Emily Chan
For almost 2,000 years, an enormous stone sarcophagus had been buried in the district of Pangkung Paruk on the northern coast of Bali—that is until a local rice farmer happened to stumble upon it in 2009 while digging an irrigation trench.
Experts from the Bali Institute of Archaeology worked with the landowner for the next two years to explore the site.
They found three more similar sarcophagi. Some of them still contained skeletons, as well as items that were imported from other parts of the globe, indicating the far reach of the culture that the burials belonged to.
More than 200 others have been discovered over the last century in Bali, also known as Pulau Dewata, which translates to the “Island of the Gods.” As a result, archaeologists were already familiar with them.
The first sarcophagus ever found was located in the temple of Pura Penataran. Initially, it was mistaken as a feeding trough for pigs. Production of these funerary containers reached its peak from the 7th to early 9th century, during the Balinese Bronze Age.
They were carved out of tuff, a type of stone that formed from compressed volcanic ash. It is common on the island. The sarcophagi are large and oval-shaped with knobs on the ends that are fashioned into animal or anthropomorphic shapes. Some are more than eight feet long.
Since they took a great amount of time, effort, and materials to create, the elaborate burial containers were only used by the most elite members of the island, such as chieftains and priests. Their bodies were usually placed on their backs or on their sides.
They were also accompanied by grave goods, including bronze buckets, kettle drums, shovels, hoes and other tools. Sometimes, there were gold rings meant to be worn on the fingers and arms.
The discovery made in 2009 was especially notable due to the geographical range of the grave goods buried with the elite.
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