Akar Nusa
The tide turns in the delta, and the river brings a smell of smoke. Along the mud banks, people feed charcoal into small furnaces. A trader from far away steps from a boat with a bundle of glazed bowls. Soon he will leave with a load of iron.
The story
Santubong lies in the Sarawak delta, about 30 km north of Kuching, in the shadow of a steep mountain. Archaeologists have long known that people here made iron for trade.
The pioneer was Tom Harrisson. He became curator of the Sarawak Museum in 1947 and dug at Santubong from 1952 to 1966. With metal detectors, he traced heaps of iron slag, the waste left from smelting, at Sungai Jaong, Bongkissam and Bukit Maras. Later counts mention about 22 tonnes of slag and about 67,000 pottery shards from Bongkissam and Bukit Maras alone.
What else turned up? Chinese pottery of the Tang and Song periods, West Asian glass about 1,000 years old, and small gold items such as rings, foil and beads. At Sungai Jaong, more than 100 rocks carry carvings that nobody can fully read. At Bongkissam and Bukit Maras, a shrine held gold, beads, stones and Chinese ceramics, and its ritual deposits point to Hindu and Buddhist practice.
Together these finds paint a port. A recent summary says Santubong was a centre of trade and iron mining between the 11th and 13th centuries, with links to China's trade routes. Smelting waste, crucibles and goods from far away all show people who made, bought and sold at a busy river mouth.
Santubong is also a story the community tells in its own way. The legend of the two princesses, Santubong and Sejenjang, explains the two mountains. The song Puteri Santubong from the 1970s made it famous across Malaysia. Some writers have proposed a much older Santubong kingdom, but that idea is argued, and this page does not rely on it.
Where you can still see it today
- Borneo Cultures Museum, Kuching, where some Santubong artefacts are on display.
- Mount Santubong, 810 metres, in Santubong National Park. The climb is steep, so check the park's rules.
- Sungai Jaong and the delta, which the Sarawak Delta Geopark presents as part of its story.
- Petroglyphs at Sungai Jaong. Please do not touch the stones.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
DNA cannot tell you who smelted iron at Santubong. A region estimate can show whether your ancestors' threads fit Borneo and the wider sea region where trade mixed people. Neither mother lines nor father lines can say your family came from this port.
DNA does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status. It cannot tell which community built the furnaces. For that we need excavations, such as those that continue today.
