Taman Prasasti Museum

Taman Prasasti Museum
Museum Taman Prasasti

Front view of the museum.
Established	1795
Location	Jl. Tanah Abang 1, no. 1, Jakarta 10130, Indonesia
Type	Cemetery

Taman Prasasti Museum or Museum of Memorial Stone Park is a museum located in Jakarta, Indonesia. The museum was formerly a Dutch cemetery known as Kebon Jahe Kober. The cemetery was built by the Dutch colonial government in 1795 as a final resting place for high-ranked Dutchmen. Several important people that is buried in the museum are Olivie Mariamne Raffles - the first wife of British governor general Thomas Stamford Raffles - and Indonesian youth activist Soe Hok Gie.

Many stones in the cemetery date from long before it was officially built. These stones were brought to the cemetery when several churches in Batavia were demolished at the beginning of the 19th century. Some of these were inserted into the cemetery wall, while others were placed within the yard.

The cemetery may have been the oldest modern cemetery in the world by comparison with the Fort Canning Park (1926) in Singapore, Gore Hill Cemetery (1868) in Sydney, La Chaise Cemetery (1803) in Paris, and Mount Auburn Cemetery (1831) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

History

The museum was formerly a 5.9 ha cemetery known as Kebon Jahe Kober. The cemetery was officially opened Sept. 28, 1797, although people had been buried here as early as 1795. It was built to replace a cemetery that was previously located in the Church of New Holland (Dutch Nieuwe Hollandsche Kerk) that was destroyed by an earthquake (the site of which is now a museum called Wayang Museum).

After Indonesia's declaration of independence, the park was used as a Christian cemetery. Within the first two years it was managed by the Verberg Foundation and for the next twenty years it was handled by the Palang Hitam Foundation.

From 1967 to 1975 the cemetery was managed by the Jakarta burials agency, and then it was closed for burials to make way for the construction of the Central Jakarta mayoralty office. At a request from the local government, some corpses were removed by relatives while others were taken to Tanah Kusir cemetery in South Jakarta. Many tombstones, sculptures and statutes were removed and damaged during the construction of the office and now only 32 tombstones remain in their original positions. The size of the cemetery is also reduced from the original 5.9 hectare plot to 1.3 hectares. Only 1,372 of about 4,200 stones were selected to be kept in the cemetery.

The cemetery was officially inaugurated into a museum on July 9, 1977 by former governor of Jakarta Ali Sadikin.

Collection

The main collection of the museum is the Dutch gravestones located in its 1.2 ha museum ground. Some of these gravestones came from the former Nieuwe Hollandsche Kerk which is now the Wayang Museum in Jakarta Old Town. These gravestones are marked with the inscription "HK" or "Hollandsche Kerk".

Other collection of this museum are ancient inscription stones. There is also a miniature of different gravestones from various provinces of Indonesia and a replica of a 17^th-century hearse.

List of important graves

• Andreas Victor Michiels
• F.H. Roll (founder of STOVIA medical school, now University of Indonesia)
• Johan Harmen Rudolf Köhler
• J.L.A. Brandes (archeologist who collected Hindu statues now in possession of the National Museum of Indonesia)
• Miss Riboet (1930s artist)
• Olivie Mariamne Raffles (the first wife of British governor general Thomas Stamford Raffles)
• Soe Hok Gie
• W.F. Stutterheim (archeologist who wrote a book about the Hindu hero Rama)

Literature

• Lenzi, Iola (2004). Museums of Southeast Asia. Singapore: Archipelago Press. p. 200. ISBN 981-4068-96-9.

External link

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/09/10/dutch-cemetery-rich-with-jakarta-history.html