The Largest World Heritage Temple Compounds to visit in Indonesia
The temple compounds in Indonesia, Borobudur Temple Compound and Prambanan Temple Compound were inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage in 1991. Borobudur Temple Compound is a designation of the area of three Buddhist temples comprising Borobudur – the world’s largest Buddhist temple, Mendut, and Pawon. Prambanan Temple Compound is the largest Hindu temple site in Indonesia and the second-largest in Southeast Asia after Angkor Wat.
Borobudur Temple Compounds
Borobudur Temple Compounds is the World Heritage designation of the area of three Buddhist temples in Central Java, Indonesia. It comprises Borobudur, Mendut, and Pawon.
The temples were built during the Shailendra dynasty around the 8th and 9th centuries CE, and fall on a straight line
Borobudur, is the world’s largest Buddhist temple, not far from the city of Magelang and the town of Muntilan. The temple demonstrates the influences of Gupta art, that reflects India’s influence on the region, yet there are enough indigenous scenes, and elements incorporated to make Borobudur uniquely Indonesian.
The temple consists of nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome. It is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and originally 504 Buddha statues. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, each seated inside a perforated stupa.
The monument is a shrine to the Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage.
Prambanan Temple Compounds
Prambanan is a 9th-century Hindu temple compound in Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
The temple compound, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the largest Hindu temple site in Indonesia and the second-largest in Southeast Asia after Angkor Wat.
The temple compound is located approximately 17 kilometres, northeast of the city of Yogyakarta, on the boundary between Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces.
Rising above the centre of the last of these concentric squares are three temples decorated with reliefs illustrating the epic of the Ramayana, dedicated to the three great Hindu divinities (Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma)
It is characterized by its tall and pointed architecture, typical of Hindu architecture, and by the towering 47-metre-high central building inside a large complex of individual temples.
Prambanan temple compounds originally consists of 240 temple structures; which represents the grandeur of ancient Java’s Hindu art and architecture, also considered as a masterpiece of the classical period in Indonesia.
Sangiran Early Man Site
Sangiran is an archaeological excavation site in Java in Indonesia. It is located in Central Java, about 15 kilometers north of Surakarta in the Solo River valley.
Excavations here from 1936 to 1941 led to the discovery of the first hominid fossil at this site. Later, 50 fossils of Meganthropus palaeo, and Pithecanthropus erectus/Homo erectus, were found; half of all the world’s known hominid fossils.
Inhabited for the past one and a half million years, Sangiran is one of the key sites for the understanding of human evolution
According to a UNESCO report (1995) “Sangiran is recognized by scientists to be one of the most important sites in the world, for studying fossil man, ranking alongside Zhoukoudian (China), Willandra Lakes (Australia), Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania), and Sterkfontein (South Africa), and more fruitful in finds than any of these
An important feature of the site is the geology of the area. Originally a dome was created millions of years ago through tectonic uplifts. The dome was then eroded exposing beds within the dome which are rich in archeological records.
