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WET & HOT NEWS ! > indonesia
Harta karun di Laut Subang (Treasures from the sea of Subang)
The 04 Jul. 2010 at 16:10Treasure Hunting / recoveryDari Suara Karya
Harta karun barang muatan kapal tenggelam (BMKT| peninggalan era dinasti China ditemukan lagi di Laut Jawa, tepatnya di perairan Belanakan-Subang, Jawa Barat. Sejak awal 2010, pengangkatan BMKT berupa benda antik yang dibuat tahun 1600-an ini sudah mulai dilakukan PT Comexsindo.
"Diperkirakan, penemuan BMKT kali ini lebih besar dibanding di Laut Cirebon. Selain keramik, memang belum dapat diketahui jenis dan jumlah persis barang muatan yang ada di kapal karam tersebut," kata Dirjen Pengawasan Kelautan dan Perikanan (PSDKP) Kementerian Kelautan dan Perikanan (KKP) Aji Su-larso saat melakukan tinjauan ke kapal tongkang (submarine service) pengangkat BMKT di Subang, Rabu (5/5).
BMKT peninggalan Dinasti Ming tahun 1600-an telah diangkat pihak Co-mexsindo berupa keramik berjumlah 12.415 unit. Dalam satu hari, diturunkan 22 penyelam untuk mengangkat BMKT tersebut. "Mungkin pengangkatan baru selesai dalam kurun waktu beberapa bulan ke depan. Ini mengingat faktor cuaca yang sangat menentukan kece-patan waktu pengangkatannya," kata Aji lagi.
Lokasi penemuan BMKT terletak pada $ derajat 28-768 lintang selatan dan 107 derajat 53-275 bujur timur dengan kedalaman 50 hingga 54 meter di bawah laut. Pengangkatan BMKT mengusung tema Project Belanakan I.
Seperti diketahui, ada sekitar 100 lebih pekerja yang berada dalam kapal tongkang, di. mana sekitar 50 persen merupakan operator dan eksekutor pengangkatan BMKT. Sedangkan sisanya merupakan anak buah kapal (ABK) serta petugas pengawas pengangkatan BMKT dari TNI, Polri, KKP, serta Ke-menterian Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata.
Ketika ditanya mengenai sejauh mana pengawasan yang dilakukan instansi terkait dalam proses pengangkatan BMKT, menurut Aji, semua instansi terkait berada dalam satu kapal dan terus mengawasi kegiatan yang dilakukan para kru pengangkatan BMKT itu. Dengan demikian, sangat minim terjadi penyelewengan oleh perusahaan atau oknum pekerja terhadap harta karun BMKT.
Ini karena semua kegiatan yang dilakukan selalu berada dalam pengawasan ketat, termasuk pada saat penyelaman.Ancient ship replica helps fund Java dig
The 04 Jul. 2010 at 06:01Marine Sciences
From The Japan Times
The Indonesian government and a Japanese academic group have recently reconstructed an ancient ship to raise money for an archaeological study on historic ruins in and around Java.
According to the Japan Majapahit Association, the ship has been making port calls in Asian countries since late last month, asking for financial and technical support to excavate the ruins of the Majapahit kingdom, which existed in the area from the 13th to the 16th century.
The ship was built in Madura, part of Indonesia's Java Province, and left there on June 27 for a six-month, 9,000-km journey, before heading back to Jakarta.
It will reach Japan around the middle of July, making its first stop in Kudaka Island, Okinawa Prefecture. The island served as a trading post of the Ryukyu kingdom, which used to govern Okinawa.
The ship will then sail to Naha. The crew will pay Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima a courtesy call before continuing on their journey to Kagoshima, Yokohama, Tokyo and Fukuoka.
The 20-meter ship was reconstructed based on an ancient painting that was on a relief in Java's Borobudur ruins dating back to the eighth century. It is made entirely of wood using materials such as teak and bamboo, and does not use a single nail, according to the group.
The majority of the 15-person crew is Indonesian. Yoshiyuki Yamamoto, a Japanese explorer who canoed across the Indian Ocean, is on board as a project leader.RI undecided on underwater heritage convention
The 03 Jun. 2010 at 12:40MiscellaneousFrom Dina Indrasafitri - The Jakarta Post
Despite being rich in sunken treasure, Indonesia is undecided whether to ratify a world convention that protects underwater cultural heritage, a senior official said Wednesday at a workshop for officials and academics in Jakarta.
