Guar Kepah Archaeological Gallery Expected To Open In Q3 This Year

KEPALA BATAS, July 12 (Bernama) -- The construction of the Guar Kepah Archaeological Gallery near here has been completed and is expected to open to the public in the third quarter of this year.

Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said the gallery would open once the repatriation process of prehistoric human skeletal remains from the site, currently housed at the Collection Centre Netherlands (CCNL), was fully completed.

"We (the state government) have been informed that a delegation from the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MOTAC) will travel to the Netherlands this month or in August, and we are now just waiting to bring back the skeletal remains.

"Once returned, they will initially be handed over to Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) for some processing, as the university has expertise in archaeological research," he told reporters after officiating the Penang2030 Festival X Seberang Perai Heritage Day 2025 at Kampung Agong, Penaga, near here today.

He said the construction of the Guar Kepah Archaeological Gallery was a significant initiative by the Penang State Government, aimed at completing the archaeological tourism map for northern Peninsular Malaysia, which includes Penang, Kedah, Perlis, and Perak.

The Guar Kepah Archaeological Gallery will house the remains of the Guar Kepah Woman, also known as the Penang Woman, which dates back over 5,000 years and was discovered in 2017. It will be the main exhibit at the gallery.

In addition, efforts are underway by the Malaysian government to repatriate 41 other human skeletons discovered in Guar Kepah during the excavation by P.V. van Stein Callenfels in 1936, currently stored in Leiden, the Netherlands. These remains will be preserved and exhibited at the archaeological gallery.

Guar Kepah is the site of the shell midden, which revealed evidence of a Neolithic prehistoric community in Penang, dating back approximately 5,000 to 6,000 years.

Meanwhile, Chow said that initiatives under the state's future development plan, Penang2030 Vision, launched in 2018, had achieved nearly 80 per cent of their overall targets to date.

To ensure the core pillars outlined in the vision were met, he said a special monitoring system, the Penang2030 Dashboard, was developed to allow the public to openly track the progress of the vision's initiatives over time.

Over 5,000 visitors dropped by Kampung Agong for the Penang2030 Festival and Seberang Perai Heritage Day celebration, which featured various activities, including a traditional children's costume contest, traditional food-making workshops, silat and wayang kulit (shadow puppet) performances, community feasts, and traditional games competitions.

-- BERNAMA