Sungai Batu to rewrite south-east Asian history yet again
Posted On: Nov 16th, 2016 at 20:57
Malaysia
Previously I reported on the site of Sungai Batu, which is likely to receive World Heritage status due to its immense importance in the history of south-east Asia.
The reason for its sudden prominence in the archaeological world was the discovery that the city was much older than Angkor Wat in Cambodia, previously considered to be the oldest civilisation in the region. Naturally I think it’s ludicrous to think civilisation rose in such a vast area only a thousand years ago, but still. From previous evidence, what Sungai Batu has done is push back that date by another 1500 years – more than doubling the age of south-east Asian civilisation. No surprise there.
This time around at Sungai Batu archaeologists have found 5 to 7 “ships or barges”, buried in the mud and potentially intact in some form or another, each measuring between 40 and 50 feet in length. This discovery has been made by satellite images of the ancient river and show the vessels to be up to 3,000 years old, although evidence of the settlement suggests an age of 2,500 years. The first vessel was actually found in 2011, but after excavating a five-metre deep pit and uncovering a two-metre long mast in situ, the walls of the excavation pit collapsed in 2012 and it filled with water… an archaeologist’s worst nightmare, I can assure you.
Presently, Sungai Batu is proving to be one of the most important archaeological sites in the entire south-east Asian region.
