Divers from Indonesia have discovered treasures on the enigmatic 'Golden Island'

[ASEAN NOW Content Team]

 

The Srivijaya Empire has little archaeological evidence, but fresh discoveries near the Musi River may provide insight on the mystery civilisation.

Gold rings, beads, and other relics discovered by local divers in Indonesia's Musi River could be linked to the Srivijaya Empire, which ruled over broad parts of Asia during the 7th and 11th centuries C.E.

 

“Extraordinary stuff has been turning out in the last five years,” British maritime archaeologist Sean Kingsley, who reported on the discovery in the October issue of Wreckwatch magazine, tells Dalya Alberge of the Guardian.
"Coins from all eras, gold and Buddhist figurines, diamonds, and anything else you'd find in Sinbad the Sailor and thought was made up."
It is, in fact, true.”

 

According to Stephanie Pappas of Live Science, among the discoveries are a life-size Buddhist statue encrusted with valuable gems, temple bells, mirrors, wine jugs, and flutes shaped like peacocks.

Palembang, a city on the Musi River on the island of Sumatra, was the birthplace of Srivijaya's monarchy.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the empire ruled over the Strait of Malacca, a vital link between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and established trade with Malay tribes, China, and India.
Srivijaya was also a Mahayana Buddhist centre.

 

Palembang was home to around 1,000 Buddhist monks, according to Chinese accounts from the seventh century.
According to the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism, Chinese Buddhist pilgrims paused in the city to study Sanskrit while on their way to India.
Srivijaya's influence was curtailed in 1025 by a conflict with India's Chola dynasty, although it continued to play a role in trade for another two centuries.

 

Archaeologists have uncovered no remnants of royal court buildings, temples, or other structures, as Kingsley writes in Wreckwatch.
It's possible that the volcanoes on the island buried them.
According to Live Science, another possible explanation is that the city was built mostly on wood, with dwellings and other structures built on rafts that floated down the river. This form of architecture is still evident in some Southeast Asian countries today.
Such constructions would have long since withered away.

 

Much of what is known about Srivijaya is based on speculative descriptions by travellers who describe sensationalised sights such as man-eating snakes and multilingual parrots but provide few specifics about ordinary life.
According to Wreckwatch, the kingdom was wealthy in gold, which it used to forge strategic alliances with China and other regional countries.
In India, China, and Java, Srivijaya funded Buddhist temples and monasteries.
According to Sian Boyle of the Daily Mail, silver and gold coins from the empire were stamped with a sandalwood flower and the Sanskrit word "glory."

 

No official archaeological excavations have been done in or around the Musi River, according to Kingsley.
However, since 2011, when construction workers unearthed a number of artefacts while dredging sand from the river, amateurs have been discovering gems there.
According to a 2019 research by the Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, local fishermen and employees soon began examining the body of water, some during "clandestine [nighttime] dives."
After that, a large quantity of these objects appeared on the antiquities market.
Many of them wound up in private collections, leaving scholars with little physical evidence of the civilisation to study.

Edited November 9, 2021 by ASEAN NOW Content Team