Jakarta

The Jakarta Centre, Indonesia

Head : Arlo Griffiths
Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient,
Jl. Jeruk Purut Dalam no. 36A
RT.6/RW.3, Cilandak Timur, Pasar Minggu
Jakarta Selatan 12560
Indonésie
Tél. : + 62-21-27844179

arlo.griffiths@efeo.net

The first member of the EFEO in Indonesia was the epigraphist Louis-Charles Damais who settled in "Batavia" in 1938. Historian Denys Lombard followed in 1966. Since that time the Jakarta Centre has developed without interruption. And since 1976, the work of the EFEO has been conducted under a cooperation agreement with the Indonesian National Centre for Archaeological Research (Pusat Penelitian Archaeology National).

The Jakarta Center, a key logistic and documentary centre, has allowed succeeding generations of scholars - from the EFEO and other partner organizations - to further their work during long term stays on the Indonesian archipelago.

Archaeology has always been an essential component of the EFEO programme in Indonesia. Illustrating this are the significant contributions the School has made in partnership with UNESCO on the restoration of the Borobudur temple. More recent excavations in Java and Sumatra, on the sites of the first great cities built under Indian influence, are another example. Other major projects in philology and literature, history (both ancient and contemporary) and ethnology have also been carried out in collaboration with various Indonesian institutions of research of and higher education, particularly Indonesia University.

Current research program:

• Archaeology of the urban sites at Tarumanagara (Java) and Padang Lawas (Sumatra)
• Catalogue of classic inscriptions of the Malay world
• Creation of a corpus of inscriptions of ancient Indonesia
• Creation of a corpus of inscriptions of Champa (CIC)
• Malay and Indonesian philology and literature
• History of the Bima kingdom based on local sources 
• Study of Muslim pilgrimages in Java and to the Mecca
  
• Art History of the Early Islamic period in Java

Since 1980 the EFEO has taken on an ambitious translation project from French into Indonesian. This series titled Textes et documents nousantariens (Nusantarian Texts and Documents) includes previously unpublished manuscripts written in Malay, Javanese, Sudanese, Bugis, and Arabic. An Indonesian student has recently published sources in a thesis that were chosen for their philological and historical significance.

The EFEO documentation and research center, opened in Jakarta in 1991, welcomes and advises young researchers and scholarship holders. Its library houses some 9,000 works and around 50 current periodicals.