S23 REINVENTING THE PAST IN MARITIME SOUTHEAST ASIA
19 June 2019, Ballroom 1, 1530-1700 hours
Convener:Dr Lesley S Pullen
SOAS, University of London, Post-Doctoral Research Associate
pullen.london@btinternet.com
This session explores the reinvention of past theories and designs in the current material art and architecture of the islands and littorals of Southeast Asia. Ideas and objects, originating within this region, or arriving by sea, have long been reused and adapted for differing purposes. With Austronesian traditions underlying most of this Maritime region, and with areas reformed by Hindu Buddhist customs, and later by Islamic beliefs, the notion of the past being reflected in the present has been long established. Such influences are often clearly echoed in the objects being routinely uncovered by archaeologists. Such reinventions are also evident in ceremonies and rituals still imitating an unrelated past. Following the earliest appearances of Arab, Persian and Indian traders into these waters, the later migrations of Chinese clans with their predisposition towards archaism provides one of the most evident cultural footprints.
Kyeongmi Joo
Lecturer
Chungnam National University in South Korea
stellar66@naver.com
Ancient “Nangnang,” called “Lelang (樂浪)” in Chinese, has, in the past, been identified as a small colony of Han China built in 109 BCE after the collapse of Joseon in Korea. However, material evidence from the Nangnang tombs reveals that it was an autonomous kingdom or city-state in Korea, which stood until the fourth century CE. Early archaeological excavations on Nangnang tombs were carried out by Japanese colonial scholars in the early 20th century. These scholars posited that all precious artefacts in these tombs were made in China and gifted to the Chinese governors in Nangnang region by the Chinese emperors. However, new evidence found in recent years suggests that their estimations on the material culture of the Nangnang period were in error. The animal-shaped beads found in the Nangnang tombs are the latest significant pieces of evidence that bear a relation to the Southeast Asian material culture, rather than to mainland Chinese culture.
In this paper, I reconsider these long-ignored animal-shaped beads and their cultural meanings. Most of these beads are in the shape of a recumbent lion, but some bear the form of a bird or a ram. Several of them were made of glass, amber, tortoiseshell, and various precious stones imported from Southeast Asia or India. Similar items have also been found in ancient sites in South India, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Hepu in South China. I argue these small animal-shaped beads may have been transmitted as trading goods to Nangnang from Southeast Asia through the ancient maritime Silk Road. Highlighting precious materials from southern tropical regions were occasionally brought directly to Korea by marine traders through the Southern Chinese Sea, and that the ancient maritime Silk Road may have extended to the long-forgotten trade centre of Nangnang in the northern Korean peninsula.
Kyeongmi Joo is a Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at Chungnam National University, Daejeon, South Korea. She completed her ph. D. in Art History at Seoul National University in 2002. She specialized in the history of arts and crafts of East Asia and is currently serving as an associate member of the Committee of Cultural Heritage at the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea. She has conducted research on various topics related to Buddhist arts, cultural transmissions and variations in East Asia, and published many books and articles in Korean, Japanese, and English.
Jack G. L. Medrana
University of the Philippines - Archaeological Studies Program
jglmedrana@yahoo.com
Although peripheral to significant cultural milestones happening in most of Southeast Asia before the coming of the first Europeans in the second millennium, the Philippines nevertheless had been a participant in the economic, political, and ideological events of the region. There is ambiguity however, regarding the influence of pan-regional ideologies on the archipelago in the form of Hinduism and Buddhism. These belief systems that originated from the Indian subcontinent accompanied many of the first developing polities in Southeast Asia. Buddhism in particular not only became the state-sponsored religion in most of the region’s earliest polities but also succeeded in gaining patronage from the powerful established states in East and Central Asia. It is thus a paradox why the Philippine islands have been almost silent about this belief system.
This paper reviews the discourse of Indic relations of the precolonial Philippines as it centers on Buddhism, looking through multi-disciplinal perspectives that may be helpful in giving light to the issues. A review of information from archaeological, iconographic, epigraphic, and linguistic sources could support the argument that Indic ideologies had reached the archipelago by the beginning of the second millennium C.E., but their development in the islands may have been limited by some intrinsic and extrinsic constraints.
