Take a Tour of The Sangiran Museum of Ancient Man in Solo
- Claudyne Li
- Jun 30, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 28, 2020
article by Claudyne Li in the Sangiran Essay Contest for Education 2020
History is a word that is defined as events that have occurred in the past. History deals with past events including the discovery, collection, and presentation of information about an event. The event that occurred before the writing is called Prehistory which is usually associated with the emergence of ancient humans and their culture. History is highly correlated with culture because the culture is a 'proof' of history itself. The diversity of cultures in Indonesia has become a legacy from the legacy of ancient ancestors. Unfortunately, the impact of globalization has caused the publication of cultural heritage as a historical rarity. This also shifts the public's view of the importance of preserving cultural heritage and its history, one of which is the ancient Sangiran museum in Surakarta.
Located approximately fifteen kilometers north of the city of Surakarta (Solo), the Sangiran site has been established and is known even by other countries. The presence of The Homeland of Java Man presents a picture of human life in the past with various ancient human fossil discoveries as a strong potential or attraction of this museum. The discovery of fossils of animals, ancient humans, various stone tools and documentation of the soil layer (stratigraphy) starting from two million years ago have contributed data for understanding human evolution and the natural environment. Sangiran provides knowledge about prehistoric human life and is a blend of education in the fields of science, culture, history, and tourist destinations. In 1977, the Indonesian government established Sangiran as cultural preservation. Finally, in December 1996 Sangiran was declared a world heritage by UNESCO.
History of the Sangiran Museum
Sangiran Museum has become an important site to support the development of various fields of science, especially for research in archeology, biology, paleoanthropology, anthropology, and geology. In 1893, Eugene Dubois, a Dutch anatomist, explored at the Sangiran site, an investigation of ancient human fossils. The research he did was motivated by the theory of his teacher, Ernst Haeckel, who assumed that early humans could be sought in the tropics because they did not experience much climate change so that many great apes still lived. Furthermore, a British biologist, Alfred Russel Wallace, stated that traces of the first great apes (anthropoids) were most likely found in Indonesia's tropical forests. Then, in 1934, an anthropologist, Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald began to trace Sangiran and found Pithecanthropus erectus. He also found 60 human fossils including Meganthropus. In addition, fossils of some ancient animals were also found by von Koenigswald.
Sangiran Museum Building and The Collections
Simple museums and laboratories existed several decades before the museum which is now open to the public began in December 2011. After decades of research, the Sangiran museum collected 13,809 fossils but only 2,934 were displayed. The museum building consists of a hall, exhibition hall, laboratory, audio-visual room, library, storage warehouse, and souvenir stall. The main museum is called Krikilan. The more magnificent museum building (now) with modern architecture consists of three main halls. The first hall shows the findings and research in Sangiran in ancient times. In the second hall, there is an audiovisual that shows the natural process of occurrence. The third hall contains a replica statue of Homo Erectus's life and various ancient animals. The existence of dioramas in the museum's third hall depicts the shade of Sangiran about one million years ago.
Improvement and addition of buildings and supporting facilities carried out with the aim to preserve its existence as a world heritage that plays an important role in the development of science. There are four additional places that have been built besides Krikilan, namely the Ngebung, Dayu, Bukuran, and Manyarejo clusters. Ngebung was built to illustrate the history of the Sangiran site's discovery. Dayu was made to present information related to the latest research. Bukuran was built to present information related to the discovery of human fossils in Sangiran, while Manyarejo presents memories of research conducted in this area, legends that have become myths about Sangiran and its findings, as well as various collections of memorabilia owned by researchers and surrounding communities.
Some collections stored in the Sangiran museum have long been shown, including both original and replica human fossils (such as Australopithecus africanus, Pithecanthropus mojokertensis, Homo soloensis, Homo neanderthal, and Homo sapiens), fossils of vertebrate animals, marine and freshwater fossils. The discovery of early Homo erectus type in Sangiran is quite a lot and is half of the discovery of Homo erectus in the world. Some types of stones are also found such as chalcedony, agates, meteorites, diatoms, and stone artifacts (equipment used by ancient humans).
Sangiran Site Development Efforts
Efforts to increase the implementation of tourism promotion, through the formation of an image, that Sangiran as one of the cultural attractions that are unique (distinctive), attractive and informative, so that it has a high selling value (selling point) or worth visiting, therefore, various efforts to increase cooperation with stakeholders, including with travel agents, are a necessity that must be realized immediately. Tourism development efforts, the involvement of local communities as the host plays a very important role in tourism development so that they are trained and able to create sustainable tourism businesses. Furthermore, community involvement in planning is an excellent policy that will motivate local communities to protect their environment which will be used as a supporter of tourism. In such a context, the community must be positioned as a subject as tourism development actors, not objects. To prevent theft of cultural heritage in the form of Sangiran site fossils carried out by local residents, the law must be upheld in accordance with existing provisions. In this case, legal sanctions need to be applied to perpetrators of theft, because it violates the Law of The Republic of Indonesia No. 11 of 2010 concerning Cultural Heritage.
Sangiran as a Cultural Heritage Supports Education
Sangiran is considered important in realizing the enhancement of the potential and quality of tourism products, with an emphasis on educative and informative values, as well as entertaining recreation. Sangiran cultural tourism attraction has commercial values that are able to attract tourists to arrive. The change in cultural values is clearly felt by Sangiran residents with the emergence of dozens of home industries in the form of rock and fossil handicrafts that are able to increase the income of the population. Conversely, there are also dysfunctional consequences felt by the government as the person responsible for the preservation of the Sangiran site where increasing illegal fossil exploitation is being carried out by Sangiran residents. This has become a macro problem in the loss of cultural and historical values from Sangiran. Government efforts to protect Sangiran's cultural heritage from irresponsible search and excavation by local communities have been carried out by establishing the Sangiran Site as a cultural heritage area. But in addition, it needs close cooperation between the government and the local community to jointly realize the preservation of Sangiran culture.
The existence of Sangiran sites in the world of education is very much needed, including in learning history both from the low to high levels of education. Sangiran Museum can provide more education for students by observing objects from the past directly. The learning process can also be carried out by visitors who are not from education circles. The role of the Sangiran museum can add mental and intellectual wealth to find out the past of an ethnic ancient human. The facts found these days are the lack of people to visit the Sangiran museum caused by many factors. With the increase in various supporting facilities and infrastructure, the Sangiran museum can be an attraction and of course provide adequate learning facilities for visitors. (CL)
References
Asmara, Dedi. 2019. Peran Museum Dalam Pembelajaran Sejarah. Jurnal Pendidikan Sejarah dan Riset Sosial Humaniora, 2(1):10-20.
Mulyantari, Enny. 2016. Strategi Pengembangan Situs Manusia Purba Sangiran sebagai Daya Tarik Wisata Budaya. Jurnal Media Wisata, 14(1):334-344.
Sulistyanto, Bambang. 2009. Warisan dunia Situs Sangiran Persepsi menurut penduduk Sangiran. Wacana, 11(1): 57-80.
Lol... go there by yourself! 🤣
Nice information about Sangiran Museum! Force me to want to go there with you.