḗ Chersónēsos in Ancient Greek). The Aurea Chersonesus is also shown on the mappa mundi of Andreas Walsperger, made in Constance around 1448. It is not known if Ptolemy had any maps in his original Geographia. In any case, Renaissance scholars managed to reconstitute a series of maps from the tables of locations compiled in Geographia. The earliest surviving maps of these works came from the end of the 13th century. The first printed edition of Geographia with the reconstituted maps was published in Rome in 1477, thereby becoming the first ever printed atlas of the world. Ptolemy, like many early geographers, believed the Indian Ocean to be a closed sea and maps based on Ptolemy’s work show Aurea Chersonesus to be located within a closed basin, though by the 8th century, Arab geographers were aware that the idea of the Indian Ocean as a close basin was mistaken. The series of maps contain twelve maps on Asia, in which the eleventh map (hence the name Undecima Asiae Tabula) depicts India Extra Gangem (India beyond the Ganges River) and Sinae (China). There is a region on the map labeled Aurea Chersonesus. As the name implies, the Renaissance mapmakers drew the region as a promontory protruding from the land labeled India Extra Gangem, and Barussae – a renowned port town of Barus in the western coast of Sumatera – is plotted as a group of small islands even though Ptolemy writes it 334
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations as a cannibalist common place (quinw). Aurea Chersonesus is then typically acknowledged to be the Malay Peninsula. However, the author argues that Aurea Chersonesus is a place in western Sumatera called Tanjungemas renowned for its gold mines in the ancient time, as discussed below. The names and coordinates of various geographical features and settlements of the Aurea Chersonesus are given in Ptolemy’s Geographia, including towns and rivers. Ptolemy’s views concerning the geography of southeastern Asia was derived mainly from the works of his predecessor Marinus of Tyre, who had quoted the knowledge from the sailor Alexander who had visited Aurea Chersonesus. Of course, we can not expect a good accuracy of the coordinates because of the method of their measurements and most of them are derived from the information without knowing the exact locations. The latitudes of the places around the Aurea Chersonesus are only a few degrees from the equator, either south or north, or considering the method for measuring the latitudes in the time, it can be generally said that the region is in the proximity of the equator. Ptolemy could have been confused with the north or south latitudes of the places since he knew only the maximum hours of the day. There is a region in Sumatera named Tanjungemas, literally means the Golden Peninsula, now the name of a district in Tanahdatar Regency in the West Sumatera Province of Indonesia. The region is in the latitudes of between 0º 24" and 0º 33" south of the equator, so that it is in the proximity of the equator. The region is renowned for its gold mining in the ancient time and supposedly located in the land of origin of the Malays. Its location is in the upper Batanghari and Inderagiri Rivers where the miners allegedly use them to transport the product to the eastern coast of Sumatera. The region was in the proximity of the capital city of Malayapura Kingdom (Letter Kingdom of Malay, also known as Pagaruyung Kingdom) founded by Adityawarman and presided over the central Sumatera region between 1347 and 1375, most likely to control the local gold trade. A Portuguese Tomé Pires in Suma Oriental mentions a gold-rich area referring to this region in some time between 1513 and 335
Figure 140 – Location of Tanjungemas
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 1515. The first European to enter the region was Thomas Dias, a Portuguese employed by the Dutch governor of Malaka, who travelled from the east coast to reach the region in 1684. The primary local occupations at the time were gold panning and agriculture, he reported. The British Governor-General of Bencoolen Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles visited Pagaruyung in 1818, reaching it from the west coast. The author identifies various geographical features and their coordinates mentioned in the Geographia written by Ptolemy. Marinus apparently obtained the information from three separate notes of the regions, those are the mining region, the eastern coast region, and the piracy prone region, that made Ptolemy to plot them in different scale because of the inaccuracy of the data, and to give exaggeration on the mining region. Hence, three separate identifications are made, as follow. The region of Aurea Chersonesus contains places names, a trading place (emporium), rivers (fluvius) and promontories (promont). The plot of their coordinates given by Ptolemy are shown on Figure 141. 1.