Alasdair Chi
Nanyang Technological University
ALASDAIR001@e.ntu.edu.sg
This project concerns the study of stoneware vessels frequently overlooked in Southeast Asian archaeology. The relative ease with which inclusions and peculiarities in earthenware clay can be studied using thin-section petrography and the intricate decorations and glazes of porcelains have more been extensively catalogued in ceramic studies due to their visual appeal. As a result, these “functional” trade stoneware garner relatively little attention despite indicating a separate, but a related dimension of Chinese trade and exchange with the region, from the more elite porcelains.
These “functional” trade wares are used as proxies to investigate technologies prefiguring ceramic production, trade and exchange in Southeast Asia during the 12th to 15th centuries. A period marked by the fragmentation of centralised political control over the region as a whole, and the emergence of “atomistic” trading-posts and city-states such as Kota Cina and Singapore. Of particular interest are “mercury jars” – stoneware bottles with a particular shape found at both sites. Their function has been hotly debated, with their name challenged due to the impracticalities of mercury distribution and wine suggested as an alternative product; thus study investigates this question through archaeological evidence.
It is hoped this high-resolution scanning electron microscope – electron microprobe study (SEM-EDS) of these materials, in addition to giving insights on these technologies, will demonstrate the further potential of this underutilised material in future studies of Southeast Asian history. Stoneware as yet un-studied at either site in a comprehensively scientific fashion and the employment of SEM-EDS in this project marks its first application to Singaporean archaeology. This investigation has revealed numerous other dimensions to microscopic ceramic studies which may hopefully be followed up on in future studies incorporating material from beyond these two sites.
Dr Lesley S Pullen
SOAS, University of London, Post-Doctoral Research Associate
pullen.london@btinternet.com
In 1994 Susan Huntington remarked further research was required to clarify the extent of contacts between the wider Pāla region and the Indonesian archipelago. This paper observes whilst some iconographical features highlighted by Huntington are apparent in the smaller metal sculpture from Central Java of the 8th to 9th century, most of the larger stone sculpture from East Java of the 12th to 13th century adopt a more local aesthetic and display few Pāla or other Indian features.
However, this paper addresses four figurative stone sculptures from East Java which do exhibit a resurgence of Indian art styles, reflecting both 4th to 6th century Gupta and 8th to 12th century Pāla styles: the statue of Mañjuśrī Arapacana c.1268 in the State Hermitage Museum, two statues of Prajñāpāramitā of the late-13th century one in situ at Caṇḍi Singosari and one in the Museum Nasional Indonesia, and the statue of a royal couple of the late 13th early-14th century also in the Museum Nasional Indonesia.
This paper reveals how certain features of the arts of the Gupta and Pāla are clearly evident in these four later Javanese sculptures. Furthermore, it addresses the complex textile patterns carved in bas relief on the kain or cloth of these figurative sculptures, which conversely are not evident in any Indian counterparts. This paper proposes such diverse textiles reflect the position of Java within the international maritime trade network. Certain of these textile patterns, which endure to the present in the sartorial vocabulary of the Javanese, offer us a visual inventory of valued luxury objects long since perished.
Clifford J Pereira FRGS
University of Hong Kong. Honorary Research Associate
cliffjpereira@hotmail.com
For over a millennia Africans have been arriving in Southeast Asia by sea. Their presence in Asia was documented by various late medieval sources such as Zhau Rugua, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta. Africans have been depicted in Asian art, for example, the so-called “Kunlun Cengqi Slave” figurines of the Chinese Tang and Song Dynasties, Indian Moghul miniature paintings and the famed Namban screens of Japan. Early Portuguese and Dutch sources such as Jan Huyghen van Linschoten and Friar Domingo Navarrete attest to an African presence in Southeast Asia.
This evidence was considered by late European colonial historians who were tainted by the African experience of the Atlantic world, and this resulted in interpretations which were at best confusing or misleading narratives, and at the worst omission of this history. This has apparently left its mark in the language of the burgeoning Asian art trade and is perpetuated by the heritage industry.
Working from examining the pre-colonial, and embracing early colonial sources as first-hand observations, this paper seeks to return to the original sources (documented observations, linguistics and artwork) with a post-colonial lens. African archaeology gathered over the last fifty-years and linguistics collaborate and added to the theory of an African maritime presence in Southeast Asia which is Christian and Islamic. The resulting paper brings another relatively unknown cultural aspect to a region known for its diversity and cultural assimilation and provides thought for future archaeological and historical investigation.
