The art of stone carving at Tamanagung Village

According to the story, the raw material for the restoration of Borobudur temple was taken from the slopes of Mount Merapi. At that time, Hamlet is a place of transit Prumpung raw material before being taken to Borobudur Temple because it’s a pretty strategic location, which is located right in the middle between the slopes of Mount Merapi to Borobudur Temple. In 1930, three stone carvers from the village are employed by Theodoor Prumpung Var Erp to restore Borobudur Temple. One of the three men are Salim Djajapawiro. From the descendants of this Djajapawiro Salim stone sculpture began to appear and develop in Hamlet Prumpung.

Salim Djajapawiro is touted as a pioneer craft of stone carving

Doelkamid Djajaprana or familiarly called Djayaprana was one son Salim Djajapawiro is touted as a pioneer craft of stone carving in Hamlet Prumpung in 1953. Starting from the idea, to bring two people Djajaprana Rahmat Ali’s brother and Karin tried to carve stone Buddha-shaped head with the example of Buddha statues in the temple Borobobudur. At first, they hesitated to start it for fear of violating the religious teachings of Buddha or deemed sinful. However, with capital daring, finally managed to make a Buddha statue head the exact same Buddha statue at Borobudur. As a result, the head of the Buddha statue made in their successfully sold to a merchant from Sumatra with a price of Rp. 150.00. Starting from there, along with his two brothers founded Djajaprana Studio Sanjaya stone sculpting in 1960.

At first, Djajaprana with his two brothers are still producing statues of Buddha at the head of the new studio he founded. When he had the support of Gen. Gatot Subroto, its also becoming a fly by producing various forms of stone carving craft a gate. Seeing that success, the people around him were rollicking ngangsu kaweruh (menimbah science) to the man who was born in 1969 the brothers so that Hamlet Prumpung increasingly crowded with artisans chisel stone. Since then, the name was changed to Sidoharjo hamlet. The word “Sidoharjo” in the Java language consists of two words that mean so Sido, and Harjo which means crowded. So, Hamlet Sidoharjo can be interpreted as a bustling hamlet.

Not only Sidoharjo citizens, residents from other hamlets in Tamanagung and even from surrounding villages had come to develop craft of stone carving in their area. From then on the growth of a stone carving studio in the Village Tamanagung increasingly mushrooming every year. From the year 1960-1970 has been established around 14 studio sculptor, then in 1970-1980 increased to 38 studio, and about 1980 to 1985 increased again to 45 galleries. To date, approximately 5 km along the ring road Muntilan Borobudur, Magelang, there are hundreds of sculptors and stone carving craft entrepreneurs, ranging from young to old. The craftsmen are not only producing various handicraft carving stone in every model, such as miniature temples, Buddha statues, gupala, ganesha, statue antique Vishnu and Shiva, mortar, pestle and mortar, stone furniture, lanterns, fountains, classical arch, relief, and forth.

Around the 1970’s, a sculptor from Bali, I Nyoman named Alim Musthapa who married a girl from the village of Sidoharjo introduce new creations in the style of classical sculpture in Bali. With the creation of typical Bali, I Nyoman then obtain the modern market by building various facilities Solo hotels like Hotel Sheraton, Sheraton Surabaya Senggigi Hotel, Bali Imperial Hotel, and so forth. Similarly creations of the craftsmen from the village of Sidoharjo also began to spread to various cities such as Yogyakarta, Bandung, Jakarta, Semarang, and even exported in large quantities to the Netherlands, Austria, Japan, Hong Kong, the United States, Malaysia, Singapore, Chile, Germany , Europe, and others.

Stone sculpting Crafts Center is located on the tourist route to the Borobudur and Yogyakarta Semarang direction. Thus, young tourists can find many facilities such as lodging, hotel, food stalls and souvenir center Magelang typical food along the ring road Muntilan-Semarang-Yogyakarta.