Balonca, place → Batusangkar Batusangkar is the capital of the Tanah Datar Regency in West Sumatera Province, known as “the city of culture”. The town is near the former seat of the Minangkabau royalty established by Adityawarman, the king of Malayapura (Letter Kingdom of Malay) in Pagaruyung in the 13th century, represented by the reconstructed Pagaruyung Palace. The town has the richest stone inscriptions in Sumatera left by Adityavarman. There was a Dutch outpost in the town established during the Padri War (1821 – 1837) known as Fort van der Capellen, built between 1822 and 1826.
2.
Tacola, emporium (trading place) → Tikalak, Singkarak Singkarak is a district in the Solok Regency of West Sumatera Province, located on the shore of Lake Singakarak. Tikalak is a village near the main settlement of Singkarak District, also on the shore of Lake Singkarak. Ptolemy mentions that the maximum hours of the day at Tacola is 12¼ or about 0º 50' in latitude. Singkarak and Tikalak have latitudes of about 0º 40' south of equator.
3.
Cocconagara, place → Nagari Solok 336
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Solok, or previously known as Nagari Solok, is a town in the Solok Regency of West Sumatera Province. 4.
Palanda, fluvius (river), place → Batang Lunto, Sawahlunto The names of Batang Lunto and Sawahlunto apparently came from the root name Lunto, a place in the bank of the junction of Ombilin River and Batang Lunto River. Batang Lunto (batang means “river”) is a tributary of the Ombilin River where supposedly irrigate the surrounding rice fields, hence named Sawahlunto (sawah means “rice field”). Sawahlunto is one of the mining towns in West Sumatera. It was first established as a town in 1882 by the Dutch along with their coal mining operations. Coal was discovered in the mid-19th century by a Dutch geologist De Greve. Sawahlunto was a regency and is now a town in the West Sumatera Province.
5.
Chrysoana/Chrysoanu, fluvius (river) → Sungaimas, Selo River and upper Ombilin River Chryse in Greek means “gold” and soana is allegedly from sungai, means “river”, hence Chrysoana means “the river of gold”. The western side of Tanjungemas is bordered by Selo River, and a segment of Ombilin River between its junctions with the Batang Lunto and the Selo River. These rivers were apparently named Sungai Emas, meaning “River of Gold”, as the name is bore by a village named Sungaimas (also meaning “River of Gold”) located on the bank of the Selo River near the town of Batusangkar.
6.
Tharra, place → Muara Muara or later known as Muara Sijunjung is a capital town of Sijunjung Regency, West Sumatera Province, located on the bank of Kuantan River where it branches out into three rivers in the town. It was allegedly the entry point to navigate to Tanjungemas after the land route from the last navigation point in the upper Batanghari River at Padangroco, mentioned by Ptolemy as Attibam fluvius (river).
7.
Attibam, fluvius (river); Sarabes, estuary → upper Batanghari River; Muarasabak 337
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Ptolemy writes that there was a separate river apart from the Chrysoanu fluvius (the Selo and the upper Ombilin Rivers) and the Palandas fluvius (the Batang Lunto River) around the region of Aurea Chersonesus (Tanjungemas) named Attibam fluvius, geographically located south of Tharra (Muara Sijunjung). This river is apparently the upper Batanghari River (see Attaba fluvius hereafter) at around Padangroco. Furthermore, he writes that it was a part of a large river flowing southeastward (the Batanghari River) which emptied at Sarabes (Muarasabak, see Zabaæ and Attaba fluvius hereafter). Archaeological records show that people accessed Tanjungemas through Batanghari River as it was more navigable than the adjacent Inderagiri River. The uppermost point of the navigation was at Padangroco, allegedly a resting place – where later on Adityawarman built some temples in this area – before continuing through a land route to Muara Sijunjung. The estuary of the Batanghari River on the eastern coast of Sumatera, known as Muarasabak, then developed into a busy trading port, the center of the 7th century Malayu Kingdom (Earlier Kingdom of Malay) and the center of the Buddhist education, as evidenced by archaeological records, inscriptions and chronicles of the Indians, Chinese and Arabs.
