3 - Great Sacred Majapahit: Biographies of a Javanese Site in the Nineteenth Century

Summary

This chapter focuses on the various encounters of people, objects, texts and stories relating to the (thirteenth–fifteenth century) Majapahit site in East Java, during the long nineteenth century. What makes this site distinct from others discussed in this book is that in the twentieth century it transformed into a central heritage site of the post-colonial Indonesian state. The chapter focuses, however, on an understudied early phase in the politics, local heritage practices, and knowledge exchange at Majapahit as a material site and spiritual symbol. It shows how, despite early efforts at site appropriation and heritage control, war, modernising infrastructural interventions, and the epistemic violence of archaeological and philological ‘pushes’ at the end of the nineteenth century, the Majapahit site remained relatively open for many different memories, stories, engagements, and forms of knowledge seeking.