Sonobudoyo Museum
is a museum located on the Northern area of Keraton Yogyakarta’s Alun-alun Lor or North Plaza. The place
was built in 1935 by Java Institute, an organization which main concern is
Javanese culture. The museum is known for its comprehensive collections of
Javanese culture and history. Even, you can find ceramics from Neolithic era and
copper statue from the 8th century. Not only that, the collections
of wayang, antique weapons, and Javanese masks are also kept there.
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The location of Museum Sonobudoyo is near Alun-alun Lor which means near
Malioboro. Therefore, you can easily access it after you’re done with your
shopping and looking for something historical. To reach the place, you can
either go by a taxi or by becak for less than twenty thousand rupiahs (about
two dollars). The entrance ticket is also very cheap, three thousand rupiahs
(about thirty cents) for adults and two thousand rupiahs (about two cents) for
children. Moreover, the museum also has a short-duration wayang kulit show and to see this you have to pay twenty thousand
rupiahs. The schedule for this show is 8PM – 10PM on workday. Therefore,
if you want to it, don’t come before the schedule or else you won’t find any
wayang kulit show.
The thing that you can enjoy while in Sonobudoyo Museum is its antique and
rare collections. However, before engaging in sightseeing activity, you will
first notice that the building architecture is Javanese and the outer yard and
the inner yard is separated by a wall ornamented with jasmine and the main gate
is in the shape of semar tinandu (a famous wayang character). On the inside of
the museum, you will see many objects; it is said that the museum collections
is amounted to forty-three thousand objects.
These objects then are classified into ten categories: geology, biology,
ethnography, archeology, history, numismatic, philology, cosmology, fine art,
and technology collections. The collections are put in two places; indoor and
outdoor. Those being put outdoor are usually statues from Hindu and Buddhist
Kingdoms in Central and East Java, ceremonial attributes, and temples
ornaments. Meanwhile, the indoor collections are usually fragile and have to be
extra taken-care of. Some of these objects are put inside to keep it
from rotting.
Some of those things are arts made of wood and bamboo, various kinds of
batik and the tools to create it, and objects made of metal like gold, silver,
or copper. These metals are usually formed into statues, hanging lamps, gamelan
(Javanese musical instruments), and keris (Javanese sword-like weapons). Even,
the museum has 12.000 collections of keris from Java Institut.
The museum is also equipped with auditorium, library, office, and
laboratory. In fact, you will find old hand-written manuscript in Javanese and
Arab. It’s the perfect place if you’re looking for letter-based historical
objects. All in all, it’s the place to should visit when you are
in Yogyakarta. It’s also suitable if you are in a group or want to go there by
yourself as the museum’s staffs are informative and will be very pleased to
accompany you during your visit.