Figure 141 – Places in the region of Tanjungemas. Inset is the plot of places given by Ptolemy with his coordinate system. Numbers are related to the explanations in the text.
338
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 8.
Promontorium (promontory) → promontories on the coast of Lake Singkarak Ptolemy mentions two promontories around the Aurea Cheersonesus region. They apparently the place names prefixed with “tanjung” (means “promontory”) along the eastern coast of Lake Singkarak, such as Tanjungbatutebal, Tanjungbuluh, Tanjungaur, Tanjungtabing and Tanjungmuara.
The region of the eastern coast consists of place names, a river (fluvius), a bay (sinus), a social body (civitas) and a trading place (emporium). The plot of their coordinates given by Ptolemy are shown on Figure 142. 1.
Perimula, place; Perimulicus, sinus (bay) → Berhala Island, Bay/Strait of Berhala Berhala is now the names of a strait and a bay, and two small islands off the eastern coast of Sumatera near the city of Jambi.
2.
Coli, civitas (social body of citizens) → Kuala, Kualatungkal There are several places named with a prefix Kuala (means “estuary”) on the coast of the Berhala Bay. The most prominent one is Kualatungkal, which is an ancient town mostly occupied by the Banjar people from Kalimantan.
3.
Attaba, fluvius (river) → Batang Sabak, Batanghari River There is a delta at the estuary of Batanghari River named Muarasabak, meaning the estuary of Sabak. It implies that the Batanghari River was previously called Batang Sabak (batang means “river”). See also Zabæ hereafter.
4.
Maleucolon, promontorium (promontory) → Sungailokan, Tanjung Jabung Tanjung Jabung (tanjung means “promontory”) is a promontory at the eastern coast of Sumatera which ends the Berhala Bay (Perimulicus sinus) on the south. There is a village there named Sungailokan.
5.
Sabana, emporium (trading place) → Jambi city, also see Sobani fluvius hereafter 339
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations Jambi is the capital city of Jambi Province located on the eastern coast of central Sumatera on the bank of Batanghari River. It was the site of the Srivijaya Empire that engaged in trade throughout the Strait of Malaka and beyond. Jambi succeeded Palembang, its southern economic and military rival, as the capital of the kingdom. The movement of the capital to Jambi was partly induced by the 1025 raid by pirates from the Chola region of southern India, which destroyed much of Palembang. The Jambi provincial administration is striving to have the ancient Muarojambi temple site at Muarojambi village not so far from the city of Jambi, recognized as a world heritage site. The site was a Buddhist education center that flourished during the 7th and 8th centuries and the temples are made from bricks similar to those used in Buddhist temples in India. The Nalanda inscription (860 CE) talks about king Devapaladeva of Bengala (Pala Empire) who had granted the request of Sri Maharaja of Suvarnadvipa (Sumatera), Balaputra, to build a Buddhist monastery at Nalanda (present day Bihar state of Northeastern India).
Figure 142 – Places in the region of eastern coast. Inset is the plot of places given by Ptolemy with his coordinate system. Numbers are related to the explanations in the text.
