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Ada dua masa sejarah tentang
penemuan/identifikasi pulau Borneo (kini Kalimantan). Peta Ptolomeus pada abad
ke-2 telah disalah interpretasi seribu tahun kemudian. Hingga sejauah ini
seperti yang dicatat Wikipedia, pulau Taprobana itu adalah pulau Sri Lanka.
Namun di dalam blog ini sudah diidentifikasi dengan cermat pulau Taprobana itu
adalah pulau Kalimantan. (Lihat Sejarah Menjadi Indonesia (77): Taprobana
adalah Borneo; Kapuas, Kahayan, Barito. Mahakam, Kayan, Sugut Pulau Kalimantan).
Peristiwa kedua pada era Hindia Belanda tentang identifikasi pedalaman pulau
Borneo.
Taprobana was the name by which the
Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka was known to the ancient Greeks. Reports of
the island's existence were known before the time of Alexander the Great as
inferred from Pliny. The treatise De Mundo, supposedly by Aristotle (died 322
BC) but according to others by Chrysippus the Stoic (280 to 208 BC),
incorrectly states that the island is as large as Great Britain (in fact, it is
only about one third as big). The name was first reported to Europeans by the
Greek geographer Megasthenes around 290 BC. Herodotus (444 BC) does not mention
the island. The first Geography in which it appears is that of Eratosthenes
(276 to 196 BC) and was later adopted by Claudius Ptolemy (139 AD) in his
geographical treatise to identify a relatively large island south of
continental Asia. Taprobana is undoubtedly the present day Sri Lanka when
referring the map. The identity of
Ptolemy's Taprobane has been a source of confusion, but it appeared to be the
present day Sri Lanka on the medieval maps of Abu-Rehan (1030) and Edrisi
(1154) and in the writing of Marco Polo (1292). However, on the maps of the
Middle Ages, the fashion of using Latinised names and delineating places with
fanciful figures contributed to absurd designs and confusion regarding the
island and Sumatra. In the fifteenth century, Niccolò de' Conti mistakenly
identified Taprobana with a much smaller island. Taprobana/Ceylon/Sri Lanka is
marked in the 1507 Martin Waldseemuller map. The question of whether the
Taprobana shown on Ptolemy's map was Sri Lanka or Sumatra resurfaced with the
display of Sebastian Munster’s 1580 map of Taprobana, carrying the German
title, Sumatra Ein Grosser Insel, meaning, "Sumatra, a large island". (Wikipedia)
Lantas
bagaimana sejarah penemuan wilayah pedalaman Borneo? Seperti disebut di atas, wilayah
pedalaman Borneo menjadi teka-teki sejak era Portugas, era VOC hingga era
Pemerintah Hindia Belanda. Hal itu karena tidak seorang pun yang berhasil memberi
gambaran yang sebenarnya. Lalu bagaimana sejarah penemuan wilayah pedalaman pulau
Borneo/Kalimantan? Seperti kata ahli sejarah tempo doeloe, semuanya ada permulaan. Untuk
menambah pengetahuan dan meningkatkan wawasan sejarah nasional, mari kita telusuri
sumber-sumber tempo doeloe.