An old royal tombstone in Pahang
A brief note by Warren D. Barnes describing a 15th-century royal gravestone of Raja Fatimah, found in the Pahang River near Tebing Tinggi and presented to the Tungku Besar of Pahang in May 1910 (p. 37).
Summary
The stone, now in the Istana at Pekan, is 22¾ inches high and bears an Arabic inscription transcribed by the Mufti at Pekan, Haji Osman bin Senik, which records Raja Fatimah’s death on the eve of Monday, 15 Shawal, year 901 AH (A.D. 1496)—fifteen years before Albuquerque’s capture of Malacca (p. 37). Barnes includes a geological identification of the rock as pyroxene-hornblende-andesite by J. B. Scrivenor, Government Geologist, and reproduces the full inscription with translation (pp. 37–38).
Drawing on the Sejarah Melayu and Bustanu-al-Salatin, Barnes identifies Raja Fatimah as daughter of Sultan Ala’edin Riayat Shah of Malacca and wife of Raja Mansur of Pahang, and traces the succession disputes that followed (p. 38). He notes that, so far as he is aware, the stone is the oldest dated gravestone in the Peninsula (p. 38).