This paper explores the role of archival study in exploring site integrity within the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) framework, using the case of Islamic heritage sites in Java, Indonesia. In contexts where material traces have been lost or obscured, archival materials—such as babad manuscripts, colonial maps, letters, and early visual records—serve as strategic tools to recover the spatial logic and narrative coherence of historic cities. Drawing from six case studies, the research demonstrates how symbolic zoning, sacred topographies, and precolonial spatial intentions can be reinterpreted and reimagined through narrative-based conservation. The study challenges dominant Western-centric urban paradigms that privilege material proximity and economic drivers, proposing instead a narrative model of urban legibility rooted in Javanese spiritual geography, dynastic symbolism, and cosmological planning. Rather than relying solely on surviving structures or archaeological clustering, this approach introduces identity-based zoning informed by layered stories. By bridging spatial archaeology and historiographic memory, the paper positions archival study as a planning methodology that not only reconstructs urban coherence but strengthens site integrity as a culturally embedded and community-driven asset.

Keywords - Precolonial Urbanism, Narrative-based Conservation, Site Integrity, Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), Islamic Heritage

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