The Kraton Kasepuhan is the oldest kraton (sultan's palace) in the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n city of

Cirebon Cirebon (, formerly rendered Cheribon or Chirebon in English) is a port city on the northern coast of the Indonesian island of Java. It is the only coastal city of West Java, located about 40 km west of the provincial border with Central J ...

. It is the residence of the Sultan of Kasepuhan and the royal palace of

Sultanate of Cirebon The Sultanate of Cirebon ( id, Kesultanan Cirebon, Pegon: كسلطانن چيربون, su, Kasultanan Cirebon) was an Islamic sultanate in West Java founded in the 15th century. It is said to have been founded by Sunan Gunungjati, as m ...

History

It was built in 1447 and its architecture and interior are a blend of Sundanese, Javanese, Islamic,

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and

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styles. While the sultan still lives in the palace, several main sections are open to the public. Inside is a pavilion with white-washed walls dotted with blue-and-white Delft tiles, a marble floor and ceiling hung with French chandeliers. The legacy of Majapahit is preserved in its small ''

pendopo A pendhapa or pandhapa ( Javanese: ꦥꦼꦤ꧀ꦝꦥ or ꦥꦤ꧀ꦝꦥ, Indonesian spelling: pendapa, nonstandard spelling: pendopo) is a fundamental element of Javanese architecture unique in the southern central part of Java; a large pavilio ...

'' on soft carved brick bases. The carvings on the ''pendopo'' columns are 1940s copies of the ancient originals. An innovation is the use of brackets branching out from the columns. The main building features unusually tall pyramidal column bases. The ornament on the double braces of this building's ''pendopo'' '' tumpang sari'' ceiling are picked out in gilt. Another unusual feature in the eclectic complex: the plaster and masonry columns feature decoration that resembles

reeding Reeding is a technique wherein a number of narrow ridges called "reeds" are carved or milled into a surface. __NOTOC__ Numismatics In numismatics, reeded edges are often referred to as "ridged" or "grooved" (American usage), or "milled" (Britis ...

. Like other old sites around Cirebon, ceramics in walls are common here, although their use in the Kraton is more restrained.Schoppert, P., Damais, S., ''Java Style'', 1997, Didier Millet, Paris, p. 54, The palace also has a somewhat neglected small museum with a restricted display of '' wayang'', '' kris'',

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

, furniture, Portuguese armour, and ancient royal clothes. In a separate nearby building the very elaborate ''Kereta Singabarong'', a 17th-century gilded coach, may be seen along with a modern duplicate carriage used on official occasions.

History

See also

References

Further reading