The Face of Gajah Mada

The face on one of the terracotta piggybanks at the Majapahit Museum in Trowulan, East Java, has chubby cheeks and slanted eyes. The right and left eyebrows are connected, curving dramatically like a wave. The lips seem to smile faintly, expanding the already thick chin.

This is the piggybank Muhammad Yamin saw decades ago and declared the face of Gajah Mada. In reality, poet Sapardi Djoko Damono contends, that face bears more resemblance to Yamin himself. Sapardi thinks the real face of Gajah Mada was not as chubby as the terracotta figure's. Agus Aris Munandar, a University of Indonesia archeologist who has studied Gajah Mada, also differs from Yamin in his interpretation of the face of the man who uttered the legendary Sumpah Palapa (Palapa Pledge), in which Gajah Mada vowed not to eat any spices until he had conquered the whole of the Nusantara archipelago for the Majapahit empire.