Published: February 28, 2006
General Science
The lost kingdom of Tambora is found
History's largest volcanic eruption destroyed the island kingdom of Tambora in
1815 and now the first remnants of a Tambora village have been found.
The eruption of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa in 1815, the
largest volcanic eruption in human history, killed 117,000 people and
extinguished the tiny kingdom of Tambora. After 20 years of research, a
scientist from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of
Oceanography has located the first remnants of a Tamboran village under 10
feet of ash and has unearthed the first clues about its culture.
In a six-week archaeological dig in the summer of
2004, URI Professor Haraldur Sigurdsson and colleagues from the University of
North Carolina and the Indonesian Directorate of Volcanology excavated a
Tamboran home where they found the remains of two adults as well as bronze
bowls, ceramic pots, iron tools and other artifacts. The design and decoration
of the artifacts suggest that the Tamboran culture was linked to Vietnam and
Cambodia, and its language was related to that of the Mon-Khmer group of
languages that are now scattered across Southeast Asia.
“There’s potential that Tambora could be the Pompeii
of the East, and it could be of great cultural interest,” said Sigurdsson, who
believes the village includes a large wooden palace that he hopes to find on a
future expedition. “All the people, their houses and culture are still
encapsulated there as they were in 1815. It’s important that we keep that
capsule intact and open it very carefully.” (Pompeii was similarly wiped out
by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and a treasure trove of artifacts from the
Roman culture were discovered encapsulated in the ash.)
During the eruption, Mount Tambora ejected up to 100
cubic kilometers of magma and pulverized rock, and it spewed ash and 400
million tons of sulfurous gases 44 kilometers into the atmosphere. The gases
that lingered in the atmosphere caused a year of global cooling in 1816 that
is now known as “the year without a summer” and which caused disease epidemics
and worldwide food shortages due to crop failures. The growing season in New
England declined by 100 days that year, which led to the start of a movement
by farmers to abandon farming in the region and move west.
Sigurdsson made his first visit to Mount Tambora in
1986 with URI colleague Steven Carey to calculate the size of the eruption.
They returned two years later to explore the volcano’s 1,250-meter-deep
caldera or crater.
“It’s a remote island with very little access, so it
has been little studied over the years,” Sigurdsson said. “My primary
motivation was to study the effects the eruption had on society.”
A guide hired by the URI scientists during their
second visit to the island told them about ancient objects the local people
had found in the jungle 25 kilometers west of the caldera. When Sigurdsson
returned to visit the site in 2004, he explored a gully that cut through a
10-foot thick deposit of volcanic pumice and ash where he soon found the first
evidence of the village – pottery shards and carbonized lumber. Using radar to
look deep into the ground, the scientist quickly found and unearthed a small
house built on stilts that rest on foundation stones.
“Everything we found had been carbonized,” Sigurdsson
said. “It had turned to charcoal from the heat of the magma.”
Based on the artifacts he found, particularly the many
bronze objects, Sigurdsson believes that the Tamborans were “not poor people
at all. They were actually quite well off.” Historical evidence supports that
belief, as Tamborans had been famous in the East Indies for their honey,
horses, sappan wood for producing red dye, and sandalwood used for incense and
medications.
According to Sigurdsson, the village was located 5
kilometers inland, where the residents were safe from pirates that frequently
captured coastal residents and forced them into slavery. The site had also
been highly productive for growing crops.
Sigurdsson intends to return to Tambora in 2007 to
find the palace and the rest of the village. He will conduct a detailed radar
survey of the site using modern, non-destructive techniques to establish the
extent of the town and identify target sites for future excavations. |
