Mandan and Joho subdistricts in Central Java’s Sukoharjo regency have been frequently visited by treasure hunters who scour paddy fields in search of ancient objects.

Located on the outskirts of Surakarta city, the paddy fields that cover approximately 10 hectares in two locations some 12 kilometers from each other, are believed to be the sites of ancient relics.

Residents have said the raiders, who are believed to be from outside Sukoharjo, often sneak in at night to search the two areas.

“It’s like they play hide and sneak,” said Bimo Kokor Wijanarko, a Joho resident, last Tuesday. “They usually come in groups of three to five people.”

The illegal treasure hunting activities, according to Bimo, started three years ago when reports of treasures buried in the area surfaced.

The activities decreased after the government declared the land a conservation area and a heritage site in 2015, making such activities illegal.

However, they picked up again in the past few months when the paddy fields were left uncultivated during the dry season because of difficulties finding water for irrigation.

A Mandan resident named Handoyo, 40, said the raiders sometimes paid local owners to rent their fields during the dry season to allow the hunters to excavate their fields.

“They have found pottery, kris, statues, chests, bones and jewelry, even though they only dig as deep as 30 centimeters randomly,” Handoyo said.

Mariman, a 63-year-old paddy field owner in Joho, has allowed people to rent his paddy field during the dry season without fussing over their intentions. “I know nothing about heritage. [Some people] wanted to rent my field for Rp 3 million [a month] so I just allowed them to do so,” he said.

Sukoharjo Education and Culture Agency head Darno said the 10 hectares of fields were indeed conservation areas according to a decree issued by the Central Java Cultural Heritage Conservation Center (BPCB).

“But, no signage has been placed there to announce the status of the sites. It’s the authority of the BPCB to do so,” said Darno.

In the neighboring Sragen regency, an “archaic” Homo erectus skull was found last year at an archaeological site in Sangiran, marking the first such discovery in the area in the last 80 years after a skull was found by a German paleontology expert.

In Central Sulawesi, the local administration is set to begin managing hundreds of megalith statues as tourism destinations following a 2016 study conducted by a local museum that found that the province was home to the largest number of megalith sites in Indonesia.

Central Sulawesi Tourism Agency head Ardiansyah Lamasitudju revealed that the province had begun improving access and building better roads to reach several of the megalithic sites.

At least 1,451 megalithic objects are spread across numerous megalithic sites in the region. Among the richest sites, where megalithic statues, menhir and dolmen could be found, were Poso regency’s Napu Valley, Bada Valley and Besoa Valley, as well as Oloboju and Kulawi villages in Sigi regency. One of the most popular statues to visit is Tadulako, a local term for leader, which stands 170 centimeters tall.

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