“Indonesia still needs to carefully weigh up the benefits and consequences of ratifying [the convention],” Hari Untoro Drajat, the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s director general for history and archaeology said.
He said ratifying the UNESCO convention on protection of the underwater cultural heritage needed careful preparation, including adequate legislation, human resources, infrastructure and funding.
The convention was adopted by UNESCO in 2001, and has been ratified by 31 countries as of May this year. Cambodia is the only signatory in Asia.
The convention carries four main principles: The obligation to preserve underwater cultural heritage, in situ preservation preferred, no commercial exploitation, and training and information sharing.
Arief Rachman from the Indonesian National Commission for UNESCO said the third principle has been the most challenging for Indonesia.The race to preserve shipwrecks, artifacts
The 18 May. 2010 at 19:03Underwater Archeology
Credit: Underwater Heritage Program Directorate/Adhi Perwira
By Andrea Booth - The Jakarta Post
Lack of finance, technology and trained divers, the attempt to sell sunken artifacts — not to mention looters — appear to be hindering the potential to conserve Indonesia’s abundant underwater heritage, a topic under hot discussion of late.The Underwater Heritage Program Directorate (PBA) under the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s Directorate General of History and Archaeology is keen to set up a system to overcome these challenges.
“Our objective is to preserve these culturally valuable remnants of our past,” Gunawan, chief director of the PBA said.
The directorate recently conducted five dives over 10 days to recover artifacts in the Karimunjawa region, Jepara, Central Java.
“We want the artifacts we have uncovered to stay and be looked after in Indonesia so that citizens and generations to come can learn more about the role Indonesia has played in the maritime industry from the 9th to the 19th centuries.” The PBA said in a press statement it would also help boost the tourism industry.
This initiative is not without challenges, however. Gunawan says the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry Pannas BMKT’s (the national committee of excavation and utilization of precious artifacts from sunken ships) commercializing of artifacts, including the unsuccessful auction early May of treasure reportedly worth US$80 billion, is devaluing Indonesia’s history.
Pannas BMKT’s secretary general Sudirman Saad recently told The Jakarta Post that artifacts the state wanted to preserve were held in a government warehouse in Cileungsi, West Java, with the remainder stocked in a privately owned warehouse in Pamulang, South Jakarta.
Gunawan said he was concerned that precious artifacts would not be preserved and wanted to encourage people to value them — as well as shipwrecks — more so they could learn more about their past and enhance national pride.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) agreed that selling the underwater artifacts meant Indonesia would lose its valuable heritage. “Exploiting an archaeological site and dispersing its artifacts is an irreversible process. Yet the contents of the shipwreck found off the coast of the city of Cirebon have much to tell us about cultural and commercial exchanges in the region at that time,” UNESCO director general Irina Bokova said in a press statement.
While Gunawan said it would take time to build a solid system to extract and preserve the artifacts, and gain people’s interest, he believed this goal could still be reached.
“People may be worried that [we may not have the technology], especially in Indonesia, and this may be because there has never been a preservation process undertaken before,” Gunawan said. “But we have to start at some point and I’m sure we are capable.”Indonesia Criticized for Murky Rules on Sunken Treasures
The 14 May. 2010 at 04:47Auction News
By Putri Prameshwari - The Jakarta Post
Given the country’s thousands of sprawling islands, key shipping lanes and bounty of shipwrecks, the government should immediately draft legislation on the recovery and management of sunken treasures, stakeholders said.
Last week’s lack of bidders at an auction of 10th-century ceramics and jewelry recovered from the depths was clear proof that the government had a long way to go toward managing such items, said speakers at a discussion organized by the Indonesian Heritage Trust (BPPI) in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Ratu Raja Arimbi Nurtina, a spokeswoman for the Cirebon royal family at the Kanoman Palace, said the recovered items had been taken from the waters off Cirebon, West Java, without the involvement of local residents.
“I regret the decision to take these treasures and put them under the hammer,” she said. “Even though they were, strictly speaking, not ours, it would have been better to consult with us on the matter.”
The treasures, Arimbi said, could have been used to build a picture of the region’s vibrant trading history.
“The palace opposes any attempt by the government to auction off the treasure before it is exhibited to the people of Cirebon,” she said, adding that Kanoman Palace needed a say in any decision made by the government or private contractors salvaging sunken treasure in the area.