Jambi is mentioned in Chinese chronicles in the era of Sung Dynasty as Chan-pi (Slamet Muljana, 2006). The history of the Sung Dynasty describes that the king of San-fo-tsi (Suvarnabhumi , “the Land of Gold”) resided in Chan-pi. The messenger from Chan-pi came for the first time 340
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations at the Emperor’s palace in 853 CE. The second messenger came also in 871 CE. This information incarnates that Chan-pi has appeared confined to China in those years. A Chinese chronicle by Ling Pio Lui (890 – 905 CE) also mentions Chan-pi to send a trade mission to China. Earlier from a Tang Chinese monk, Yijing, wrote that he visited the Buddhist education center in 671 CE for six months to learn Sanskrit grammar and Malay language. In the year 687 CE, he stopped in again on his way back to Tang China and stayed there for two years to translate the original Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. He describes that the place was a center of Buddhism where foreign scholars gathered. The piracy prone region consist of place names, rivers (fluvius), a social body (civitas) and a trading place (emporium). It appears that these places are located along the Batanghari River which prone to piracy. The plot of their coordinates given by Ptolemy are shown on Figure 143. 1.
Zabæ, civitas (social body of citizens) → Muarasabak According to Ptolemy, Marinus had quoted the sailor Alexander as journeying from the Golden Chersonese (Tanjungemas), ran from west to east, for a period of twenty days, until a port called Zabæ was reached. From this point, he declared, ships sailed southeastward for a still longer period until the town of Cattigara (unidentified place) was reached. Ptolemy mentions that its maximum hours of the day is more than 12¼ or about 1º in latitude. Apparently, Zabæ is the present-day Muarasabak (from muara, “estuary”, and Sabak), a delta at the estuary of the Batanghari River, supposedly a busy trading port in the ancient time. Its latitude is about 1º south of equator. So many archaeological artifacts were found in Muarasabak, such as ancient boats, settlements, golden figurines and tombs, also potteries, ceramics, beads and pebbles thought to date from the Song Dynasty (11th to 13th centuries CE). The Arab chronicle by Abu Zaid Hassan (916 CE) mentions the place as Zabag or Zabaj where there was an emperor of Sribuza (Srivijaya) there. Other Arab explorers and chronicles also mention it: Mas’udi (10th century), Ibn Serapion (ca 950 CE), Aja’ib al-Hind (ca 1000 CE), Mukhtasar al-Aja’ib (ca 1000 CE), Al-Biruni’s India (early 11th century), Marwasi (ca 1120 CE) and Al-Idrisi (mid-12th century). Several 16th to 17th century maps mention it as Saban or Sabi. 341
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations 2.
Acadra, place → Kotokandis Kotokandis is a village on the bank of the junction of the Batanghari River and its delta. There are ruins of Buddhist temples and finding of a Hindu bronze figurine of Dipalaksmi here and the adjacent Simpang village. There are also ancient tomb sites believed by the local people as the tombs of Orang Kayo Hitam, Putri Mayang Mangurai and Orang Kayo Pingai, the founders of the Jambi Sultanate.
3.
Thipinobasti, emporium (trading place) → Suakkandis Suakkandis, previously known as Muarakumpeh, is a village on the bank of the junction of Batanghari River and its tributary, the Kumpeh river. Suakkandis was supposedly an ancient trading port where at present the majority of the population are fishermen. The Dutch used it as a trading post to control logistics to Muarasabak in the era of colonialism.
Figure 143 – Places in the piracy prone region. Inset is the plot of places given by Ptolemy with his coordinate system. Numbers are related to the explanations in the text. 4.
Sobani, fluvius (river) → Lesser Jambi Stream, Muarojambi There is a place on the bank of Batanghari River near the city of Jambi named Muarojambi, meaning “the estuary of Jambi”. A stream is there named Sungai Jambi Kecil, meaning “Lesser Jambi Stream”. Muarojambi 342
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations is renown for the large Buddhist temple complex, supposedly used as the Buddhism learning center mentioned in ancient texts. 5.
Pagrasa, place → Lubukrusa Lubukrusa is a small village on the bank of Batanghari River westward of the Jambi city. There is a tributary named Danaubangko River across this village so that it was prone to piracy.
6.
