.jpg/1920px-Jam_Bentong_Tenggarong_(1).jpg 1920w)
Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Bentong Clock Tower
Photo Sri Wahyuni Nur Indah Sari · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Bentong Clock Tower (Jam Bentong) is a clock tower in the centre of Tenggarong, in the Kutai Kartanegara area of Indonesia. It is described as an icon of the town, with a distinctive historical and architectural character.
The catalogue lists the site under the type of megalithic mound, but the descriptive text available for it concerns a clock tower and mentions no mound or megalithic structure.
Read on Wikipedia1 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Article
Bentong Clock Tower
The tower stands at the centre of Tenggarong and is regarded as a landmark associated with the history of Kutai Kartanegara.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Jam BentongCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Jam BentongCC BY-SA 4.0
The tower stands at the centre of Tenggarong and is regarded as a landmark associated with the history of Kutai Kartanegara. Visitors can look over the town from the height of the tower, especially at dusk. At night the tower is decorated with lights.
VisitingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Jam BentongCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Jam BentongCC BY-SA 4.0
The tower is often used as a meeting place by people living nearby, and there is a town park next to it where visitors can rest. It is promoted as a destination for those interested in history and culture.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Burial mounds and tumuli worldwide
A tumulus, or barrow, is a mound of earth and stones raised over one or more graves. A cairn is the same idea in stone, and in different places the same monument is called a barrow, kurgan, kofun, haugr or mound. Mounds are among the oldest and most widespread grave markers on Earth. They were built in Europe from the Stone Age to the Iron Age and beyond, across the steppe and Central Asia, in China, Korea and Japan, and in the Americas. A simple mound is a hemispherical heap of earth or stone raised over a burial placed in the middle; more complex ones have ditches, stone kerbs, and chambers of stone or timber, and many were built up in layers of soil, stone and turf.
Dating mounds is hard because most have never been opened. Archaeologists use radiocarbon dating of bone, charcoal and wood; tree rings where timbers survive; pottery and metalwork inside; and the typology of the mound's shape. Where none of these is available the Atlas gives a broad range. The grave goods of the richest mounds, such as weapons, gold, horses and even ships, show that the mounds were also statements of rank and power.
Cairns carry a good deal of folklore. In Ireland it is traditional to carry a stone up from the bottom of a hill and add it to a cairn at the top, and an old Scottish Gaelic blessing says "I'll put a stone on your cairn". In Portugal a legend says that the stones of a cairn (moledro) are enchanted soldiers. These are traditions, not facts about who is buried.
When visiting, look for the setting: mounds are usually placed to be seen from a path, a ridge or the sea.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tumulus, Wikipedia: Burial mound, Wikipedia: Kurgan, Wikipedia: Cairn, Wikipedia: Round barrow · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Where it stands
Indonesia
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 0°26′43″ S, 116°59′59″ EFor a GPS or map app: -0.44539, 116.99962
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q140769793wikidata.org
Image files
- Jam Bentong Tenggarong (1).jpgSri Wahyuni Nur Indah SariCC BY-SA 4.0
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Jam Bentong" (Indonesian), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Jam BentongCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q140769793CC0