Saturday, 4 January 2014
The Cinnamon Route
In 1982, a 21 year old Englishman named Philip Beale climbed the Borobudur temple intent on studying the reliefs which adorn the temple. Philip was in Indonesia to study traditional ships and marine traditions, and had previously served in the British Royal Navy.
In total he found 10 panels depicting sea vessels, some poweredby oar, and others with a three masted ship, with sails cut in a rectangular slant. 
The young Englishman could see that the ships of the Borobudur temple may have been a part of a famous shipping route that linked Indonesia to Africa many centuries earlier.
The treacherous Cinnamon shipping route took vessels from Indonesian waters across the Indian Ocean past the Seychelles, Madagascar, and South Africa to Ghana. The main trade of the first millennium on this route was spice, being of extremely high value in that era.
Philip Beale’s fascination with the boatbuilding of Indonesia and the skills of the sailors led him to a project of building a traditional ship that then retraced the original route.
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