{"id":7197,"date":"2013-07-24T10:59:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T02:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bukitbrown.com\/main\/?p=7197"},"modified":"2013-07-24T11:03:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T03:03:18","slug":"the-jalan-kubor-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bukitbrown.com\/main\/2013\/the-jalan-kubor-cemetery\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jalan Kubor Cemetery"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of Bukit Brown : Our Roots, Our Future<\/a>, a series of talks were programmed to enrich the exhibition which was held at the Chui Huay Lim Club, the\u00a0 co-organiser of the exhibition.<\/p>\n

Speaker\u00a0 Dr Imran bin Tajudeen\u00a0 gave insights into\u00a0 Singapura’s Historic\u00a0 Cemetery at Jalan Kubor which has royal roots.\u00a0 Several old settlements existed in Singapore besides the Temenggong\u2019s estuarine settlement at Singapore River before Raffles\u2019 arrival in 1819. Among these, Kampung Gelam and the Rochor and Kallang River banks were also sites of historic graveyards related to old settlements of Singapura both before and during colonial rule. The Jalan Kubor cemetery is the only sizable cemetery grounds still largely undisturbed. It belongs with Kampung Gelam history but has been excluded from the \u201cKampong Glam Conservation District\u201d boundary, and is important for several reasons. It forms part of the old royal port town that was developed when Tengku Long of Riau was installed as Sultan Hussein in Singapore, and is aligned along the royal axis of the town. It is also the final resting place of several traders of diverse ethnicity from the old port towns of our region \u2013 neighbouring Riau, Palembang, and Pontianak, as well as Banjarmasin and the Javanese and Bugis ports further afield. Some of these individuals are buried in family enclosures, mausolea, or clusters. Conversely, there are also hundreds of graves of unnamed individuals from Kampung Gelam and surrounding areas. The tombstone forms and epigraphy reflect this immense socio-cultural diversity, and were carved in Kampung Gelam by Javanese and Chinese stone carvers, except for a number of special cases. Several large trees of great age are also found in this lush \u2018pocket park\u2019. The talk\u00a0 discusses the histories that can be retrieved from this important site and the dire need to protect it.<\/p>\n