At Banten Lama, Revitalization Is Being Tested by the Memories That Still Make the Ruins Useful

SERANG, Banten — The current preservation question at Banten Lama is not only how to repair an old wall or improve a visitor route. It is whether the archaeological landscape can remain connected to the ways people remember and use it today.

That question has become more immediate in 2026. On March 30, Banten Governor Andra Soni said the provincial government would continue revitalizing sites associated with the Sultanate of Banten. The announcement was made during the Haul Agung of Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin at the Great Mosque of Banten, a religious commemoration that places historical memory inside an active public ritual rather than behind a museum barrier.

The official announcement described the program as a strategic effort to strengthen cultural, historical and religious tourism. It did not publish a consolidated timetable, budget or completion measure for every site. That distinction matters: revitalization remains a continuing program, not a claim that the whole archaeological area has been restored.

A city remembered through several kinds of evidence

Banten Lama was once a major port city. A 2025 study published in the Banten provincial government’s regional-policy journal describes the site as a former Southeast Asian trading centre whose urban remains include palaces, fortifications, mosques, settlements and canals. The study says the city lost its primary function from the early nineteenth century, leaving the ruins of important buildings across the archaeological area.

Today, those remains are encountered as a connected landscape. In January 2025, the Culture Minister visited Speelwijk Fortress, Kaibon Palace, Surosowan Palace, the Great Mosque and the Banten Lama Archaeological Museum. The visit also marked the inauguration of the museum’s revitalization. The sequence is significant because no single building explains the old city on its own. Political authority, religious life, defence, trade and domestic settlement have to be read together.

The 2025 provincial study reaches a similar practical conclusion. It argues that Banten Lama needs cross-sector Cultural Resource Management, or CRM, as a framework for sustainable protection and use. In plain terms, conservation cannot be separated from decisions about public space, tourism, research, education and the people who live around the sites.

Living use is part of the heritage record

Local memory is not limited to stories about a vanished sultanate. It also survives in places that continue to function. The provincial government describes Kasunyatan Mosque, about two kilometres south of the Great Mosque, as a mid-sixteenth-century mosque linked to Sultan Maulana Muhammad and the religious teacher Kiai Dukuh. The mosque was associated with Islamic teaching and gatherings of scholars. Its old ablution pool is still used, and the mosque remains a place of worship and pilgrimage.

That continuity gives preservation a different standard. A historic mosque cannot be assessed only by the condition of its masonry. Its meaning also depends on whether worshippers can continue to use it respectfully, whether visitors understand its religious role and whether conservation decisions protect the surrounding cemetery and access without turning the place into a stage set.

The same principle appears in the February 8, 2026 city tour held during National Press Day activities in Banten. Participants visited the Great Mosque, observed the religious and community activity around it, and then visited a local souvenir centre. The provincial account presented the itinerary as a link between historical awareness and the income of local businesses. It is a small example, but it shows how the heritage area is being presented: not as an isolated ruin, but as a place where history, devotion and livelihoods meet.

From official plans to shared stewardship

Government statements have repeatedly placed collaboration at the centre of preservation. During the January 2025 ministerial visit, then-acting Governor A Damenta said the province needed to work with artists, cultural practitioners, historians and academics so that conservation would not lose its local principles. An older provincial management statement also proposed a body involving central and local government, businesses and customary communities, while identifying tourism-awareness groups and the Surosowan festival as parts of the wider revitalization effort.

These commitments point to a difficult but necessary balance. More visitors can support local businesses and give residents a reason to defend the sites. Poorly managed visitation can also increase pressure on fragile structures, religious spaces and the daily life of neighbouring communities. A credible management system therefore needs clear zoning, maintenance responsibilities, research access, visitor information and a way for residents and custodians to influence decisions.

What we know

The provincial government said on March 30, 2026 that revitalization of Sultanate-era sites would continue.
The Banten Lama Archaeological Museum’s revitalization was inaugurated during a ministerial visit in January 2025.
A 2025 Banten government journal study recommends cross-sector Cultural Resource Management for the archaeological complex.
Kasunyatan Mosque remains in religious use, including continued use of its historic ablution pool, according to the provincial government.
A February 2026 heritage tour connected the Great Mosque with community activity and local commerce.

The latest official material reviewed for this report provides evidence of ongoing programs, public engagement and policy direction. It does not provide a single, independently audited 2026 assessment of the physical condition of every Banten Lama structure or of the revitalization’s completed scope. That limitation should temper claims of success.

For Banten, the most durable measure of preservation may therefore be simple to state, even if difficult to achieve: can the restored site still accommodate the memory practices that made it matter? If worship, pilgrimage, learning and local enterprise remain part of the landscape, archaeology is not being detached from society. It is being carried forward by it.