The Pitcairn Perspectives by Philip Spires - HTML preview

Inspection of archaeological site at Mabala, Sawu by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports

Sujatmiko Kurniawan Hum, Administrative Officer, University Standards Committee, Yogyakarta University

The archaeological site at Mabala Cave on Sawu is a project managed by the University of Yogyakarta. Its legal status is the same as that of any other university activity, though of course it is a field activity, off campus. However, since it remains a university and therefore a public project, all the regulations on dress and behaviour that would apply to any other activity on a government site - whether on campus or off campus - apply to the whole excavation and its participants. It remains the responsibility of the onsite managers to see that the rules and regulations are followed. In relation to this issue, I have several observations and recommendations, which will follow in the conclusion to the report.

I visited the Mabala Cave site on Rabi’ II 18, 1441 AH (15 December 2019), arriving by car from the town centre at 8am. I spent that whole day observing practices, interviewing project managers and leaders, talking to staff and reviewing the project’s achievements. I must begin by thanking all of the staff concerned for their continued hard work and dedication and, with one notable exception, for their cooperation with and facilitation of my inspection.

The inspection process and observations

Upon arrival, I was greeted by Professor Sarnu Onggo, who received me in his field office for the briefing. His office is housed in a temporary cabin, but with water and electricity installed. He explained the reasoning for keeping the facility temporary. It is to allow the structure to be moved off site to the car park for storage during the height of the tourist season. There are three such portable cabins in use, Dr. Sarnu’s office, a space for cataloguing, photographing and packaging finds, ready for their twice-weekly dispatch to the university for further analysis, and a third building which is used as the site kitchen.

Social areas for staff, dining areas and much of the sleeping is under a large awning stretched across a clearing, with the surrounding trees being used to secure the covering. These practices ensure that as little of the dig as possible remains visible when tourists visit the site during the dry season. The tactic of restricting most of the research work to the wet season was questioned by several staff members at the site, but there is no alternative if the all-important tourist visitors are to be given the priority that is necessary.

Dr. Sarnu’s overview of the project was clear and comprehensive. He explained that the project’s management in terms of its logistical organization was in the hands of himself and his assistant administrator, while the direction of the practical archaeology, the handling of finds and the deployment of staff on the dig was the joint responsibility of himself and his colleague, Professor Edward Pitcairn, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, Hackney Metro University, London, England. While I found the administration, accounting and record keeping at the site to be exemplary, I will have several comments to make about the practical work, especially its organisation. I am not qualified to comment on the academic validity or worth of the work being carried out, but I am assured by Professor Hidayat from Djakarta, who conducted a recent audit of its progress, that it has been and remains of the very highest international standard.

The inspection

I was shown the excavation site in detail. This was surprisingly close to the cave entrance, and not, as I had expected, deep within its depths. I was prompted to ask whether this meant that the site was regularly flooded in the wet season, but I was assured that an adequate supply of tarpaulin sheets was on hand to hang over exposed areas if and when required.

The main site consisted of four deep pits, three of them about four meters long and two meters wide, but over two meters deep. The fourth was the same depth but twice as long as the other three, cutting across their ends at right angles. They were all equipped with ladders for staff access. The fifth and last pit I saw was a new area of interest, slightly apart from the others. Professor Sarnu told me that this was an area he had expressly asked to be opened just six months before. He explained that it had been his idea to widen the study rather than concentrate it in the hope that new evidence would come to light to support his theory that the other finds from the site formed evidence of a completely new species of human. This fifth pit was shallower than the others.

Some of the staff were at work when I inspected. The four deep pits each had two excavators, while the newer fifth had four. The staff are international in nature. Of the twelve people on the site, apart from those already listed, four are Western women, two Australians and two Americans. Of the eight male staff, six are nationals, while one is from Malaysia and the last is from the Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Unfortunately, I have to report that dress codes were not being observed correctly. All government sponsored places of work must follow the prescribed dress codes as described in Ministry Decree 2009/81. Those rules stipulate that all staff should wear head covering, which is mandatory for women and advised for men. It says also that shoulders and arms should always be covered at all times, as should the legs. Exceptions are made for the legs of those involved with sporting activity, where the regulation is that the covering should extend at least as far as the knee. Practical archaeological digs, I am advised, fall into the ambit of sporting activity for the purposes of applying the dress codes. At Mabala Cave, however, I observed all four of the Western women wearing t-shirts cut away at the top of the arm and shorts that did not even extend down the thigh. While it has never been the purpose of these rules to discriminate, it has also to be recorded that all four of these women were working alongside Muslim men, who were thus being unnecessarily exposed to temptation.

