Bujang Valley
The Bujang Valley or Lembah Bujang is a sprawling historical complex and has an area of approximately 224 km2. Situated near Merbok, Kedah, between Gunung Jerai in the north and Muda River in the south, it is the richest archaeological area in Malaysia.
These archaeological remains show that there was a Hindu-Buddhist polity here. In Sanskrit the term bhujanga refer to serpent, thus the name itself is roughly translated into "Serpent Valley". The area consists of ruins that may date more than 2,535 years old. More than fifty ancient tomb temples, called candi (pronounced as "chandi"), have also been unearthed. The most impressive and well-preserved of these is located in Pengkalan Bujang, Merbok. The Bujang Valley Archaeological Museum is also located here. In the area of Bujang Valley known as Sungai Batu, excavations have revealed jetty remains, iron-smelting sites, and a clay brick monument dating back to AD 110, making it the oldest man-made structure to be recorded in Southeast Asia.
The local rulers adopted Indian cultural and political models earlier than those of Kutai in eastern Borneo, in southern Celebes or Tarumanegara in western Java, where remains showing Indian influence have been found dating from the early 5th century. Relics found in the Bujang Valley are now on display at the archaeological museum. Items include inscribed stone caskets and tablets, metal tools and ornaments, ceramics, pottery, and Hindu icons.
For the past two decades, students from universities around Malaysia have been invited for research and have done their graduate works at the Valley. Much of the historical links is still vague considering not many of the scriptures and writings survive. Even the temples did not survive the onslaught of age because their wooden roofing has rotted and withered over the past 1,200 years. The museum itself is inadequate and not organised, much of the findings are elsewhere scattered from Museum Negara to Singapore (which once formed a part of Malaysia). Folk stories and oral history also provide place for a magnificent kingdom of jewels and gold. Outside peninsular and insular Southeast Asia, oral history in India suggests the presence of golden chariots and jewels in hidden caves at Bujang Valley and Mount Jerai. Some visitors to the antiquity department at Muzium Negara has eyewitness accounts of magnificent objects such as a 10-feet-tall Raja Bersiung Throne and various idols and items from the Valley.
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