Thursday, May 14, 2009

Collections of Inscription Museum (Museum Prasasti)

The collection of Inscription Museum consists of inscriptions in the form of ancient gravestone, monument or pillar, goblet, statue, antique corpse carriage, bouquet, flat sided stone, replica and miniature of typical funeral from 27 provinces in Indonesia. At the back yard of Balairung Building there’re collections of bronze medal bells which previously used to give a sign that there’s somebody died. The bell was rang continuously to welcome the corpse while giving a sign for the funeral staffs to be prepared for the burial ritual. Inscription collections in the Inscription Museum are selected inscriptions from the work of talented carver and designer, used as a realization of the family and relatives feeling. When you see the inscriptions, as if they can talk through the deep meaning of the script on them. On one of the gravestone inscription at the Inscription Museum, there's a script written in Dutch saying “SOO GY. NU SYT. WAS. IK VOOR DEESEN DAT. JK, NV BEN SVLT GY OOK WEESEN”, which means “Like you are now, I was before. And like I’m now, thus you will be one day”.

Most of the gravestone inscriptions were from many prominent figures from many fields such military, education, art, science, religion and many others. Some of them were General Major J.H.R Kohler, Dr. W.R. Stutterheim, Dr. H.F Roll, Pieter Erberveld, Olivia Mariamne Raffles, Miss Riboet and Soe Hok Gie. There’re a total of 1700 collections at Inscription Museum. Read more...

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