Samarade, place → Muaratembesi Muaratembesi is a district on the bank of the junction of the Batanghari and the Tembesi Rivers so that it was prone to piracy. Muaratembesi is supposedly the center of the 6th to 7th centuries Malayu Kingdom (Earlier Kingdom of Malay). There is a ruin of a fort built by the Dutch.
Greek knowledge of lands further to their east improved after the conquests of Alexander the Great, but specific references to places in Southeast Asia did not appear until after the rise of the Roman Empire. Greek geographer Eratosthenes (ca 276 – 195/194 BCE) and Roman geographer Pomponius Mela (43 CE ) had written about Chryse Insula (“Land of Gold”). Roman philosopher Pliny (23 – 79 CE) in Natural History referred to Chryse as both a promontory and an island. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE) refers to an island of Chryse, located furthest extremity towards the east of the inhabited world and lying under the rising sun itself. Dionysius Periegetes (about the end of the 3rd century) mentioned that the island of Chryse was situated at the very rising of the sun. Avienus (4th century CE) referred to the Insula Aurea (“Golden Island”) located where the Scythian seas give rise to the dawn. The island of Chryse or Aurea argued by some in modern times as meaning Sumatera and equate it with Suvarnabhumi (“Land of Gold”) and Suvarnadvipa (“Island of Gold”), while including or excluding the Malay Peninsula. Many ancient sources such as the Mahavamsa (between 543 BCE and 304 CE), some stories of the Jataka tales (around the 4th century BCE) and Milinda Panha (between 100 BCE and 200 CE) mention Suvarnabhumi. An inscription found at Padangroco (1286 CE), states that an image of Buddha Amoghapasa Lokeshvara was brought to Dharmasraya (Letter Kingdom of Malay) on the upper Batanghari River, transported from Bhumijava (Java) to Suvarnabhumi (Sumatera), and erected by the order of the Javanese ruler Kertanegara. The 343
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations inscription clearly identifies Suvarnabhumi as Tanjungemas, or Aurea Chersonesus by Ptolemy, which is located in Sumatera. A Majapahit chronicle Nagarakretagama (1336 CE) mentions Suvarnabhumi to refer Sumatera. An Indian text Samaraiccakaha (8th century CE) describes a sea voyage to Suvarnadvipa. These pointing out to the direction of western part of insular Southeast Asia. Buddhist Bengali religious leader and master Atisha, Indian Brahmin Buddhist scholar and a professor of Nalanda Dharmapala, and the South Indian Buddhist Vajrabodhi had visited Suvarnadvipa which refer to the Buddhist learning center in Sumatera. An influential Indian Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti who worked at Nalanda, a Srivijayan prince of the Sailendra dynasty, born around the turn of the 7th century in Suvarnadvipa. All of these clearly identify Suvarnadvipa as Sumatera. A passage may be cited from Josephus in his Antiquity of the Jews (93/94 CE) in speaking of the pilots furnished to Solomon by Hiram of Tyre. Solomon gave his command that they should go along with his stewards to the land that previously called Ophir, but then the Aurea Chersonesus, to fetch gold. From this he makes a definite statement, that Ophir and the Aurea Chersonesus are one. The 16th to 17th century maps mention Mount Ophir, which is the present-day Mount Talamau, located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of Tanjungemas. The name Ophir was still in used in the Dutch colonial era to name a district which is now in the Pasaman Regency, West Sumatera Province. These are other indications that the Aurea Chersonesus and Ophir are Tanjungemas. While textual evidence may be ambiguous, there are plenty of physical evidence to indicate that Sumatera was the site of a flourishing gold mining industry in pre-historic times. When New Age European explorers and traders came to the island, they found widespread abandoned alluvial and underground gold workings. The extensiveness of some of these workings suggests the presence of a very large, organized workforce. Some of the larger sites include Lebongdonok in Bengkulu, where large grinding stones and classical gold coins have been found, underground excavations in palaeo-alluvials covered by volcanic deposits in Jambi, and Salido in West Sumatera. There is also archaeological evidence indicating that gold was melted and worked at Kotacina, which was a major trading center between the 12th and 14th centuries, located 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) southwest of Belawan in northeast Sumatera. Srivijaya Empire’s wealth and fame were mainly due to the reserves of gold found within its kingdom. In 344
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations the 14th century, a senior minister of Majapahit Empire Adityawarman founded the Malayapura Kingdom centered near Tanjungemas and presided over the central Sumatera region, most likely to control the local gold trade. Eventually, it can be concluded that the Aurea Chersonesus, Chryse Insula, Aurea Insula, Suvarnabhumi, Suvarnadvipa and Ophir refer to the same island, that is Sumatera, and specifically Tanjungemas is the most renowned in the prehistoric times. ***
