Mount Penanggungan Archaeological Routes
In olden times, the people of Java considered Mount Penanggungan in Mojokerto-Pasuruan, East Java, and the Dieng Plateau in Banjarnegara, Central Java, as sacred mountains. The two sites became centers of worship for religious ascetics. The temples they built can still be seen today. Over the past year some new archaeological sites were discovered at both Dieng and Penanggungan. Interestingly, these findings were not made by an official archaeological body but by a social movement concerned with tourism. Its proponents are trying to fill the void left by the government in preserving Indonesia's wealth of cultural heritage.
February 25, 2014
Elated shouting broke the silence under a searing afternoon sun on the first Tuesday in November last year. The archaeological efforts of Hadi Sidomulyo, 62, on that day, focused on a rocky ridge rising from the eastern slope of Mount Bekel in the Penanggungan Mountains, East Java, had turned up something major.
"This is the site of a former temple," said Hadi, who was born in England as Nigel Bullough. "It has never been recorded anywhere." Not eve
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