Mustaqim Asteja, from the Cirebon-based Kendi Pertula Heritage Society, said a thorough study of the treasure could shed light on the city’s past. “History is a work in progress,” he said. “You can’t categorically rule out these items being related to Cirebon or its development.”
The Cirebon shipwreck was located 130 kilometers off the north coast of West Java. Under the regional autonomy law, a district’s jurisdiction stretches up to six kilometers offshore, while a province’s jurisdiction extends from six to 20 km. The central government is responsible for anything beyond that.
Nunus Supardi, the former director for archeology and ancient history at the Kendi Pertula Heritage Society, said government regulations on recovered treasures remained unclear. “No one understands how it works,” he said.Hidden treasures
The 11 May. 2010 at 05:23Eastern World TreasuresFrom The Jakarta Post
The much-awaited auction of more than 270,000 pieces of 11 century-old artifacts retrieved from a shipwreck in Cirebon and the recent finding of 12,400 items of ancient Chinese ceramics in neighboring Subang waters only confirms the country’s rich in undersea treasures, which may have long been overlooked.
There are an estimated 3 million undiscovered shipwrecks spread across the oceans, including in Indonesian waters, tempting maritime treasure hunters to dive deep in the sea for a bounty.
The price tag of the auctioned historical items has been set at US$80 million, and with the proceeds to be evenly shared between the government and the finders, including Belgian Luc Heymans’ Cosmix Underwater Research Ltd., it can be imagined how lucrative the industry is.
An Australian underwater treasure hunter who was recently declared a fugitive by the police for illegal salvage work of Chinese artifacts in Subang reportedly made $17 million from gold ingots and Chinese porcelain salvaged from a wreck found off the Riau Islands in the 1980s alone.
German treasure hunter Klaus Keppler, who has been operating in Indonesia for years, says the business is risky as evident in the fact he has searched about 70 wrecks, but only five are probably worth it. He has earned big, however, including from his recovery of a 10th century wreck and a 19th century British vessel that ran aground Indonesian waters.
The foreign hunters will continue to take advantage of Indonesia’s limited technology, equipment and lack of interest to excavate more treasures lying beneath the sea. Given the fact that Indonesia was a prominent route of international trade linking Asia, the Middle East and Europe in the past, the industry is indeed a money machine.
It remains unclear how much the industry has contributed to state revenue as there have been no official reports on undersea treasure findings, except from media coverage. Nobody knows either the amount of potential income from unreported discoveries as a result of limited maritime patrols and the government’s control.
The price Indonesia may have to pay for allowing the business to flourish, however, may exceed the proceeds. As the UNESCO has put it, the sales of ancient artifacts salvaged from the sea may cause Indonesia to lose valuable heritage of the past civilization.Indonesia to build a maritime Museum
The 11 May. 2010 at 05:18Museum newsFrom Bernama.com
The Indonesian government is planning to build a maritime museum in Jakarta in a bid to save the treasure, artifacts and valuable goods retrieved from the old sunken ships in Indonesia's waters, a minister said Monday.
"We have planned to build a museum, in particular, to store the valuable goods retrieved from many of ships sunk hundreds of years ago in our waters," Indonesian Maritime and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying after opening an oceanography conference in Bali.
The minister said that the Indonesian government would contact officials in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) regarding the plan.
Fadel said that Indonesia's waters have treasures and artifacts from sunken ships that were operated by Arabian, Chinese traders and the Dutch colonial administrator that ruled the country a hundred years ago.
Now, plenty of treasures and valuable artifacts are placed in several museums across the country, according to the minister.
"The would-be built maritime museum would gather all of those things and display for the public," he said.
An Indonesian agency tasked to retrieve those artifacts and treasures found valuable earthenware, ceramics from Chinese and Arabian trading ships that sank in waters off Cirebon, West Java recently, reports said.Indonesia to Ease Auction Rules to Lure Treasure Bidders
The 10 May. 2010 at 02:56Auction News
By Putri Prameshwari - Jakarta Globe
The government is revising its bidding procedures for a cache of salvaged historical artifacts, following last week’s aborted auction that had aimed to raise $80 million but failed to get a single bid, an official at the maritime affairs ministry said on Sunday.
