Sew La Ti Embroidery:
South East Asia

The pyramid-shaped temple, which was discovered in 1815, has sunk 20 centimeters on the northeastern side over the past few decades. Furthermore, stones are coming apart in extended areas of the southwestern side and on the stairs leading to the temple’s main building.

BPCB restoration working group chief Sudarno said the extensive damage had put the whole structure of the temple in danger.

“The current damage is the accumulation of damage [from previous years] and it’s dangerous. That’s why we’ve had to prioritize the restoration of the temple this year,” Sudarno said.

The restoration work, he went on, had officially begun on June 18 and would last for two years. To carry out the major project, the BPCB is working with a joint team comprising Borobudur temple conservation experts, Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM) archaeologists and structural engineering experts and geologists from the National Development University (UPN), also in Yogyakarta.

During the restoration, local authorities will close the temple’s 5,440-square-meter compound to the public for security reasons.

Located in Sukuh village, around 35 kilometers east of Surakarta, Central Java, Sukuh temple is perched at around 910 meters above sea level on the western slopes of Mount Lawu.

Archaeologists believe the Javanese-Hindu temple was constructed in the 15th century, probably at the end of the Majapahit Empire era (between 1293 and 1500 CE), thought to be represented in a relief depicting a giant eating a human.

The restoration of Sukuh will, according to Sudarno, be followed by the dismantling of the temple’s main structure for research purposes. The center of the pyramid remained uncharted territory, he said.

The earliest book about the temple, Proveener Beschrijpten op Soekoh en Cetho, which was written by Dutch archaeologist Van der Vlis in the mid 19th century, reported that the temple’s center was covered in concrete.

“So far we can only predict what is inside the central part of the temple, soil or stone,” Sudarno said.

This year, he added, the restoration work would be focused on dismantling and research, while next year was for reassembling. The estimated Rp 941 million (US$70,500) cost of this year’s restoration work, according to Sudarno, is met by the state budget through the Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry.

The head of BPCB’s cultural heritage protection, development and utilization section, Gutomo, said many temples in the region were in need of restoration following a devastating 2006 earthquake that hit Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java. Priority, he went on, was given to temples categorized as part of the national cultural heritage and those in dangerously poor condition.

Other temples undergoing restoration work this year include Plaosan, Sewu, Bubrah and Lumbung, all of which are located in the same area as Prambanan temple.

“These four temples are part of the Prambanan temple national heritage,” Gutomo said.

Author: Kusumasari Ayuningtyas | Source: The Jakarta Post [June 29, 2015]

The ICC-Angkor has convened regularly twice a year to consistently follow up on all operations being carried out on the site, the statement said, adding that it is the international mechanism for coordinating all assistance extended by different countries and organizations for preserving and developing the site.

The session will be opened by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister Sok An and UNESCO Representative in Cambodia Anne Lemaistre.

The two-day session "will be devoted to a number of presentations by specialists, featuring themes on restoration, archaeological research, tourism and sustainable development," the statement said.

The ICC-Angkor was established after the Angkor Archeological Park was inscribed in the UNESCO's World Heritage list on December 14, 1992.

The ancient site is the country's most popular tourist destination, which is located in Siem Reap province, some 315 km northwest of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.

According to the latest government figures, the site attracted 842,719 foreign tourists in the first four months of this year, earning 24.1 million U.S. dollars from ticket sales.

Source: Xinhua [June 02, 2015]

Prak Sunnara, director-general of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts’ heritage department, confirmed Sunday that the statue was set to arrive last night at the Phnom Penh International Airport.

“The statue will arrive at 8:30 tonight and this statue was made in the 10th-century Koh Ker style,” he said. “It has been returned from the U.S.”

He declined to comment further, noting that an official press conference about the statue would be held at the Council of Ministers on Tuesday.

According to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s website, the 10th-century sandstone sculpture stands about 116 cm tall and 54 cm wide and depicts the god in a crouching position, with the body of a man and head of a monkey.

Anne Lemaistre, head of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO in Cambodia, said it was clear the statue had originally been attached to a base, but it wasn’t until archaeologists unearthed previously undiscovered pedestals in the Koh Ker complex’s Prasat Chen temple last year that the statue’s exact location was determined.

“I think the proof has been established that it is coming from that place, because it was a matter of matching the pedestal with the sculpture,” Ms. Lemaistre said, referring to Prasat Chen.

“UNESCO is extremely satisfied and very grateful to the Cleveland museum for accepting to give it back,” she added.

Kong Vireak, director of the National Museum in Phnom Penh, said the statue would be handed over on Monday to the museum, where it will be displayed.

In May last year, Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer newspaper reported that Sonya Rhie Quintanilla, the Cleveland museum’s curator of Indian and Southeast Asian art, traveled to Cambodia several months earlier to attempt to determine whether the statue came from Prasat Chen.

“Our work on the piece and its provenance is still underway, and terribly time-consuming, but so far, based on my extensive fieldwork in Cambodia earlier this year, I can report that I did not find any physical evidence to confirm that the Cleveland Hanuman is from Prasat Chen,” the newspaper quoted Ms. Quintanilla as saying at the time.

Neither Ms. Quintanilla nor Caroline Guscott, the museum’s spokeswoman, immediately responded to requests for comment.

Ms. Lemaistre of UNESCO said that while she did not know what had motivated the museum to give back the statue, it would have been premature to ask for its return before the additional pedestals in the temple were discovered last year.

“I think we could not have really asked without having established the evidence,” she said.

Authors: Mech Dara and Chris Mueller | Source: The Cambodia Daily [May 11, 2015]