Convener:Dr Lesley S Pullen
SOAS, University of London, Post-Doctoral Research Associate
pullen.london@btinternet.com
This session explores the reinvention of past theories and designs in the current material art and architecture of the islands and littorals of Southeast Asia. Ideas and objects, originating within this region, or arriving by sea, have long been reused and adapted for differing purposes. With Austronesian traditions underlying most of this Maritime region, and with areas reformed by Hindu Buddhist customs, and later by Islamic beliefs, the notion of the past being reflected in the present has been long established. Such influences are often clearly echoed in the objects being routinely uncovered by archaeologists. Such reinventions are also evident in ceremonies and rituals still imitating an unrelated past. Following the earliest appearances of Arab, Persian and Indian traders into these waters, the later migrations of Chinese clans with their predisposition towards archaism provides one of the most evident cultural footprints.
Rethinking the Animal-Shaped Beads Found in Ancient Nangnang Tombs
Kyeongmi Joo
Lecturer
Chungnam National University in South Korea
stellar66@naver.com
Ancient “Nangnang,” called “Lelang (樂浪)” in Chinese, has, in the past, been identified as a small colony of Han China built in 109 BCE after the collapse of Joseon in Korea. However, material evidence from the Nangnang tombs reveals that it was an autonomous kingdom or city-state in Korea, which stood until the fourth century CE. Early archaeological excavations on Nangnang tombs were carried out by Japanese colonial scholars in the early 20th century. These scholars posited that all precious artefacts in these tombs were made in China and gifted to the Chinese governors in Nangnang region by the Chinese emperors. However, new evidence found in recent years suggests that their estimations on the material culture of the Nangnang period were in error. The animal-shaped beads found in the Nangnang tombs are the latest significant pieces of evidence that bear a relation to the Southeast Asian material culture, rather than to mainland Chinese culture.
In this paper, I reconsider these long-ignored animal-shaped beads and their cultural meanings. Most of these beads are in the shape of a recumbent lion, but some bear the form of a bird or a ram. Several of them were made of glass, amber, tortoiseshell, and various precious stones imported from Southeast Asia or India. Similar items have also been found in ancient sites in South India, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Hepu in South China. I argue these small animal-shaped beads may have been transmitted as trading goods to Nangnang from Southeast Asia through the ancient maritime Silk Road. Highlighting precious materials from southern tropical regions were occasionally brought directly to Korea by marine traders through the Southern Chinese Sea, and that the ancient maritime Silk Road may have extended to the long-forgotten trade centre of Nangnang in the northern Korean peninsula.
Kyeongmi Joo is a Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at Chungnam National University, Daejeon, South Korea. She completed her ph. D. in Art History at Seoul National University in 2002. She specialized in the history of arts and crafts of East Asia and is currently serving as an associate member of the Committee of Cultural Heritage at the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea. She has conducted research on various topics related to Buddhist arts, cultural transmissions and variations in East Asia, and published many books and articles in Korean, Japanese, and English.
Did the dharma reach the ancient Philippines? – interrogating a history mute on Buddhism
Jack G. L. Medrana
University of the Philippines - Archaeological Studies Program
jglmedrana@yahoo.com
Although peripheral to significant cultural milestones happening in most of Southeast Asia before the coming of the first Europeans in the second millennium, the Philippines nevertheless had been a participant in the economic, political, and ideological events of the region. There is ambiguity however, regarding the influence of pan-regional ideologies on the archipelago in the form of Hinduism and Buddhism. These belief systems that originated from the Indian subcontinent accompanied many of the first developing polities in Southeast Asia. Buddhism in particular not only became the state-sponsored religion in most of the region’s earliest polities but also succeeded in gaining patronage from the powerful established states in East and Central Asia. It is thus a paradox why the Philippine islands have been almost silent about this belief system.
This paper reviews the discourse of Indic relations of the precolonial Philippines as it centers on Buddhism, looking through multi-disciplinal perspectives that may be helpful in giving light to the issues. A review of information from archaeological, iconographic, epigraphic, and linguistic sources could support the argument that Indic ideologies had reached the archipelago by the beginning of the second millennium C.E., but their development in the islands may have been limited by some intrinsic and extrinsic constraints.
Trade and Exchange along the Maritime Silk Route: High-Resolution Analysis of “Mercury Jars” and Other Stoneware from Early Singapore and Kota Cina, Sumatra
Alasdair Chi
Nanyang Technological University
ALASDAIR001@e.ntu.edu.sg
This project concerns the study of stoneware vessels frequently overlooked in Southeast Asian archaeology. The relative ease with which inclusions and peculiarities in earthenware clay can be studied using thin-section petrography and the intricate decorations and glazes of porcelains have more been extensively catalogued in ceramic studies due to their visual appeal. As a result, these “functional” trade stoneware garner relatively little attention despite indicating a separate, but a related dimension of Chinese trade and exchange with the region, from the more elite porcelains.
