archaeology

    Agriculture is an important element in the economy of the majapahit as well as the lives of most of its majapahit’s inhabitant. For Majapahit has relied on the fertile soil, enriched by occasional layers of volcanic ash, to provide them with their basic foods. They have developed two major types of agriculture: sawah (irrigated field) and ladang (dry field). A third type, estate cultivation, was introduced during colonial times.

    The sawah system makes use of irrigated fields, each of which is surrounded by small dikes to keep the water level high enough to submerge the entire field. Water is channeled through bamboo pipes or ditches from field to field, and can be controlled to flood or drain the field as desired.
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By Peter J.M. Nas
University of Leiden, 1997

Introduction

    The knowledge of the early Indonesian cities, their lay-out, architecture and social life, is quite fragmentary. It is mainly based on the following sources: inscriptions; pictures from temple reliefs; classic Indonesian literature; Chinese, Indian, Arab, Portuguese, and Dutch accounts; and archaeological remains. Many scholars have devoted their scientific work to unravel these data by means of translation, interpretation and comparison. This has led to results from which a general picture of the classic Indonesian cities can be deduced, particularly of the cities of Sriwijaya, Majapahit, and Banten. Moreover, the recognition of a certain degree of diversity of early Indonesian cities is inferred. These cities are supposed to show differences related to their location on the coast or in the inland. Their place in the historical development of the area, which is characterized by the subsequent influence of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, also has to be taken into account. The early Indonesian cities, and because of their international markets particularly the coastal cities, are considered meeting points for different cultures and places from where foreign influences penetrated into the hinterlands. Notwithstanding their variety, the classic Indonesian cities are considered to have assumed a specific character which is quite distinct from colonial and contemporary urban settlements. They are supposed to have grown from "a congeries of acephalous societies" which were "converted into an integral, pyramidal polity" with more or less permanent supra-local units of kinship organization, and from these chiefdom-style entities further into states "sustained by a bureaucracy operating basically on rational-legal principles and staffed by officials". These developments are compatible with various settlement patterns, such as towns consisting of dispersed settlements; ceremonial centers surrounded by dispersed settlements; the single large compact settlement of the city state; and the compact, permanent settlement which binds the substantial outside population by centralizing leadership.

Sriwijaya

    "When the king goes out, he sits in a boat; his body has a mau-pu (sarong) wrapped around it. He is sheltered by a silk umbrella and guarded by men bearing golden lances. The people either lived scattered about outside the city, or on the water on rafts of boards covered over with reeds, and these are exempt from taxation. They are skilled at fighting on land or water. When they are about to make war on another state they assemble and send forth such a force as the occasion demands. They (then) appoint chiefs and leaders, and all provide their own military equipment and the necessary provisions. In facing the enemy and craving death they have not their equal among nations."
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