Radya Pustaka Museum

Radya Pustaka Museum to be Renovated
Tempo Interaktif, 04 Mar 2010

The Radya Pustaka Museum will be renovated this year with a budget of Rp24 billion from the Directorate General of History and Archaeology of the Minister of Culture and Tourism.

The fund will be used to build a two-floor building behind the museum.

Full story here.

Where does Google stand on the Thai-Cambodian border at Preah Vihear Temple?
Ogle Earth, 07 Feb 2010 (via Changwat, Amphoe, Tambon)

All these signs point to what appears to be an actual line of control that lies well inside the border as drawn by Google. Strictly speaking, Cambodia’s complaint has some merit.

But is Google to blame for all this? Is there a nefarious plot afoot to deny Cambodia its rightful greatness under the Sun, etc, and is Google being “pretentious”?

No, of course not. As can easily be verified by turning off border data in Google Earth’s Layers sidebar, credit for the yellow line goes to Tele Atlas, which provides much of this kind of information to Google Earth. Where Tele Atlas gets its data from is another story — most likely, it acquired Thailand’s official border dataset, and used it unmodified and uncritically.

New List Aims to Stem Tide of Cambodian Stolen Antiquities
VOA News, 02 Mar 2010

The items on the Red List range from jewelry and weapons to stone heads and bronze statues. The brochure lists beads from more than 2,000 years back and wooden items from just a century ago.

It is, in short, a comprehensive time capsule of Cambodian artistic achievement.

Douglad O’Reilly is the director of Heritage Watch, an organization set up to combat the plunder of Cambodia’s cultural heritage. O’Reilly says the problem of looting is widespread.

“I think that the problem is fairly substantial. We are finding that in rural areas there is quite a lot of activity. There has been, since about 2000, a significant amount of heritage destruction at archaeological sites that date especially to the period from 500 BC to 500 AD,” he said. “So people are excavating illegally a lot of cemetery sites in the search for carnellian and agate beads and glass beads and other artifacts.”

O’Reilly applauds the idea behind the Red List, saying it has the potential to reduce dramatically the number of items being smuggled across the border — as long as the brochures printed in Khmer and Thai actually reach the officials at the border posts.

Read more about the red list here.

Van Mieu steles endangered by human touch
Thanh Nien News, 01 Mar 2010

Eighty-two stone steles at Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam (Temple of Literature – first National University) in Hanoi are in danger of being irreparably damaged because of the large number of people who are touching them.

Temple official Nguyen Hai said last Thursday that more than 70,000 people visited the place over four days of the Tet (Lunar New Year) festival from February 14-17.

“People visiting the Temple of Literature during Tet has for long been a cultural feature.

photo credit: amanderson2

Abandoning the malls and discovering the Caves
Brunei fm, 28 Feb 2010

At least fifty spine-tinglingly ancient discoveries have been made in Sarawak’s caves, which are suspected to have been in use by the indigenous human population since the Pleistocene era. The Niah Great Cave is the most exciting of them all as it was the site of the discovery of the oldest human skull ever found in Asia. Archaeologists have dated it at around forty thousand years old, making it the property of a young gentleman from the Holocene era.

The remains of Neolithic humans, along with fascinating evidence of how their habits and daily lives would have changed over the centuries, are available to view at the Sarawak Museum in Kuching. The Niah Great Cave is also famous for its incredibly well-preserved cave paintings, some of which depict strange, skeletal longboats bearing their passengers to the land of the dead, and for the ancient Borneo tradition of swallows’ nest-collecting.

Further exploration will reveal a painted cave known for its well-preserved and highly complex prehistoric cave paintings.The paintings can be difficult to see unless you allow your eyes to become accustomed to the dim light. They are rendered in red hematite and cover a long narrow strip (approximately 30 metres) at the back of the wall. They portray spread-eagled human figures, probably representing warriors and hunters, some of the animals of the souls of the deceased on the dangerous journey to the land of the dead.

Ceramics from sunken ships on display at National Museum
New Straits Times, 27 February 2010

Ceramics found in a Sung Dynasty ship, which sunk off Tanjung Simpang Mengayau in the northern tip of Sabah, will be among artefacts to be displayed at the 1Malaysia Ceramic Exhibition at the National Museum here.

The ship, from the Sung Dynasty that ruled China between 960 and 1279, was among the earliest ship to have sunken in the country’s waters.

Museum Director-General Datuk Ibrahim Ismail said other ceramics to be displayed were from the ship Diana which sunk in 1817 during the Qing Dynasty and another ship which sunk in Desaru in 1830 also during the Qing Dynasty.

This 3-day conference will examine these two Indian Ocean port zones in
various respects – the specific natures and the roles of these zones as well
as comparisons between these; mutual perceptions between the peoples of the
two zones; the links between these regions in terms of commercial
interactions over time and the effects of such commerce; cultural and
religious interflows between these two ends of the Indian Ocean;
transmission of the ideas of modernity, urbanism, and cosmopolitanism
between these two areas; the effects of European imperialism and commerce;
the commercial and religious networks connecting the two places; migration
between the two places; pilgrims and tourists; as well as the role of India
and Indians in these interactions. There is no restriction on the periods to
be examined.

Paper proposals are invited from scholars engaged in any aspect of related
studies. Proposals should be received by 20 March 2010 and successful
applicants will be informed of their acceptance by 1 April 2010. Paper
proposals should include a title and a 400-word abstract, together with a
short biography of the applicant.

All participants will be provided with four nights accommodation in
Singapore. Requests for assistance with airfares, especially from
participants based in Asian countries, will be sympathetically considered.

More information on the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre website.

Over $1.2 million to preserve Thang Long Royal Citadel
Vietnam Net Bridge, 26 February 2010

The Hanoi authorities have approved a $1.2 million project to preserve the Thang Long royal citadel in Hanoi, funded by the UNESCO.

This project will be carried out by the Centre for Conservation of Co Loa Relic and Hanoi Ancient Citadel.

From January 2010 to January 2013, the project will research and evaluate the values of this site and suggest measures to preserve the site.

Dong Son style swords on display at the Thanh Hoa provincial museum

Journey through history with antique swords
Viet Nam News, 26 February 2010

An exhibition of 99 ancient swords recently opened in Ha Noi, offering visitors a chance to learn more about history’s most popular weapon.

The swords were selected from the private 300-sword collection owned by collector Duong Phu Hien.

Four generations of Hien’s family have maintained and added to the collection. “By collecting and preserving ancient Vietnamese artefacts, especially those relating to the defence of our nation, every member of my family has demonstrated their love for the country and its magnanimous history,” Hien said.

The exhibition features a large array of swords, including 37 that were made in Viet Nam. The others came from different countries, including China, Japan, and the UK.

photo credit: Marc Veraart

New archaeological sites reveal life after ancient Toba eruption
The Star, 23 February 2010

Newly discovered archaeological sites in southern and northern India have revealed how people lived before and after the colossal Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago, according to Press Trust of India (PTI) on Tuesday.

The international and multidisciplinary research team, led by Oxford University in collaboration with Indian institutions, has uncovered what it calls ‘Pompeii-like excavations’ beneath the Toba ash.

The seven-year project examines the environment that humans lived in, their stone tools, as well as the plants and animal bones of the time.

“This suggests that human populations were present in India prior to 74,000 years ago, or about 15,000 years earlier than expected based on some genetic clocks,” said project director Michael Petraglia, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford.

Full article here.