The Museum Around Sangiran and the Legend of Balung Buto (Giant Bones)

For people around the Bengawan Solo valley, especially in the Sangiran area, Sragen, Indonesia, the name Balung Buto is familiar to their ears, balung buto means giant bones. their understanding of balung buto is related to the oral tradition of the great war that took place in the hills of Sangiran, thousands of years ago. In that battle, many giants died and were buried in the hills of Sangiran, as "proven" by the large pieces of bones they called balung buto.     

Prior to the arrival of Koenigswald, the balung buto was thought to have magical powers. In addition, as a means of healing various diseases, self-protection or as a talisman, to help the birth process. So, it is not surprising that in the period before the 1930s, balung buto was sought after by local residents. Until archaeologists change that view.   

After the story above, surely Asian Destination Readers think about Sangiran Museum, right? So the Sangiran Museum is not only in one place? but there are several museums located in the Sragen and Karanganyar districts, namely:

a. Sangiran Cluster Krikilan Museum, which is the largest and most famous museum

b. Dayu Cluster Sangiran Museum

c. Sangiran Cluster Ngebung Museum

d. Sangiran Cluster Manyarejo Museum

e. Sangiran Cluster Bukur Museum

Of the five existing clusters, the admin will provide information on 2 museums, namely the Ngebung Cluster Museum and the Manyarejo Cluster Museum, about... why? Can anyone answer maybe? YAP... these two museums are more about what Balung Buto is about!!! In addition, the admin is interested in these two museums because the level of visitors is still low.

Sangiran Cluster Manyarejo Museum



Inaugurated on November 5, 2014, indeed the museums in the manyarejo, ngebung, dayu, and Bukuran clusters are considered young because this museum was established to complement the sangiran krikilan cluster museum. In the Manyarejo museum, there are two exhibition spaces, namely indoor and outdoor. In the outdoor room there is an excavation display, namely fossil excavation. Here is shown a variety of soil that has fossils in it.

Next we enter the indoor room, now in this indoor there is an exhibition of several existing fossils such as a replica of a skull, a bull's head, and a stone ball. Although this museum is about ancient humans, make no mistake, bloggers, here and in all Sangiran museums are equipped with electronic media that can make it easier for visitors to understand about Sangiran and the fossils found. Even in the bookkeeping cluster, the concept is futuristic, you know, but we won't be discussing bookkeeping clusters.

Here, the picture above shows the contents of the Indoor Museum Manyarejo exhibition room, when bloggers enter this room, they are ready to pamper their ears with the strains of Javanese gamelan music, don't be afraid, but. The room is quite nice too, there is air conditioning which is quite cold, different from the air outside the museum which tends to be hot when the admin visits. This museum is smaller than the other museums. Here there is the Legend of Balung Buto, starting from what Balung Buto is to the legend of the creation of several village names in the Kalijambe District, Sragen Regency, you know, it was cool that ancient people connected something magically, it would be beyond people's understanding now.

Here is also described the timeline from the beginning of the discovery to the construction of this museum, you know, cool, right!, from there, it was discovered that the local community and the researcher had a harmonious relationship, you know. So that is also one of the reasons why the Manyarejo museum was built to commemorate the harmonious relationship between the community and researchers who come from outside and within the country.

In addition, this museum has profiles of domestic researchers, what tools are used for excavation, engineering about the legend of Balung Buto is also here, you know. There's also a t-shirt about the legend of Balung Buto, for blogger friends who want to buy it, let's come here. Next we will visit the Sangiran Cluster Ngebung Museum.

Sangiran Cluster Ngebung Museum

The museum was inaugurated on October 19, 2014, the hallmark of this museum is a statue of an elephant in front of the museum, when Asian Destination readers enter, you will see from a distance replicas of archaeologists who are excavating together with the surrounding community. On the right and left there is an inscription about the Origin of the Sangiran Museum, and behind it there are 4 monitors that play videos of legends about ancient humans and gods around the world. Well, from here, it can be seen that the Museum in Sangiran has been recognized by UNESCO, you know, so as generations of heirs we should be proud of what we have.

At the Ngebung Museum, there are 3 exhibition halls, of course, apart from the replica of the excavation earlier, let's just go ahead

In Exhibition Room One, there are photos of archaeologists investigating early humans, articles about Eugene Dubois' The Missing Link theory, to replicas of ancient humans. Most of the archaeologists' profiles come from abroad, but there are also some indigenous archaeologists, including a replica of Raden Saleh. In fact, apart from being good at painting, he is also diligent in collecting fossils.

In the second exhibition room here, we study about Balung Buto, what is Balung Buto and how people react to this Balung Buto, the picture above shows that at that time people used Balung Buto for medicine, well, Chinese drug dealers usually collect fossils because they are considered like dragon fossils. time it has been used in China for treatment. In front of the replica of the community there is a replica of a Chinese person selling medicine. In this second xhibition room, there is also a relationship between researchers and journals about the swelling cluster.

Continue to the third exhibition room. In this final room there is an incomplete stegodon bone. Stegodon you know? It's the elephant. In this room there is also a photo of the current generation as the heir to Sangiran, if we don't take care of Sangiran who else? Before leaving the Ngebung Museum, try to write a message and impression for the Ngebung Museum on the existing touch screen monitor.

This museum campaigns for the beauty of harmonization of tolerance, respect for history, and our responsibilities as generations of Sangiran heirs. 

If you want to visit the Sangiran Museum, the Manyarejo cluster and the Ngebung cluster, from Surakarta City you can use the Trans Jateng bus to Sangiran Museum for IDR 4,000, after that use a motorcycle taxi or bus travel to the Ngebung Museum and the Manyarejo Museum. Entrance tickets to visit are not charged ticket prices, you know, aka free. Most only asked to pay Rp. 2,000.00 to pay for parking there. Items that must be brought with friends if you are a history lover are notebooks and cameras.

Asian Destination readers must imagine as archaeologists who are carrying out excavation activities at the Manyarejo Museum. Typical museums in Indonesia are holidays or museum closing days on Mondays, you can visit other than Mondays from 08.00-16.00. Nearby tourist destinations are the Krikilan Cluster Sangiran Museum, Dayu Cluster, and Bukur Cluster. In addition, if you want to enjoy nature tourism, you can visit Mount Kemukus and Kedung Ombo Reservoir.

 

Source: https://yogapermanawijaya.wordpress.com/










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