Widely recognized from school history books in Indonesia, the name Trowulan is most familiar to Indonesians as the ancient capital of the glorious Majapahit Empire. The official narrative of Indonesia's national history features the kingdom of Majapahit with the notion of archipelagic unity as one nation, “Nusantara”, through the Palapa Oath made by its first minister Gajah Mada. Recently though, historians have been increasingly questioning the appropriation of Majapahit in the nation-building narrative due to the mixture of myth and reality in the construction of Majapahit as the root of Indonesian nationalism. The reality of present-day Trowulan is that it resembles more a village than a city. According to the 2010 Census, the population of Trowulan was 68,154, which puts it far from being a “city”. It is under the regency of Mojokerto, which is about sixty kilometres from Surabaya, the second-largest city in Indonesia.

Majapahit buildings in Trowulan are now largely ruins. Except for those that have been appropriated and altered as shrines, residents of Trowulan are not using these ruins in their daily activities. Yet, they live with the ruins and often utilize them as resources, such as in producing new bricks (although the practice of using old Majapahit bricks to produce new bricks is unacceptable under official heritage preservation norms). The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia had proposed Trowulan as a World Heritage site, and it has been on UNESCO's tentative list since 2009.

Trowulan's Majapahit heritage has been subjected to the invention and reinvention of later societies according to their own agendas. Applying the term living heritage to Trowulan would therefore appear to be a contradiction, especially since there is no evidence that the current residents have continued through the generations the cultures of the Majapahit Empire. Yet, we argue that living heritage exists even in an ancient heritage site like Trowulan that has gone through many years of contestations and appropriations for political and cultural legitimacy. How does living heritage relate to the everyday realities of historical ruins? By bringing together the historiography and the voices of residents, scholars and heritage enthusiasts, we find that living heritage is by no means an idealistic practice.