Malay “Tomb”

 /Geraldine Ho

JMS Curator En. Mohd. Sherman explaining the archaeological investigation procedure to the students.

The day’s events started with the mandatory safety briefing. We were each handed a hard hat and instructed to always keep in the designated zone clearly marked by security tapes. Then, we were brought to a freshly dug-up site at the front of the Fort and introduced to En. Mohd. Sherman, Curator from Jabatan Muzium Sarawak (JMS).

He explained that workers had recently unearthed a few stones and were insisting it was a Malay tomb due to their similarities in shape, stirring up the more superstitious employees. Some extreme ones had even started giving it offerings.

To placate their fears, En. Sherman did a very basic archaeological investigation – he dug the stones out. The “tomb” turned out to be mere rocks possibly placed there for landscaping purposes. He went on to list reasons for his deduction, ranging from the type of stone (hard river stones or granite are usually used for Malay tombstones), depth the stones were buried (Malay tombs are buried 600mm deep), to the direction the stones were pointing at (headstones usually point to the Kiblat, these didn’t). Moral of the story - in conservation and archaeological works, all claims must first be verified with supporting evidence before publicised to avoid unwanted speculations and rumours.