Word: indonesianness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fell in love with a ship. To be precise, it was a picture of a ship, a sculptural relief of a jaunty schooner, its bow thrust upward by a swell, carved some 1,200 years ago at Borobudur, the magnificent Buddhist monument not far from Yogyakarta. Roaming across the Indonesian islands on a grant to study traditional ships, Beale had read that sailors from the Malay Archipelago regularly crossed the Indian Ocean, and even established colonies in East Africa, centuries before Borobudur was built. As he gazed at the sculpture, a great idea possessed him: this, he thought...
...Such grandiose fancies are usually discarded when the footloose dreamer returns home, where the demands of "real" life make themselves known. Yet for two decades, Beale inwardly nourished his obsession, and now it has taken on hardwood reality: Beale's reconstruction of the eighth century Indonesian schooner depicted at Borobudur is now under sail in the Indian Ocean, on its way to Africa, manned by a multinational crew. The 19-meter-long ship is retracing the route of its ancient prototypes, which are believed to have formed the earliest transoceanic sailing fleet in history...
...ship slices through the shimmering swells. Yet when he talks about the project, his resolve glints through his mild demeanor. "We're following the ancient Cinnamon Route," he says proudly, seated atop a coil of rope in the ship's bow as it skims across the Java Sea. "Indonesian ships sailed it thousands of years ago, bringing the spices of the islands to Africa and returning with iron, luxury goods such as ivory and leopard skins, and slaves. It was the beginning of global commerce...
...Modern scholars identify these voyagers as ancient Indonesians, based upon the indelible linguistic and DNA footprints they left behind in East Africa. However, Madagascar is only the mid-point of Beale's projected voyage: from there, he plans to sail the ship around the Cape of Good Hope, one of the most perilous sea passages on earth, and then north to Ghana, ending his odyssey beneath the cliffs of Accra. The historic evidence for Indonesian contact with West Africa is shaky, as Beale readily concedes. The case relies largely upon striking similarities in traditional African and Indonesian music. The Madagascar...
...undisclosed location to face u.s. interrogators. One of the key revelations: Hambali told the interrogators that his replacement in the network is Azahari bin Husin, a Malaysian geophysics professor who trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and literally wrote the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) manual on bomb building. Indonesian police now want Azahari for his suspected role in constructing the bombs that killed more than 200 people in Bali last October and 12 people at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta last month...