R. Doug Wicker — Author

The Wayang Museum is a museum far different than is familiar to most of us. The entire museum is dedicated to wayang, the Javanese art of puppet theater. The puppets on display here represent two forms of the art — wayang golek and wayang kulit. Most non-Indonesian visitors will be more familiar with the three-dimensional wooden puppets used in wayang golek, which is the puppetry of the Sundanese of West Java:

The other puppet theater on display here is the wayang kulit. Wayang kulit figures are made of leather (kulit translates to skin) and are used in shadow puppetry. As such, the puppets are flat rather than three dimensional, and the performances are front lighted, and the images projected onto a background screen:

The wayang kulit and wayang klitik (flat shadow puppets made from wood) forms of puppet theater originated on the Indonesian island of Java and Bali.

Puppetry not exactly your thing? Then how about a little history. Also located in Museum Wayang are artifacts, such as the tombstones of several European explorers and exploiters, including infamous Dutch East India Company officer Jan Pieterszoon Coen.

But enough of the chatter from me. Here’s today’s sampling of Museum Wayang images:

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