1000s of tombs discovered in Lebong.

A leading local newspaper, Rakyat Bengkulu, (03/11/11), reported that people of Lebong were surprised with the discovery of thousands of ancient tombs in the village of  Air Putih, Kecamatan Pinang Belapis. It is predicted that there might be more graves around rubber and durian trees around and covered with the shrubs.  Whose graves were those?  It was speculated that those gravestones numbered 1 – 987 belong to the gold miners who passed away between the years 1905 to 1938. Please note that since the 19^th century, Lebong Municipality has been well known as one of gold producers in Indonesia. It also found that most of the cemetery were tombstone-shaped cross, written with Arabic letters. Interestingly, most just a stone tomb, all of which have each successive number between one another.

This daily paper, however, also mentioned that people around this area has known the presence of these graves since tens of years ago, but they don’t really think it is important  to pay attention to these tombs.  In addition, in order to have better description of these tombs, local authority is planning to invite archaeologists in the near future to determine the importance of this discovery