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Reassembling the Potsherds The vast majority of scholars accept that every living human being is descended from a small group in Africa, who then dispersed into the wider world. Archaeological and fossil evidence support an early migration of modern humans left Africa and followed the coastlines of Africa, Arabia, India and Sundaland. Ideal climatic conditions and natural resources for development were found in Sundaland. After migrating from the semi-deserted savannas of Africa, man first found a place where food was abundant and it was there that they invented farming, agriculture, trading and civilization, which made humanity first flourished. All this took place during the Last Glacial period, where the sea level was as low as 120 meters (400 feet) below the present value that caused a vast land of Sundaland to expose. Sundaland was the biggest area to be drowned after the Last Glacial period as the glaciers started to retreat and the sea levels continued to rise gradually from the peak levels around 19,000 to about 5,500 years ago, causing land loss on tropical coasts with flat continental shelves. Cracks in the earth’s crust as the weight of the ice shifted to the seas set off catastrophic events compounded by earthquakes, volcano eruptions, super waves and floods drowned the coastal cultures and all the flat continental shelves of Southeast Asia, and wiped out many populations. As the sea rolled in, there was a mass migration from the sinking continent. The Younger Dryas period (approximately 12,800 – 11,600 years ago) is one of the most well-known examples of such abrupt change. The prevailing theory of the cause is by significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic “Conveyor”, which circulates warm tropical waters northward, in response to a sudden influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America. Concurring events occurring around this period have been observed, showing that the epoch had inflicted great impact on the planet. The ending time of the Younger Dryas period corresponds to the end of the geological Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene periods which extends to the present time. The Holocene encompasses the growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all its written history, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition toward urban living in the 346
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations present. In archaeology, the end of Younger Dryas is also the end of Paleolithic and the beginning of Neolithic ages. There has been a sharp decline in the population of the world beginning in the early Holocene, or the end of the Younger Dryas, causing a bottle neck of human population at about mid-Holocene (Karmin et al 2015). There were population turnovers from Southeast, East and South Asia to Europe, Near East and the Caucasus, suggesting that the end of the Younger Dryas period caused the refugium of those populations to migrate and establish new civilizations. Establishment of new civilizations around the world with building, farming, tool and weapon technology occurred at nearly coincide with the Younger Dryas period that have been detected through investigations of archaeological sites. The Younger Dryas disasters are also documented as legends, myths or tales in almost every region on Earth, observable with tremendous similarities. They are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into Bronze Age and Neolithic prehistory. The overwhelming consistency among legends and myths of flood and the repopulation of man from a flood hero similar to the Noah Flood are found in distant parts of the Earth. The myths similar to the Garden of Eden, Paradise or Divine Land echo among the populations around the world. Memories of their origin are documented in their legends, such as the stories of Atlantis, Neserser, Land of Punt, Land of Ophir, Kumari Kandam, Kangdez and Taprobana. Those indicate that they were derived from a common origin. With a bulk of collected archaeological and genetic studies as well as legends, myths and tales, the author makes an attempt to reassemble the possible connections of the evidence to obtain the pattern of the population dispersal using a “Potsherd Model”. In the model, various evidence (“sherds”) are reassembled to form the pattern of the population dispersal (“pot”). Missing sherds causes holes on the pot are filled in with hypotheses, in which each hole is connected to the surrounding sherds. The result is as illustrated on Figure 143 and described as below. The dispersal to East and North Asia is reassembled using genetic studies, among others by Sagart (1990, 2005), Oppenheimer (1998, 2011), Yao et al (2002), Sanchez-Mazas et al (2005), Palmer (2007), Richards et al (2008, 2011). Cai et al 2011, HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium (2009), Wang et al (2013), Karafet et al (2014), Li et al (2015), Brandão et al (2016), Soares et al (2016) 347
Figure 143 – Population dispersal around the Younger Dryas period reassembled from archaeological, legend, myth and tale evidence and genetic studies.
