Latest / Majapahit: The Empire That Once Ruled Indonesia — Fexingo History / Majapahit's City of Trowulan: Urban Planning in a Golden Age
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about the politics and the wars of Majapahit — the Palapa Oath, the Paregreg civil war, the fall of Trowulan. But I thought for this episode we'd actually look at the city itself. What was Trowulan like at its height, say in the mid-fourteenth century under Hayam Wuruk? Luna: I'd love that. I've seen pictures of the brick gates — they look so solid. Lucas: Yeah, the brickwork is incredible. And it's not just gates. Trowulan was a planned city with a grid layout, canals, reservoirs, and distinct zones. The Negarakertagama, written by Mpu Prapanca in 1365, describes a city with wide avenues lined with trees, brick walls, and gatehouses. It says the king's palace had a great hall called Siti Inggil, with a pendopo—that's a kind of open pavilion—surrounded by a moat. Luna: A moat around the palace? That sounds defensive, but also ceremonial. Lucas: Exactly. And speaking of water, Trowulan had an impressive water management system. Archaeologists have found a network of canals, some lined with stone, that distributed water from the nearby mountains. There's even a bathing pool complex called Candi Tikus, which is Old Javanese for 'rat temple' — probably a mispronunciation of 'tirta', meaning water. It was a reservoir and ritual bath, with a central fountain shaped like a lotus. Luna: So they had running water and public baths? That's pretty advanced for the fourteenth century. Lucas: It really is. And the city wasn't just the royal center. There were residential quarters for nobles, artisans, and merchants. The Negarakertagama mentions separate wards for different groups: the Brahmins, the soldiers, even foreign traders. The city was a hub for the spice trade, so you had Chinese, Indian, and Arab merchants living in their own enclaves. Luna: I remember from the trade episode that kepeng coins were used — those Chinese copper coins. Lucas: Right, and those coins are found all over the Trowulan site. They even minted their own bar-shaped silver coins, called masa. But let's talk about the architecture. The most famous surviving structure is Bajang Ratu, a tall, slender brick gate that was probably the entrance to a temple complex. It's decorated with reliefs of the Ramayana and the story of Sri Tanjung. Then there's the Waringin Lawu site, which was the royal audience hall — you can still see the bases of brick columns. Luna: I've heard the city was abandoned after the Paregreg war. Did it just fall apart? Lucas: Partly. The Paregreg civil war in the early fifteenth century weakened the empire, and then the rise of Demak and the shift of power to the north coast led to Trowulan's decline. But it wasn't a sudden abandonment. People trickled away over decades. The city was largely forgotten until the nineteenth century, when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles — yes, the same guy who founded Singapore — visited and wrote about the ruins. He was fascinated by the brickwork. Luna: So the city had a second life as a source of mystery for colonial explorers. Lucas: Exactly. And today, a lot of it is still buried. Archaeologists have only excavated a fraction of the site. There's a whole layer under the modern village. One of the big challenges is that local people have been digging up bricks for centuries to use in their own houses. So the original structures are getting lost. Luna: That's a shame, but also understandable — if you need building materials, old bricks are a resource. Lucas: Yeah. And that's part of why we do this show, actually. Because a lot of this history isn't in textbooks. It's in the ground, or in old Javanese poems that only a handful of people can read. If you've been coming with us through these conversations about Southeast Asia, you know there's so much more to discover. And a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that adds up. So, back to Trowulan — what about the Great Mosque? I've seen photos of a mosque with a distinctly Majapahit-style roof. Lucas: Ah, the Masjid Agung Trowulan. That's a fascinating example of cultural layering. The mosque's main gate is clearly a Majapahit-era paduraksa — a split gate — with Islamic calligraphy added later. It's like the site was repurposed. The mosque itself is said to date from the sixteenth century, after the Islamization of Java, but it uses bricks from the original city. So you've got this continuity. Luna: So the old Hindu-Buddhist city became a Muslim religious center. That's a pretty dramatic shift. Lucas: It is. And it mirrors what happened across Java as Majapahit gave way to Demak and then Mataram. The material culture — bricks, water channels, layout — didn't vanish. It was reused. In fact, some of the best-preserved parts of Trowulan are the water features. There's a huge rectangular reservoir called Kolam Segaran, which is about 300 by 200 meters. It was likely used for recreation and irrigation. Luna: That's bigger than a football field. How did they keep it clean? Lucas: They had a system of sluice gates and channels that brought in fresh water from the Brantas River. The entire city was connected by canals — some lined with stone, others just earthen. The 2009 Trowulan water management project, a collaboration between Indonesian and Dutch archaeologists, mapped out a network of over 10 kilometers of canals within the city proper. Luna: That's incredible. So the city was designed with a hydraulic engineer's mindset. Lucas: Exactly. And it wasn't just for drinking water. The canals also served as transportation routes. The Negarakertagama mentions boats coming right up to the palace gates. Trowulan was inland, but it was connected to the sea via the Brantas River, so goods from the coast could be shipped directly in. Luna: So it was a river port as much as a capital city. Lucas: Right. And that river connection was key to its wealth. But it also made it vulnerable. When the river silted up or changed course — which happened over centuries — the city's economic lifeline was cut. Combine that with political fragmentation, and you get a city that, by 1500, was largely empty. Luna: I wonder what it was like to walk through those empty streets, with the canals still flowing but the houses gone. Lucas: It must have been eerie. In the Babad Tanah Jawi, there's a story of the last king, Brawijaya, fleeing the city as it was attacked by Demak forces. He's said to have wandered the ruins of his own palace. That's likely legend, but it captures the mood. The city that once hosted diplomats from China, India, and Siam became a ghost town. Luna: So when we look at Trowulan today, we're seeing a palimpsest — layers of history written in brick and water. Lucas: That's the perfect word. And every new excavation peels back another layer. In the 1990s, they found a massive kiln complex for brick production. It showed that the city had industrial-scale manufacturing. Bricks were made on-site, dried, and fired in huge ovens. Some bricks are stamped with marks, maybe from different workshops. Luna: So even the bricks tell a story about organization and labor. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's one reason we keep coming back to Trowulan. There's so much still to learn. If you ever get a chance to visit, you can walk through the Pendopo Agung, the great pavilion that's been reconstructed. It's built on the original foundation, and you can imagine the king holding court there, with the canals glistening outside. Luna: I'd love to see it someday. Thanks for this tour, Lucas. Lucas: My pleasure. Next time we might head out to the port of Tuban, or maybe look at how the Majapahit legal system worked. There's always more.