The Jakarta History Museum

museum

The Jakarta History Museum (Museum Sejarah Jakarta), is also known as Fatahillah Museum or Batavia Museum. This museum is located in the Old Town (known as Kota) of Jakarta, Indonesia.

The building was built in 1710 as the Stadhuis or city hall of Batavia, during Dutch colonization. Jakarta History Museum, opened in 1974, displayed objects from the prehistory period of the city region, the founding of Jayakarta in 1527, and through the Dutch colonization period from the 16th century until Indonesia’s Independence in 1948. The museum is located in south side of Fatahillah Square (former Batavia city square) near Wayang Museum and Fine Art and Ceramic Museum.

Jakarta History Museum has a collection of around 23,500 objects, some of them inherited from de Oude Bataviasche Museum (now the Wayang Museum). The collection includes objects from the Dutch East Indies Company, historic maps, paintings, ceramics, furniture, and archaeological objects from the prehistoric era such as ancient inscriptions and sword.

It also contains the richest collection of Betawi style furniture from the 17th to the 19th century. The collections are divided into several rooms such as Prehistoric Jakarta Room, Tarumanegara Room, Jayakarta Room, Fatahillah Room, Sultan Agung Room, and MH Thamrin Room.

The museum is also contains a replica of the Tugu Inscription from the age of Great King Purnawarman, which is the evidence that the center of the Kingdom of Tarumanegara was located around the seaport of Tanjung Priok on the coast of Jakarta. There is also a replica of the 16th century map of the Portuguese Padrao Monument, a historical evidence of the ancient Sunda Kelapa Harbor.