Quest for Manuscripts and the Beauty of Leihitu

The cold air dispersed our sleepiness as our plane landed at Pattimura Airport in Ambon last February 1. The three-hour flight from Soekarno-Hatta Airport was tiring. Nevertheless, our tiredness left us as we took in the splendid views along the twisting road that our taxi drove to reach Ambon Town; the beautiful Banda Sea spread out to our right.

March 31, 2010

OUR group of 22 people consisted of experts in philology, linguists, archeologists and researchers from the Indonesian Language Center. We were part of the Codicology Research Team of the Faculty of Culture at the University of Indonesia, which was headed by Titik Pudjiastuti, a professor of philology. Codicology is the study of manuscripts and philology is the study of old literary manuscripts.

We had flown a long distance from Jakarta with the

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