Govt selective in cooperation on archeology

JAKARTA (JP): The government has been very selective in accepting offers of cooperation in archeology and rejected various proposals from abroad, a senior official of the Ministry of Education and Culture said yesterday.

"There have been many offers without good intentions, which we have had to reject," said Truman Simanjuntak of the prehistory department of the National Archeological Research Center.

"These include offers which merely aimed at seeking local partners for research, but other than that the proposals were not of much benefit to us," Truman said.

Local partners are a pre-requisite to obtain the necessary recommendations from the Indonesian Science Institute to carry out archeological work in the country.

Truman said yesterday that a three-day workshop on prehistoric projects will be held from Monday in Yogyakarta by the French Embassy and the research center.

Among the topics of discussion will be projects in Sangiran and Punung in Pacitan, East Java, and explorations in Kalimantan.

Speakers include Jacques Dumarcay of the French Institute of Far Eastern Studies, who participated in the restoration of the Borobudur temple in Magelang.

Truman said important findings in the French-Indonesian joint project include further indications of how the Pithecanthropus erectus lived.

"Hypotheses that the Pithecanthropus made his tools only out of wood are now challenged," he said.

The Research Center has been working with a number of French institutions such as the National Natural History Museum, which started in 1984. (anr)