When Dominik Bonatz first encountered the megaliths of Indonesia on his honeymoon, it was love at first sight. These imposing stone monuments come in many different shapes and forms, from rough-hewn blocks weighing several tons to larger-than-life figurative sculptures. Twenty-two years later, the professor at the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at Freie Universität Berlin has returned to study the archipelago’s megaliths. Supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and in cooperation with his colleague Johannes Greger, he is currently putting together a highly detailed database of megaliths and megalithic structures on Sumatra.

“Megaliths have always been an object of fascination for me as an archaeologist because they are the relics of cultures long gone, and they are monuments that were intended to last forever, having been transported, engraved, and erected with an unimaginable amount of effort,” says Bonatz. Remarkably, these monuments still play an important role in modern Indonesia: “Some villages believe that they represent mythological figures, while elsewhere stelae and sculptures are set up to carry on an ancestral tradition.”

Bonatz says that working in the field of living archaeology is incredibly exciting because he would otherwise be carrying out research on cultural monuments that have no witnesses left to explain their origins or meaning. His first research proposal to conduct ethnoarchaeological fieldwork on megaliths was approved in 2002, and numerous excavations and documentations followed over the next few years. His new project, “Telling Stones – Megaliths on Sumatra,” will run for three years.

Floral Patterns Serve as Fertility Symbols

There is an incredible range of megalithic cultures to be seen across the archipelago. The oldest structures are up to 2,500 years old, while the newest have been standing for just a few years. “During our excavations we first attempt to determine the primary functions of these monuments. Our second step is to begin a dialogue with the local population on how they currently interact with the stones,” says Bonatz. For example, there are groups of up to three hundred monoliths with curved tops dotted throughout the landscape and pointing toward a volcano in Mahat, a secluded valley in Central Sumatra. “They are situated on a burial ground, which means that the volcano could be interpreted as a source of spiritual energy for an animistic religion in the area,” says the archaeologist. Some of these stones also feature carved decorations such as floral tendrils. “We asked the people living nearby what floral patterns mean in their textile art today, and they told us they were fertility symbols.” This would also make sense considering the area is rich in fertile volcanic earth. In contrast to this type of megalith, a horizontal boulder almost four meters in length found in Dusun Tuo in the highlands depicted a chain of carved human figures with their arms raised and legs spread on top of each other. Similar motifs can be seen today in traditional Indonesian woodcarvings. Bonatz says that these denote ancestral lineage.

Local Knowledge Is Indispensable

This research would not be possible without the knowledge of the people who live in the region and partners on site. This cooperation is vital because there are major differences between areas that were visited by Muslim or Christian missionaries over the centuries, Bonatz says. On the small, predominantly Christian island of Nias to the south of Sumatra, he examined sculpted megaliths with engraved faces that had been constructed in front of a house for over fourteen generations. According to legend, the first people who settled in this village were two brothers, who then had the first two statues produced here. This is a practice that has been carried on to this very day. As Bonatz explains, “Every important citizen organizes a big celebration at which their stone monument will be erected. This is when they receive their honorary name.”

Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Batak people on Lake Toba kept the bones of prominent members of society in stone sarcophagi decorated with the head of the mythological figure Singa, who supported the world on its back. Some members of the royal family are still buried in historic sarcophagi today. Bonatz adds that the tradition of ancestor worship has managed to find its place in modern Christian Batak culture: “They now build houses made from cement and tiles as burial sites for the bones of distinguished family members. Plaster figures representing the founder of the clan sit in front of these elaborately decorated ossuaries.”

When the Gods of India Held Sway in Indonesia

Conversely, megalithic culture in Muslim-majority regions of Indonesia has been on the decline. While these monuments have indeed been maintained, they no longer hold a religious significance. Instead, the inhabitants have reinterpreted them, as Bonatz explains using the example of a stone statue depicting a human figure struggling with an elephant from Pasemah in South Sumatra: “They say that this is a god from the time when there were still Indian gods in Indonesia.” Other myths tell of how the boulders surrounding a volcano landed there because two gods had been throwing them at each other, while others are said to represent people who were turned to stone by the gods.

Bonatz says that all this information will now be entered into a database that will indicate the GPS coordinates of the monuments, their appearance, an interpretation of their meaning, their current usage, and academic publications about them, with the idea that this will also shine a spotlight on the research being undertaken by Indonesian scholars. They hope that this will raise awareness of the megaliths as an integral part of Indonesia’s cultural heritage, as they are currently under threat from the illegal antiquities trade.

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This article originally appeared in German on November 24, 2022, in the Tagesspiegel newspaper supplement published by Freie Universität Berlin.