Aperçu
Prambanan stands on the border of Central Java and Yogyakarta, 17 km northeast of Yogyakarta city, in the valley between Merapi volcano and the Indian Ocean. The complex was built during the Sanjaya dynasty of the Mataram kingdom, with the main temples constructed around 850 CE under King Rakai Pikatan or his successor. The complex originally comprised 240 individual temples arranged in three concentric squares around a central courtyard. The three principal towers (perwara) in the inner zone rise 47 m above the Prambanan Plain: the central Shiva temple, the Vishnu temple to its north, and the Brahma temple to its south. The towers are clad in bas-relief panels narrating the Ramayana (on the Shiva and Brahma temples) and the Krishnayana (on the Vishnu temple) — among the most extensive stone narrative cycles in the world. Prambanan was probably damaged by a major earthquake shortly after its construction and was abandoned following the shift of the Mataram kingdom's political center to East Java around 930 CE. The complex was largely forgotten, further damaged by a 1549 earthquake, and rediscovered by the Dutch colonialist C.A. Lons in 1733. Systematic restoration began in the 1930s and continues; the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake (6.3 Mw) caused significant new damage.