The Vatican Museum is continuing its effort to revitalize hundreds of Indonesian artifacts in its collection with a plan to open a permanent Indonesian exhibition within the next two years.

Indonesian Ambassador to the Vatican Budiarman Bahar said recently that a team from Indonesia was working together with museum staff to prepare the collection at the Vatican's Missionary Ethnological Museum.

'The revitalization is a cooperative effort between the Indonesian government and the Vatican Museum that was inaugurated late last year,' Budiarman said.

In November 2012, the museum and the Indonesian Embassy celebrated the completion of a restoration of a relief depicting the Borobudur Temple and the opening of a special outdoor atrium to permanently house the replica.

The 40-year-old replica was put back on display after a lengthy and complicated renovation process. The replica comprises 24 Borobudur panels depicting scenes from the Lalitavistara Sutra, which tells the story of the Buddha from the time of his descent from the Tushita heaven until his first sermon in the Deer Park near Benares.

Accompanied by a number of other Indonesian artifacts, the exhibition goes by the theme of 'Indonesian cultural richness and diversity' and 'Religious harmony in Indonesia' ' motifs that would also underlie the planned Indonesian corner at the museum.

With more than 1,100 items in total, the Indonesian artifact collection makes up the second-largest collection at the Vatican's Missionary Ethnological Museum. The largest Vatican ethnological collection is from China, which includes around 3,000 items.

With around 5 million people visiting the Vatican Museum each year, the Indonesian permanent exhibition is expected to also be a permanent platform for promotion and cultural diplomacy in the Vatican and on the international stage.

An Indonesian-Vatican team has been working to prepare a special temporary Indonesian collection exhibition, which would occupy a 400-square-meter space in the Ethnological Museum for a year starting January.

The temporary Indonesian exhibition would be followed up with the establishment of the permanent Indonesian exhibition in the museum. The museum has prepared a 250-square-meter area for the permanent exhibition.

The Missionary Ethnological Museum was founded at the Lateran Palace in 1884. It was later relocated to its present site in the Vatican in 1973. The original nucleus of the collection of about 40,000 works
had been chosen by a special committee from among 100,000 objects from all over the world, offered to the Pope from private donors, the missions and 400 Dioceses for the Great Exhibition of 1925.

Over the years, the initial collection has been enriched with new acquisitions and donations offered to the papacy. The present museum collection amounts to about 100,000 works.

Hernowo, head of the Indonesian revitalization team, said a number of archeological, anthropological and architectural experts and those from the National Museum have worked at the museum to record, archive and properly annotate the Indonesian artifacts in the Vatican Museum collection.

'The focus of the activity, however, is on checking already annotated and identified pieces in the Indonesian collection that have already been exhibited at the museum,' he said.

'We are also developing a proper narration for the temporary Indonesian exhibition. We need to add the proper context. Currently, we are considering dividing the pieces in the collection into regional origins, gifts to the Pope and batik.'

He said that the narration would emphasize Indonesia's rich culture and interfaith harmony.

The Indonesian artifacts come from around the archipelago, including Kalimantan, Maluku, Papua, Java, Bali and Sumatra.

A member of the team, archeologist Djoko Dwiyanto from Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM), said that the Indonesian pieces at the museum were of high value despite lacking historical meaning.

'In terms of their place in history, they may not mean much. However, these artifacts represent a very high level of Indonesian craftsmanship. Some of the gifts for the Pope, for example, are their makers' masterpieces,' Djoko said.

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