Imo Giri

On Sunday, I finally had the opportunity to go to Imo Giri and visit the graves of the kings of Yogya. Indonesians, especially the ethnic Javanese, like to make these visits into order to obtain blessings. Of all the major cultural sites in and around Yogya this was the one I had never seen before. Usually, I am only in Yogya for a day or two and the site is only open for a few hours each day. In fact, by the time we got there, the main grave, that of Sultan Agung of Mataram was closed.

Besides his grave there are the graves of the kings of both the Yogyakarta dn the Surakarta courts because the Mataram court had been split into two counts by the Dutch. I did have the opportunity to visit the grave of Humenkobuwomo IX, who was alive in the later half of the 20^th century. The grave building had the graves of HB VII, VIII, and IX and those of their wives (up to 4 each).

In order to be allowed to visit, we had to change into court attire.

We bought a small packet of flowers to place on the graves.