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Raffles’ temple possibly found in Blitar: Heritage center
The Gedog Temple was mentioned in Thomas Stamford Raffles’ book History of Java, published in 1817.
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A number of journalists take photographs and videos of formations of bricks and andesite stones thought to be the foundation of an ancient temple that is mentioned in a book by East Indies lieutenant-governor Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1817 (JP/Asip Hasani)
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heritage preservation center is claiming that the area around the Punden Joko Pangon site in Gedog subdistrict, Blitar city, East Java, could be the location of an ancient temple which was mentioned in a book by East Indies lieutenant-governor Thomas Stamford Raffles.
The Gedog Temple was mentioned in Raffles’ book, History of Java, published in 1817.
The Trowulan Cultural Heritage Preservation Center (BPCB) also decided that the site was worth excavating. It sent a team of archaeologists early this month to make initial observations of the site where a number of objects assumed to be fragments of an ancient temple were found by locals in the last few weeks.
An archaeologist of the center, Wicaksono Dwi Nugroho, said that based on the initial examination, the site appeared to be the location of an ancient temple.
“It’s quite possible that the temple was what Raffles called Gedog Temple, which he visited several years before History of Java was published,” Wicaksono told The Jakarta Post recently.
If this was true, he added, the temple must have been destroyed by earthquakes and major eruptions of Mount Kelud, which killed thousands of people in Blitar in 1901 and 1915.
The team of archaeologists conducted their observations in seven spots around Punden Joko Pangon, including where the head of a statue of the god of time, Kala, was found by a local farmer two weeks ago in his corn field located some 25 meters from Punden Joko Pangon.