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Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations and Marrero et al (2016). Rice farmed in China, the beginning of the Japanese Jomon Period and a Neolithic community at Yellow River site of Nanzhuangtou also show their appearance around the Younger Dryas period. The dispersal to South Asia is reassembled using genetic studies, among others by Oppenheimer (1998, 2011), HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium (2009) and Marrero et al (2016). Agriculture appears to have been in the Indus valley around the Younger Dryas period. Vedic myth about the flood hero Manu and Tamil legend of Kumari Kandam and Pandya are also apparently their memories about the flood happened around the period and the sea level rise thereafter. The dispersal to Mesopotamia, Persia, Middle East and Near East is reassembled using the myths and legends, among others the stories of Gilgamesh, Noah, Garden of Eden, Ziusudra and Atrahasis contained in the Eridu Genesis, Epic of Atrahasis, Epic of Gilgamesh, Book of Kolbrin, Babyloniaca, Book of Genesis, Book of Ezekiel, Quran, Metamorphoses, Fabulae and Bibliotheca, and the story of Kangdez. These are apparently their memories about the Paradise and the floods happened around the Younger Dryas period. Oppenheimer (1998) suggested that the dispersal became the root for the innovative cultures that developed in Mesopotamia. Archaeological evidence of Gobekli Tepe, Jericho settlement, Catalhoyuk settlement, clay tokens in Mesopotamia, Middleeastern Neolithic B culture, large scale organized agriculture in the Levant region and communities based on agriculture at Teleilat el Ghassul, Hussuna, Samarran and Halaf also show their appearance around the Younger Dryas period. The dispersal to the regions around the North Africa and Europe is reassembled using the myths and legends, among others the stories of Atlantis, Neserser, Land of Punt, Land of Ophir and Taprobana; and the legend of the Lithuanians. Genetic studies such as by Oppenheimer (1998), Hammer (2013), Karafet et al (2014), Posth et al (2016) and Marrero et al (2016) are also used. Archaeological evidence of a Neolithic village in Cyprus and Amesbury town in Wiltshire also show their appearance around the Younger Dryas period. The dispersal to the Pacific is reassembled using genetic studies among others by Kayser et al (2000), Richards et al (2008), Peng et al (2010), Jinam et al (2012), Karafet et al (2014), Brandão et al (2016), Soares et al (2016) and Marrero et al (2016); and the legend of the Hawaiians. The dispersal to America is reassembled using the myths and legends, among others in the Mayan, Aztec and Sahtú peoples. Genetic studies such as by Reich 349
Sundaland – Tracing the cradle of civilizations et al (2015), Willerslev et al (2015) and Marrero et al (2016) are also taken into consideration. Archaeological evidence of domestication of maize in Mexico, Folsom people, Clovis people, pottery, tools, arrowheads and other objects used by native Americans inhabiting southwestern Hamilton County in Ohio, a poop found in Oregon, a skeleton found in Hoya Negro cave in Mexico, an ancient mine near the town of Taltal in northern Chile and a site at Monte Verde in southern Chile also show their appearance around the Younger Dryas period. The dispersal to the highlands of Southeast Asia is reassembled using the genetic studies by most of the above researchers. Legends and myths among the people of Dayak, Batak, Chingpaw and Nagaland are also taken into consideration. The megalithic site of Gunungpadang appeared as a pyramid form at around the Younger Dryas period (Natawidjaja 2013). Homo floresiensis found in the island of Flores survived until around the period as well before dying out. With the above piling of evidence, the author concludes to suggest that Sundaland is a strong candidate to trace it as the cradle of civilizations, began from about 50,000 – 70,000 years ago until the massive dispersal around the Younger Dryas period. ***
