A Real Archeology is Not Impossible

It’s from my latest visit to Gunung Puntang. I went there with Endro Purwanto and his wife. We felt like we wanted to have lunch together with all of the officers at Gunung Puntang while at the same time we welcome a ham friend of mine named Agus S. Gustian (YB1ALL). He was to do the mapping of the area around Radio Malabar where five radio stations are planned to be built for the 5th of May next year.

After we let him took some pictures, Endro leaded us to have a walk thru a small path, which was actually a way to the right side of Radio Malabar. It was heavily bushed. Along the way I could see there were more traces of the ruin :

That might look like lower part of a wall made from a mix of stones and concrete. I always know that old buildings from the era of Dutch Colonialization have a very robust construction quality. That is to say that it has become what it is today because of a conscious effort to demolish it.

This one clearly shows that there used to be a wall here. However not all of the traces are those that flat-to-the-ground. I found something curious. There was a wall, curiously hiding something behind it :

It might not be clearly seen here from the above picture, but that black background is actually a wall. I wish I could go around it to see the other side, but I suppose it would require removing the thick bushes here and there.

I also found some relics. This is obviously fraction of antenna insulators :

I conclude that from what I have found and seen, (at least) the reconstruction of the foundation of the building is possible. That is assuming that an archeological excavation is carried out in advance, and not to mention an involvement of a serious benefactor.

If we just browse through the pictures of the internal part of Radio Malabar, we would have this images that there were a lot of machineries and equipments: anything made of steel. My question for that has been: where have they all gone ? Could we still find anything at all ? A small museum is planned to be built here, but it will mostly contain printed old photographs. I think (if) anything found in the ruin should be worthed as a collection for the museum.

Yes, a real archeology is not impossible, even if Radio Malabar is not anything ancient. It is not ancient, but it is not less historical.

That Memorial Stone

One of the photos from Tropen Museum is about a memorial stone for its opening in 1923 :

It’s in Dutch of course. I try to translate it : (using Google Translate result as a reference)

On the 5th May 1923
Opened by :
Mr. Dirk Fock
Governor General of Nederland Indie
The Radio Station on The Malabar for the Public Traffic

This station was designed and built by :
Dr. Ir. Johannes Cornelis de Groot
on the Major Subdivision where under his Leadership
this Land was Built and for the First Time
the Mount Antenna, Devised by Him, was Made.

I am not sure if my translation to english is accurate, especially for the second part. I just make a guess of the sentence arrangement. However, we all should understand the meaning.

The stone was placed in the middle of the opening ceremony :

Anyone with fluency in Dutch, please help me for a better translation. You can do that in the comment section of this entry. Thanks.

Flickr Photostream

I just add Flickr Photostream to the sidebar. All of the pictures come from Tropen Museum in Netherland. I know their existence bears such reputation as an established keeper of old stuffs. So that maybe I should not worry too much about its’ future fate. However, I have put them on my Flickr acccount more for the fact that they have been announced as comply to creative common and sure they are going to have important meaning to this site.

Radio Malabar, a set on Flickr.

There are other photos of RM that are not kept by Tropen Museum but I am not sure about their term of use. For now at least I will explicitly mention their origin when I use them. I do hope that there will never be an issue of copyright here. Beside, I created this site not in any way for commercial intention.