It must also be recorded that the Malaysian at the site, also a Muslim, was not wearing a head covering when I inspected. I was told that this was because at that time he was involved with an activity that required him to lie on his side at the bottom of the pit while he removed dirt with a brush from around an object of interest. I was not wholly convinced by this argument, since if it were true, then this work could easily have been postponed until the day after the inspection.

Also, at eating times, I observed that the male and female staff were eating together, a practice we strongly discourage, though it is not proscribed.

Even more worryingly, I managed to observe one of the Western women consuming food that she had brought onto the site and had cooked herself. I suspected at the time that some of this food was haram, and yet she was eating her meal in the vicinity of two of the male staff, so they may have been forced to inhale some of the odours. I found this deeply disturbing.

Professor Sarnu, his administrator, Widono, and four of the national male staff leave the site at dusk to spend the night in a dormitory at the local school, where private rooms have been created for them. The drive to that location from the dig takes about fifteen minutes and so I was further informed by Professor Sarnu that none of them ever returns to the site for any reason until the next workday morning.

Given this scenario, I have reason to believe that the Westerners, probably, are consuming alcohol at the site in the evenings. I took the trouble to inspect the waste bins at the site and recovered specific confirmatory evidence of this (dated photographs with GPS location are included).

While the consumption of alcohol in our country is not illegal, it may not be consumed in the workplace if that workplace is a government-sponsored site. I thus consider my observations at the Mabala Cave to be in contravention of these rules.

And, if all the above were not enough, I must also report that the sleeping arrangements for the excavating staff are simply inadequate. That there is insufficient segregation of the sexes is obvious. There is a single wide canopy under which most of the employees sleep in sleeping bags and small permanently erected tents, but there are no designated male and female areas, and I saw no evidence of signs to indicate that any separation of the sexes had ever taken place.

After a total of three hours observation, at approximately 3pm, I asked Professor Sarnu to convene a management meeting so I could communicate my concerns. This meeting began at 4pm. Present at the meeting were Professors Sarnu and Pitcairn, and the site administrator, Widono. I began by congratulating all present and the project in general for the quality of its archaeological work. I went on to describe the practical considerations I have listed above and offered some recommendations to remedy the situation, as detailed below.

Dress code - to be followed at all times when staff are on site; women not to wear cut-away t-shirts and shorts, but to wear long sleeved shirts, buttoned at the wrist with at least leggings that cover the entire leg, with the shirts long enough to cover the shape of the body; Muslim men to wear head coverings and at least knee-length shorts.

Dining - separate areas for halal and non-halal dining, preferably with the sexes separated; no food purchased off site to be brought within the project’s boundaries.

Alcohol - should not under any circumstances be present on the site; consumption of alcohol on government premises is a serious breach of regulations and would normally warrant dismissal from government service.

Concluding remarks

Overall, these recommendations were politely and humbly received. The exception was Professor Pitcairn who, frankly, was abusive to me. He dismissed my observations and thus flouted my authority. I consider this to be a serious breach of his terms of service and I communicated this to the project’s head, Professor Sarnu. I made it clear that I was not happy with Professor Pitcairn’s attitude, neither was I convinced of his suitability for future membership of the team. I expected him, Professor Sarnu, to initiate the collection of evidence that would illustrate whether his colleague was or was not following the guidelines I had identified. I also made it clear to Professor Sarnu that his own, and indeed his family’s longer-term interests might be affected if he failed to comply with my wishes.

I submit this as a fair and true record of the official inspection of government site, Mabala Cave archaeological site, operated under the auspices of the University of Yogyakarta.

Signed: Sujatmiko Kurniawan Hum, Administrative Officer, University Standards Committee, Yogyakarta University