Kuala Lumpur - MORE visitors including foreigners are visiting the Bujang Valley Archaeology Museum in Merbok near Sungai Petani which displays alluring temple ruins and artefacts more than 1,500 years old.
Busloads arrive mostly at the weekends and public holidays and last year, the museum received 127,500 visitors. This year, there has been a marked increase in foreign tourists from all over the world.
Some 1,000 documented exhibits excavated from various sites in Bujang Valley have been reconstructed and displayed in the museum and its grounds.
This treasure trove transports one back in time to the third to 14th century AD when Bujang Valley had a thriving Hindu and Buddhist civilisation.
At that time, Bujang Valley also known as Nusantara was a vibrant trading centre in South East Asia. Research showed that because of its favourable location along the trade route, it became an important and prosperous kingdom attracting traders from China, India and the Middle East.
Tamil poets, Arab merchants of the fourth century and I-Tsing, a monk who sailed from China to India, knew of the existence of a highly cultured Malay civilisation in Bujang Valley at that time and stopped at the place.
The history annals also indicate that the spread of Islam resulted in the eventual decline of Hindu-Buddhist influence. The emergence of new ports such as Malacca and others throughout South East Asia also contributed to the decline of Bujang Valley.
One of the largest temples relocated to the museum grounds is the Candi Bukit Batu Pahat which was discovered on the west of Sungai Batu Pahat, about 3km north of Kampung Sungai Merbok.
The temple which has predominant Hindu architecture was discovered by a colonial re-searcher, H.G Quaritch Wales, who together with his wife Dorothy, discovered 30 temple sites in 1938 and 1939. Of these, 29 were situated in Lembah Bujang and one in Seberang Prai.
Another researcher Alastair Lamb excavated and reconstructed one site in Bukit Batu Pahat in the late 1950s while Paul Wheatley carried out research on the history of Lembah Bujang in 1961.
The Candi Bukit Batu Pahat which must have once been a magnificent temple now lies on a hillock on the museum grounds. Some of the interesting artefacts unearthed together with the temple ruins include bronze receptacles filled with ashes, gold, silver and bronze platters, gemstones and pearl ornaments, bronze statutes as well as Chinese ceramics.
In the early 1970s, local archaelogists under the Department of Museums Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, took over the research, which has been continuing in Lem-bah Bujang, with 2,500 artefacts still being studied.
The 28-year-old museum in scenic Bukit Batu Pahat lies near waterfalls and a tropical rainforest. The area is also a popular recreation site.
Director of the Department of Museums Malaysia (northern region) Zulkifli Jaafar said the museum also has among its programmes a Heritage Trail package which would take one on a 7.9km trek from the museum grounds in Merbok to Gunung Jerai.
Signage to the museum is good. Once you exit Sungai Petani at the southern toll, the signs will lead you on a 20km drive to Merbok where the museum is located.
Visitors can picnic and swim at the area or go for a hike to explore the rich flora and fauna. There is ample parking space and facilities include a cafeteria, surau, public toilets and a bookstore. For more information on the museum, visit www.jmm.gov.my. By ANNE HASLAM
Source: http://thestar.com.my (October 21, 2008)
