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4.3. Cultural Resources Assessment
There are four main factors being assessed for cultural quality assessment of the study area, they are legend and historical factors, architectural factor,
ethnical factor and tourism economic factor. These four factors are observed to be the most important affecting factors for cultural resources of the study area.
Similar to natural resources assessment, to acquire cultural quality assessment, those four affecting factors are integrated with supporting factor, infrastructure,
for their accessibility consideration within the tourism area.
4.3.1. Legend and Historical Factors
Parangtritis Area has been identical to the local legend that has claimed the Parangtritis Beach as the palace of ‘Kanjeng Ratu Kidul‘, the ruler of Southern
Ocean invisible world. This legend has been strongly believed by local people since hundred years ago, which has been affected to the local culture represented
with many of cultural objects related to the legend that is found in the area, such as Cepuri Parangkusumo, which is believed as the location where Kanjeng Ratu
Kidul met The First King of Mataram to make an agreement in founding the kingdom. The areas containing many cultural objects related to the legend are
considered to have high value to be a cultural tourism attraction, and therefore they are given a score of 3.
Beside the objects related to Ratu Kidul legend, there are some objects that are also related to other legend or historical stories that are well known enough
but not very identical to the area, such as Maulana Maghribi grave and Syekh Bela Belu grave, two figures regarded as the spreader of Islam in Parangtritis Area.
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The areas containing objects related to such of this kind of legend or historic stories are categorized as area with good legend which considered with score of 2.
The other objects that have no relation to any legend or historical stories are categorized as fair legend or historic objects. The areas contained this kind of
cultural objects are given with score of 1. The spatial representation of legend and historical factor in Parangtritis Coastal Area can be seen in Figure 25.
Figure 25. Map of Legend and Historical Factor in Parangtritis Coastal Area
4.3.2. Architectural Factor
Architectural factor within the study area is analyzed based on architectural style of the existing buildings of the area. Unfortunately, there are
almost none of the buildings that have traditional style of Javanese architecture, except some buildings maintained by Yogyakarta Kingdom, such as Cepuri
Parangkusumo, and Parangwedang Hot Spring. But most of common buildings and houses within the area are affected by modern architectural style though local
Gunung Kidul Regency
Indian Ocean
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houses still represented the style of common rural settlement in Java Island as can be seen in Figure 26. The areas containing this kind of buildings are given a score
of 2, which is considered as the area with dominant architecture.
Figure 26. Some Houses with Dominant Architectural Style Within this study area, especially in tourism locations that have many
visitors, there are many commercial buildings with common architectural style that can be found in other tourism destination in Indonesia, such as Bali. This
kind of building architecture does not seem to match with natural surroundings and it is definitely not representing any character of Javanese Culture, as can be
seen in Figure 27. Therefore, the area contained that kind of buildings is considered as the area with fair architecture, and scored with 1. In future
development, this kind of buildings should be changed by adding some Javanese architecture so that the character of the area can be represented well. The spatial
representation of architecture of the Parangtritis Area can be seen in Figure 28.
Figure 27. Some Commercial Buildings with Fair Architectural Style
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Figure 28. Map of Architectural Factor of Parangtritis Coastal Area
4.3.3. Ethnical Factor
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