page_title: Majapahit
section_title: Explorations and navigation
hierarchical_section_title: Majapahit / Explorations and navigation
caption_attribution_description: Bahasa Melayu: Model Bahtera Majapahit. Model bahtera ini menunjukkan kemahiran pertukangan pada zaman kerajaan Majapahit dalam usaha merentasi samudera untuk memperluaskan jajahan takluknya dan berdagang. Kerajaan Majapahit wujud sekitar abad ke-13 dan merupakan salah sebuah sebuah kerajaan yang agung dan masyhur di Alam Melayu khususnya di Indonesia.English: Model of Majapahit ship. This model represents a characteristic Majapahit ship, a bahtera, a product of the kingdom's expert craftsmanship which travelled the seas to trade and to acquire new territories.
context_page_description: The Majapahit was a Javanese Hindu-Buddhist thalassocratic empire in Southeast Asia, based on the island of Java, that existed from 1293 to circa 1517. Majapahit reached its peak of glory during the era of Hayam Wuruk, whose reign from 1350 to 1389 was marked by conquest which extended through Southeast Asia. His achievement is also credited to his prime minister, Gajah Mada. According to the Nagarakretagama written in 1365, Majapahit was an empire of 98 tributaries, stretching from Sumatra to New Guinea; consisting of present-day Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand, East Timor, Sulu Archipelago and other parts of the Philippines, although the scope of Majapahit sphere of influence is still the subject of debate among historians.
  Majapahit was one of the last major Hindu empires of the region and is considered to be one of the greatest and most powerful empires in the history of Indonesia and Southeast Asia, one that is sometimes seen as the precedent for Indonesia's modern boundaries. Its influence extended beyond the modern territory of Indonesia and has been the subject of many studies.
context_section_description: During Majapahit era Nusantaran exploration reached its greatest accomplishment. Ludovico di Varthema (1470-1517), in his book Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese stated that the Southern Javanese people sailed to "far Southern lands" up to the point they arrived at an island where a day only lasted four hours long and was "colder than in any part of the world". Modern studies have determined that such place is located at least 900 nautical miles (1666 km) south of the southernmost point of Tasmania.
  The Javanese people, like other Austronesian ethnicities, use a solid navigation system: Orientation at sea is carried out using a variety of different natural signs, and by using a very distinctive astronomy technique called "star path navigation". Basically, the navigators determine the bow of the ship to the islands that are recognized by using the position of rising and setting of certain stars above the horizon. In the Majapahit era, compasses and magnets were used, and cartography (mapping science) was developed: The use of maps full of longitudinal and transverse lines, rhumb lines, and direct route lines traveled by ships were recorded by Europeans, to the point that the Portuguese considered the Javanese maps were the best map in the early 1500s.
  
  When Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca (1511), the Portuguese recovered a chart from a Javanese pilot, which already included part of the Americas. Regarding the chart Albuquerque said:
  "...a large map of a Javanese pilot, containing the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal and the land of Brazil, the Red Sea and the Sea of Persia, the Clove Islands, the navigation of the Chinese and the Gom, with their rhumbs and direct routes followed by the ships, and the hinterland, and how the kingdoms border on each other. It seems to me. Sir, that this was the best thing I have ever seen, and Your Highness will be very pleased to see it; it had the names in Javanese writing, but I had with me a Javanese who could read and write. I send this piece to Your Highness, which Francisco Rodrigues traced from the other, in which Your Highness can truly see where the Chinese and Gores come from, and the course your ships must take to the Clove Islands, and where the gold mines lie, and the islands of Java and Banda, of actions of the period, than any of his contemporaries; and it appears highly probable, that what he has related is substantially true: but there is also reason to believe that he composed his work from recollection, after his return to Europe, and he may not have been scrupulous in supplying from a fertile imagination the unavoidable failures of a memory, however richly stored."
  - Letter of Albuquerque to King Manuel I of Portugal, April 1512.
caption: The model of a Majapahit ship display in Muzium Negara, Kuala Lumpur. The type is Borobudur ship.
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