Koeta Kareuëng is a locality in the interior of the North Coast of Atjeh, reached from Geudong by more than an hour’s walk, known for one of the heilige graven (holy graves) of the country: the grave of a queen of Pasé, dated 1500 A.D. (1500 n. C.). In November 1913 the archaeologist De Vink guided the traveller Moens thither from Loh Semaweu — forty-five minutes by the tram to Geudong and then the walk, over the ankles in the mud but along an old watercourse, to the plain of Koeta Kareuëng.
The grave of the queen of Pasé
The grave bore head and foot stones of white marble with Arabic inscriptions; on the reverse of the stones Hindu inscriptions were found. Since no marble is found in Atjeh itself, the material showed that the stones had originally been brought from India — presumably as sculptured material of an older, Hindu monument, afterwards reused and inscribed for the grave of the Muslim queen. De Vink, who had served for years as assistant to kapitein Van Erp at the restoration of the Borobudur, made photographs of such antiquities and impressions of the inscriptions in starch-paper, which he sent to Leiden to be studied by Professor Snouck Hurgronje.
Significance
Koeta Kareuëng is significant in the written record as one of the first monuments of the old kingdom of Pasé brought to the notice of science after the pacificatie: a dated queen’s grave of about 1500 A.D., in which the Indian marble, the older Hindu inscriptions, and the Arabic lettering together marked the transition of the North-Sumatran coastal kingdoms from the Hindu to the Islamic period. The excursion of De Vink and Moens illustrates the beginning of organised antiquarian research in Atjeh in the years of the definitive peace.
See Also
- De Vink
- Pasé
- Geudong Concession
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Lho’ Seumawe
- Moens’ journey through Atjeh (November 1913)
Source
Reisindrukken van Atjeh, door W. Moens, oud-luitenant ter zee (Amsterdam: Jacob van Campen, 1914), p. 18. OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-99-Reisindrukken_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.