| Abstract: |
Two archaeological campaigns were organised in 1994 on the site of Kota Kapur (Island of Bangka, South-Sumatra, Indonesia), as part of the Sriwijaya Indonesian - French joint research program. This site had never been investigated by archaeologists, despite the fact that this was the earliest site related to Sriwijayan history to have ever been reported (in 1892), after a inscription dated 686 A.D. was found there. The recent archaeological campaigns uncovered a small temple built of stones, together with a set of statues, including two Visnu belonging to the "mitred" tradition encompassing the lower valley and delta of the Mekong, the Malay Peninsula and West Java, between the 5th and the 7th centuries A.D. A large earthen wall surrounds part of the site. Two settlement sites were also surveyed near the earlier shoreline. On the basis of the stylistic analysis of the statues found in situ, the Valsnava temple site is dated to the late 6th or early 7th century A.D. It is therefore concluded that the polity which built the temple preceded the establishment of the Buddhist state of Siriwijaya at Palembang in the 670's.
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