Megalithic stone tablets with ancient script found in Pagaralam

Pagalaram, Indonesia - Two megalithic stone tablets with pallawa inscriptions were found on Saturday in Talangkubangan hamlet, Kancediwe village, South Dempo Sub-district, Pagaralam, South Sumatra.

"There were two stone tablets, each measuring 2 x 3 meters, standing upright as if they were part of an ancient house that we found on Bukit Ghanggas or Lengkenai Bughul near the intersection of the borders of three regions," Irwan (27), a resident of Talangkbungan, Dempo Sub-district, said here.

The stone tablets were located near a point where the borders of Pagalaram city, Muaraenim and Lahat districts meet.

The megalithic stones looked like parts of an ancient residence that had been abandoned for a long time and were surrounded by many plants such as yellow bamboo trees grown in neatly patterned arrangments, Irwan said.

The inscripted stone tablets lay in barren area about three to four hectares wide that apparently sat on a steaming geothermal source.

The area around the stones, Irwan said, appeared to have never been touched or visited by humans before.

"We have no idea what the inscriptions meant but believe they were made thousands of years ago," he said.

The location of the stones was also very remote. It takes two or three days to reach the site on foot from Pagalaram.

Another route to the site would be from Muaraenim, across rivers, ravines, hills and thick jungle and also take two days, he said.

"We dared not to go deeper in the jungle around the area where the tablets and the geothermal source were situated. It is a vast area but eerie as no trees grow in the three-hectare area," Almani (45), another local, said.

Many megalithic sites have been discovered in Pagalaram, Lahat and Muaraenim before, Akhmad Rivai, an official of the Archaelogical Preservation Office (BP3) for the Jambi, South Sumatra, Bengkulu and Bangka Belitung regions, said.

However, it was only in Talang Batu Gong village, Dempo sub-district and Skendal village, Pajarbulan sub-district, Lahat that the stones had many inscriptions, he said.

"We need to do further research to identify and determine the type of the megalithic stones found there," he said.

An effort also needed to made to identify and decipher the Pallawa inscriptions on the latest finds, he said. (T.KR-AES/HAJM/H-YH/P003)

Source: http://www.antaranews.com
Photo: http://oase.kompas.com

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