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Dhani Irwanto is a hydro civil engineer and better known as a planner and an expert in hydrology, hydraulic structures, dams and hydropower, the profession involving inter-disciplinary that has lived for more than three decades. Apart from his professional life, he is also a researcher of the history of nations and civilizations, encouraged by the environment, social life, culture and traditions in the region where he grew up. His strong present in the internet has made him well known for his ideas on pre-history and ancient civilizations. Dhani Irwanto is the author of the books Atlantis: The Lost City is in Java Sea (2015) and Atlantis: Kota yang Hilang Ada di Laut Jawa (2016). Dhani Irwanto was born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 1962. He is currently an owner and director of a consulting firm located in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia.
Cover design: IHM Team Cover image: digital elevation modelling of Sundaland and its surroundings
Sundaland is in the tropics, surrounded by oceans, and within the Ring of Fire. Benefitting from the heavy precipitation, volcanic deposits in Sundaland develop into some of the richest forestry and agricultural lands, and developed into some of the richest fauna on Earth. The vast majority of scholars accept that every living human being is descended from a small group in Africa, who then dispersed into the wider world. Archaeological and fossil evidence support an early migration of modern humans left Africa and followed the coastlines of Africa, Arabia, India and Sundaland. After migrating from the semi-deserted savannas of Africa, man first found a place in Sundaland where food was abundant and it was there that they left huntergatherer culture and invented farming, agriculture, trading and civilization, which made humanity first flourished. All this took place during the Last Glacial period.
Dhani Irwanto
Sundaland is a bio-geographical region of Southeastern Asia which encompasses the Sunda Shelf, the part of the Asian continental shelf that was exposed during the Last Ice Age. It included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of Kalimantan, Java and Sumatera, and their surrounding islands.
The sea levels continued to rise gradually to peak levels about 5,500 years ago, causing land loss on tropical coasts with flat continental shelves. Cracks in the earth’s crust as the weight of the ice shifted to the seas set off catastrophic events compounded by earthquakes, volcano eruptions, super waves and floods drowned the coastal cultures and all the flat continental shelves of Southeast Asia, and wiped out many populations. As the sea rolled in, there was a mass migration from the sinking continent. Genetic studies show that there has been a sharp decline in the population of the world, and population turnovers from Southeast, East and South Asia to Europe, Near East and the Caucasus beginning at the the end of the Younger Dryas period. The Younger Dryas disasters are also documented as legends, myths or tales in almost every region on Earth, observable with tremendous similarities. They are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into Bronze Age and Neolithic prehistory. The overwhelming consistency among legends and myths of flood and the repopulation of man from a flood hero similar to the Noah Flood are found in distant parts of the Earth. The myths similar to the Garden of Eden, Paradise or Divine Land echo among the populations around the world. Memories of their origin are documented in their legends, such as the stories of Atlantis, Neserser, Land of Punt, Land of Ophir, Kumari Kandam, Kangdez and Taprobana. Pyramids spread in many parts of the world and emerged separately from one another by oceans who supposedly never discovered each other’s existence. Those indicate that they were derived from a common origin. Further, scholastic belief by etymologists and linguists are positive that all world languages sprang from a common source.
INDONESIA HYDRO™ MEDIA Bukit Golf Riverside II Block B01 No 46 Gunungputri, Bogor Regency West Java 16963, Indonesia
Dhani Irwanto