These “functional” trade wares are used as proxies to investigate technologies prefiguring ceramic production, trade and exchange in Southeast Asia during the 12th to 15th centuries. A period marked by the fragmentation of centralised political control over the region as a whole, and the emergence of “atomistic” trading-posts and city-states such as Kota Cina and Singapore. Of particular interest are “mercury jars” – stoneware bottles with a particular shape found at both sites. Their function has been hotly debated, with their name challenged due to the impracticalities of mercury distribution and wine suggested as an alternative product; thus study investigates this question through archaeological evidence.
It is hoped this high-resolution scanning electron microscope – electron microprobe study (SEM-EDS) of these materials, in addition to giving insights on these technologies, will demonstrate the further potential of this underutilised material in future studies of Southeast Asian history. Stoneware as yet un-studied at either site in a comprehensively scientific fashion and the employment of SEM-EDS in this project marks its first application to Singaporean archaeology. This investigation has revealed numerous other dimensions to microscopic ceramic studies which may hopefully be followed up on in future studies incorporating material from beyond these two sites.
Resurgence of late Pala Art Style in East Javanese Sculpture: Stylistic Idioms
Dr Lesley S Pullen
SOAS, University of London, Post-Doctoral Research Associate
pullen.london@btinternet.com
In 1994 Susan Huntington remarked further research was required to clarify the extent of contacts between the wider Pāla region and the Indonesian archipelago. This paper observes whilst some iconographical features highlighted by Huntington are apparent in the smaller metal sculpture from Central Java of the 8th to 9th century, most of the larger stone sculpture from East Java of the 12th to 13th century adopt a more local aesthetic and display few Pāla or other Indian features.
However, this paper addresses four figurative stone sculptures from East Java which do exhibit a resurgence of Indian art styles, reflecting both 4th to 6th century Gupta and 8th to 12th century Pāla styles: the statue of Mañjuśrī Arapacana c.1268 in the State Hermitage Museum, two statues of Prajñāpāramitā of the late-13th century one in situ at Caṇḍi Singosari and one in the Museum Nasional Indonesia, and the statue of a royal couple of the late 13th early-14th century also in the Museum Nasional Indonesia.
This paper reveals how certain features of the arts of the Gupta and Pāla are clearly evident in these four later Javanese sculptures. Furthermore, it addresses the complex textile patterns carved in bas relief on the kain or cloth of these figurative sculptures, which conversely are not evident in any Indian counterparts. This paper proposes such diverse textiles reflect the position of Java within the international maritime trade network. Certain of these textile patterns, which endure to the present in the sartorial vocabulary of the Javanese, offer us a visual inventory of valued luxury objects long since perished.
New interpretations of the African presence in Southeast Asia 700AD-1700AD
Clifford J Pereira FRGS
University of Hong Kong. Honorary Research Associate
cliffjpereira@hotmail.com
For over a millennia Africans have been arriving in Southeast Asia by sea. Their presence in Asia was documented by various late medieval sources such as Zhau Rugua, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta. Africans have been depicted in Asian art, for example, the so-called “Kunlun Cengqi Slave” figurines of the Chinese Tang and Song Dynasties, Indian Moghul miniature paintings and the famed Namban screens of Japan. Early Portuguese and Dutch sources such as Jan Huyghen van Linschoten and Friar Domingo Navarrete attest to an African presence in Southeast Asia.
This evidence was considered by late European colonial historians who were tainted by the African experience of the Atlantic world, and this resulted in interpretations which were at best confusing or misleading narratives, and at the worst omission of this history. This has apparently left its mark in the language of the burgeoning Asian art trade and is perpetuated by the heritage industry.
Working from examining the pre-colonial, and embracing early colonial sources as first-hand observations, this paper seeks to return to the original sources (documented observations, linguistics and artwork) with a post-colonial lens. African archaeology gathered over the last fifty-years and linguistics collaborate and added to the theory of an African maritime presence in Southeast Asia which is Christian and Islamic. The resulting paper brings another relatively unknown cultural aspect to a region known for its diversity and cultural assimilation and provides thought for future archaeological and historical investigation.
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