The auction flop has polarized the debate on whether such items are too valuable, historically, to be sold off.
Aji Sularso, director general of supervision at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, said officials would meet on Monday to discuss alternative procedures for the auction of 271,000 pieces of ceramics and jewelry recovered from a shipwreck off Cirebon, West Java.
“Having learned from the first auction, we’re evaluating the procedures for the next one,” he said.
Wednesday’s auction of 10th-century treasures was called off after five minutes because there were no bidders. The ministry had required a deposit of $16 million for the right to bid, about 20 percent of the minimum amount it sought to raise.
“We’ll probably be more flexible on the deposit,” Aji said.
He added that another problem was that the auction had been announced at short notice, giving potential bidders only a week to register and submit their deposits. Aji said an overhaul of the bidding procedure would be crucial to enabling the ministry to auction off more such items within the country, rather than through auction houses elsewhere.
Indonesian waters, historically busy shipping lanes, are believed to house numerous wrecks carrying valuable cargo. Aji put the number at more than 480. The Cirebon haul was recovered by Belgian salvager Luc Heymans’ Cosmix Underwater Research and its local partner, PT Paradigma Putra Sejahtera.
Paradigma CEO Adi Agung Tirtamarta welcomed further discussions with the ministry on loosening up the bidding procedure.
“It’ll be good for Indonesia to get its hands on treasures found in its own waters,” he said, adding that in the past such finds were looted and taken overseas.Controversial sunken treasure auction attracts no bidders
The 06 May. 2010 at 18:04Auction NewsBy Dina Indrasafitri - The Jakarta Post
The auction of centuries-old artifacts recently discovered on the bottom of Indonesia’s ocean floor opened Wednesday with the attendance of government officials, including two ministers and a pack of journalists — and not a single bidder.
The seats saved for bidders were left empty, forcing the organizer of the auction to call it a day only minutes after the gavel was banged.
“There was an auction, but since there were no bidders, it was instantly closed,” said Sudirman Saad, the secretary-general for the recovery and usage of precious goods in sunken ships.
According to him, the offer to join the auction had been open until 12 a.m., or two hours before the auction, but no registrations had been made. Thus, he said, the auction was recorded as “being conducted, but without any bidders”.
More than 271,000 historical objects discovered in Cirebon waters in West Java were up for auction.
The artifacts were excavated from the ruins of a ship in 2005. The value of the retrieved objects was estimated at US$80 million.
The artifacts included a golden sword with Arabic inscriptions, a large vase from the 10th century Liao dynasty, rock crystals and a 32-centimeter bronze mirror.
Interested bidders were obliged to deposit 20 percent ($16 million) of the value of the auctioned goods.
Maritime and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad, who is also the acting chairman of the National Committee for the Recovery and Usage of Precious Goods in Sunken Ships, said it might take weeks or months before the committee could decide what they would do next.
“We will have a meeting with committee members and then decide what to do. Of course we will also consult with the President,” he said after the auction closed.
The auction has drawn criticism from academics and history buffs as well as the royal family of the Cirebon Sultanate.Cirebon sultanate deplores planned auction of artifacts
The 05 May. 2010 at 04:20Auction NewsBy Nana Rukmana - The Jakarta Post
The Cirebon Kasepuhan Sultanate has opposed the government’s plan to auction off thousands of historical artifacts recovered from a 1,000-year-old shipwreck in waters off Cirebon, West Java. The artifacts are thought to originate from China and the Middle East.
The sultanate’s authorities said the artifacts were part of the nation’s history and heritage and therefore too valuable to be sold off to overseas buyers.
“We urge the government to act wisely and cancel the auction. It would be better if the artifacts remained in Indonesia and became part of the country’s collection of invaluable assets,” said Cirebon Kasepuhan Crown Prince Pangeran Raja Adipati Arief Natadiningrat on Tuesday.
The auction will be held May 5 under the coordination of the National Committee of Excavation and Utilization of Precious Artifacts from Sunken Ships.
The collection includes around 271,000 items dating from the 10th century, including pottery, jewelry, gemstones and crystal ware.
The loot was recovered from a sunken ship in the Java Sea from 2004 to 2005, some 70 miles off the northern coast of Cirebon. The auction’s value is estimated at Rp 1 trillion (about US$100 million).
Pangeran Arief said the items were part of the country’s history and should be submitted for research rather than auctioned off.