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Loose wires, dusty relics and searching for Bali's history
Rare textiles: There are just a handful of Balinese textiles on show at the Bali museum
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Rare textiles: There are just a handful of Balinese textiles on show at the Bali museum.
Visitors to the Bali History Museum in Denpasar might remember the final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, when a historical treasure is boxed up, shelved and forgotten.
Encircled by shady trees and facing Denpasar's Jl. Wisnu public space, the Bali Museum is in an ideal location for visitors from all walks of life.
With an entry fee for Indonesians set at just Rp 5,000 (43 US cents) and Rp 10,000 for foreigners, the museum should be on every one's to do list when they visit Denpasar.
However, the tiny ticket price hamstrings efforts to create a vibrant, visitor-focused and educational museum.
Housed in four buildings, all separated by walls, narrow doorways and tall steps, the Bali Museum is not disabled-friendly.
For that matter, it is not visitor friendly at all.
A live electric socket hangs loose from an interior wall of the east building, which houses the museum's prehistory and the modern collections, while another wire hangs loose from a non-functioning air-conditioner nearby.
It is dark and hot inside. Overhead, neon lights have been stripped from the ceiling. Others simply don't work.
This section of the museum houses ancient relics such as bronze arrows, spear heads, sarcophagi and great engraved bronze water pots - but in the dark and the heat it is difficult to view the exhibits.
There is little information on the history of the items. The bronzes may have been forged in Bali during the Bronze Age, but may have been imported.
The head of the Bali Museum's collections, Made Yudha is new to the job. 'I was moved here in April from another government department,' the anthropologist says, adding he plans to increase the amount of information on exhibits in the future.
Trekking between exhibition spaces, visitors are accosted by handcraft sellers. 'We try to make them leave the museum's grounds, but they get angry with us,' says Yudha entering the Tabanan Room.
Lifelike mannequins dressed in Balinese dance costumes dominate this space. Around the walls, kris are displayed. These are traditional Indonesian-style daggers that often have luk (waves) down the blade.
In front of each kris on display is a collection number. However there is no information such as where was the kris were found, which ancient kings of Bali they belonged or who crafted them.
That sort of information is unknown, says museum guide Ketut Adi.
'This is a new lontar [scroll] exhibited, as an example. I don't know if the kris are new and examples. We don't the age of the kris or where they are from, but we do have around 300 kris in the collection,' says Adi.
'This is a new exhibition. So I am still learning,' he says.
Dotted along the verandahs of the museum's different spaces are electronic interpretation screens. However, none are plugged into the power.
'As this is a new exhibition, the information about it has not been input into the computers,' Adi explains.
The main building of the museum is the Karangasem Room, which is dedicated to the fertility rites and Hindu ceremonies of Bali. Some of the items on display appear to be ancient. However, again, there is no documentation informing viewers of individual items.
Along the verandah of this room stand a series of female statues and one male figure. 'These are dedicated to Men Brayat. She is the goddess of fertility and has many children,' says museum officer Nyoman Wirata, admitting he does not know where the statues were discovered, their age or material.
On the upper floor of the East Building, some of the different eras of Bali's history are represented. There are two European vases, some antique telephones, ancient rifles and small collection of Chinese ceramics.
Bulbs in the collection cases flicker and others are dead, making it difficult to view these exhibits.
Missing from the museum is a natural history section or information about the gold and jewels of ancient kingdoms. There are a small number of textiles, but items such as the remarkable double ikat of Tenganan's Bali Aga are not on show.
According to Yudha the museum's collection has around 14,000 items, with just 2,000 on display at one time. 'There are approximately 12,000 items in storage. What is on show presently is a new exhibition. We update this every five years,' says Yudha, adding the museum does not have a trained curator on staff.
A rise in ticket price could bring in the funds needed to improve the Bali Museum, which should be a center for research and knowledge of Bali's history, rather than simply a collection of unexplained artifacts.
' Images by JB Djwan
