page_title: Singapore Stone
section_title: Discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Singapore Stone / Sandstone slab / Discovery
caption_attribution_description: English: A survey map of Singapore showing the old lines of Singapore; the Singapore River; and Rocky Point, where the ancient sandstone slab which the Singapore Stone is a fragment of once stood.
context_page_description: The Singapore Stone is a fragment of a large sandstone slab which originally stood at the mouth of the Singapore River. The large slab, which is believed to date back to at least the 13th century and possibly as early as the 10th or 11th century, bore an undeciphered inscription. Recent theories suggest that the inscription is either in Old Javanese or in Sanskrit, which suggested a possibility that the island was an extension of the Majapahit civilization in the past.
  It is likely that the person who commissioned the inscription was Sumatran. The slab may be linked to the legendary story of the 14th-century strongman Badang, who is said to have thrown a massive stone to the mouth of the Singapore River. On Badang's death, the Rajah sent two stone pillars to be raised over his grave "at the point of the straits of Singapura".
  The slab was blown up in 1843 to clear and widen the passageway at the river mouth to make space for a fort and the quarters of its commander.
context_section_description: In June 1819, a few months after the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles (1781–1826) in Singapore, a sandstone slab about 10 ft (3.0 m) high and 9 to 10 ft (2.7 to 3.0 m) long was found by labourers clearing jungle trees at the southeast side of the mouth of the Singapore River. It stood at a promontory known as the Rocky Point, and later as Artillery Point, Fort Fullerton and the Master Attendant's Office. (In 1972, a short projection from the slab's site was constructed and a statue of an imaginary beast called the Merlion placed on it. The statue has since been relocated.) According to papers from the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal which were collected by Sir William Edward Maxwell and republished in 1886, one Dr. D.W. Montgomerie said that the rock was brought to light by some Bengal sailors employed by Captain Flint, R.N., the first Master Attendant:
  You remember the situation of it [the sandstone slab] on the rocky point on the south [sic: southeast] side of the entrance of the Singapore Creek. That point was covered with forest trees and jungle in 1819, and the stone was brought to notice by some Bengal clashees who were employed by Capt. Flint, R.N. (the first Master Attendant); the men on discovering the inscription were very much frightened, and could not be induced to go on with the clearing, which, if I recollect right, was completed by Chinese under the stimulus of high wages.
  The slab was inscribed with 50 or 52 lines of script, but by the time of its discovery the meaning of the inscription was already a mystery to the island's inhabitants.
caption: An 1825 map of Singapore showing the location of Rocky Point at the mouth of the Singapore River, where the sandstone slab stood.
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