A civilization as old as 110 A.D.

I was at Sungai Petani on saturday and at Semeling on sunday morning (4th and 5th December 2010) for my workplace family day. At Semeling, we visited an Archaeological site which was an eye opener for me and others. At first i thought we were going to the usual Lembah Bujang Archaeological site but instead we went to a new area called Sungai Batu (still in the Lembah Bujang area but different place). This is an important site which was recently discovered by USM's team. It was dated 110 A.D.,the oldest civilisation in South East Asia...it is actually a vast area for iron ore industry. Can you imagine...iron ore industry in 110 A.D.! This is a place where everybody should go..

 Dr Mokhtar Saidin, Director of the Global Archaeological Centre,Universiti Sains Malaysia, giving us a briefing. His explanation mesmerized everybody....

 A structure made by bricks,believed to be a worship area. During that time, they still worship nature and this structure was facing Gunung Jerai which is believed to be their deity during that time..

 An iron ore processing area or a furnace. You can see the rectangular structure  which has holes which work as bellows..

 The jetty for exporting the iron. It was exported to as far as india and Arab. This is proven by the composition of these two countries sword was mainly made of iron which came from this area...

 A well dug to show the layer of earth proving that this area was surrounded by sea at one time..

 Archaeologist at work..

 The replica of the iron furnace...the one inside it are processed iron! Not a rock...i hold it and it is heavy!

 As you can see this area was an oil palm plantation...nobody realized what's beneath until it was dug by USM.

This area is quite new and facilities is still quite minimal but the work of preserving this important heritage area are on going. There are more discoveries to be made. They will start digging two ships which sunk along the river at the side of this area next month.  Can't wait to come back and see more...!

After visiting this area, i realized that after this discovery...we need to rewrite our history book!

Keep up the good work USM archaeological team!