EARL V TRADE BETWEEN INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: A LINK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WORLD TRADING SYSTEM

/ DR IAN C. GLOVER ' INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON 31-34 GORDON SQUARE

LONDON WC1 H OPY Tel. (071)387 7050 x4751 Fax (071)383 2572

! EARLY TRADE BETWEEN INDIA AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA

A Link in the Development of a World Trading System

2nd Edition

I.C.Giover

THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL

CENTRE FOR SOUTH-EAST ASIAN STUDIES

Occasional Papers

No. 16

EARL V TRADE BETWEEN INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA:

A LINK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WORLD TRADING SYSTEM

by

I.C. GLOVER Institute of Archaeology,

University College London

2nd, revised edition

© Centre for South-East Asian Studies, 1990

ISBN 0-8598-579-4 ISSN 0269-1779

Occasional Paper No.16, Centre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull

EARLY TRADE BETWEEN INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA- A LINK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WORLD TRADING SYSTEM

lan C. Glover Introduction Before examining the evidence for early links between the mainland of Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, · and India I wish to consider the development of commercial trading systems linking the Indian subcontinent with the civilizations of the Mediterranean Basin, and also the emergence of simpler exchange systems within the greater area of Southeast Asia, from Thailand and Vietnam in the north, to the islands of the Philippines and Melanesia.

lndo-Roman commercial undertakings seem to have been highly organised and are quite well documented in Classical writing dating from the second century AD even though there is much uncertainty about the details, and revisions are regularly proposed for dating the growth of this trade from the evidence provided by the excavation of archaeological sites (eg. Begley 1983 on Arikamedu) which help to •· amplify the historical sources. I would also argue that virtually all new data on this trade are likely to come from archaeology, which has barely started to research the problem, rather than from literary and historical sources which seem to be finite and mostly known.

The great expansion of Southeast Asian, and particularly of Island-Mainland exchange which is evident in later prehistory is, I believe, closely connected with this lndo-Roman commerce and can be explained in part, at least, by a rising demand for exotic and prestigious items of consumption and adornment in the 1 sophisticated urban civilizations of the Mediterranean basin, India and, of course, China; but I will not try in this paper to deal with the connections from Southeast Asia to China, only with the west. As an example of this demand for exotic products in the west we need only to look at the spice trade (Miller 1969), and particularly at the trade in cloves, the unopened flower buds of the tree Eugenia aromatica , Kuntze, whose home was restricted (until the late 18th century AD) to the small islands of Ternate, Tidore, Motir, Makyan and Bachan in the Moluccas (Burkill1935: 976-80). Cloves were known in China in the 3rd century BC, and were described by Pliny in Rome in the 1st century AD (Piiny in Eicholz ed.1962). At the production )<

end, the trade in cloves, nutmeg and mace transformed the Moluccan society from scattered kin based communities of hunter-gatherers and shifting cultivators to stratified coastal trading states and petty empires. As Ellen (1977: 25) points out , "lt was the spice trade which was partially responsible for the lndianization of Southeast Asia and which facilitated the spread of Islam. lt was responsible for the growth and demise of numerous states on the commercial routes from the lndies to the Mediterranean ... . and which led to the first serious involvement of Europeans in Southeast Asia and the formation of colonial empires there" . So this western demand for an aromatic flower bud of rather little value to the native peoples of the Moluccas transformed, in the long run, the economic and political face of Asia. Of such little things are empires built.

In writing about the beginning of this process in Southeast Asia I use the term 'Later Prehistory' which I find usefully vague in the light of our poor control over

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I. C. Glover Early Trade between India and Southeast Asia

regional chronologies, but by which I mean more or less the last millennium before, and the first few centuries after the opening of the Christian Era. This coincides roughly with Bayard's 'General Period C' on the mainland of Southeast Asia (Bayard 1984, Higham & Kijngam 1984: 13-21), but many of the technological and social criteria by which they define the period on the mainland - the use of iron, the development of intensive wet rice farming and increased social ranking - are as yet undocumented in island Southeast Asia.

Later prehistoric exchange systems and maritime transport I think that it can now be accepted that by the middle of the 3rd millennium BC

. substantial improvements had been made in maritime technology in Southeast Asia and that long distance voyaging in double- or single-hulled outrigger canoes and plank built boats was taking place. This period saw the expansion of pottery-using, agriculture, and probably, of Austronesian- speaking peoples throughout Island Southeast Asia (Bellwood 1985; Chapter 7) , and this is particularly well exemplified by the rapid colonization of many previously uninhabited islands in the Western Pacific such as Fiji, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Tonga, and Samoa. Westward voyaging from Southeast Asia at this time is less obvious; indeed the real evidence "' is negligible. The distribution of Munda (a language related to Mon-Khmer in the Austroasiatic family) , cord-impressed pottery and shouldered adzes in eastern India - in Assam, Bengal, parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa - is more likely to be the product of continuous connections by land via Burma than by maritime routes and there is no evidence I know of for direct long-distance trade between Southeast Asia and India at this time. The only good evidence, up to now, for Southeast Asian ships sailing to the west is the so-called 'Indonesian Presence' in East Africa and Madagascar. Received opinion, and recent archaeological evidence (Dewar and Rakotovolona nd.) seems to put this as late as the middle of the 1st millennium AD, the Early Historic period for many western Indonesian cultures.

In an earlier paper (Glover 1979) I summarised the evidence for the emergence of such localised exchange networ1<s in Indonesia, and Peacock (1979) did the same for Western Malaysia. More recent evidence from the mainland of Southeast Asia demonstrates the development of this localised exchange in raw materials and exotic products in the second millennium BC, and perhaps we can believe that it had already started by the late 3rd millennium. The social context in which these exchanges took place is still obscure, but I envisage it to be in the form of 'Boundary Reciprocal', or 'Down-the-line' exchange of the sort formalised by Renfrew (1975: 41 -2). In particular we can point to the presence of armrings (and the raw material for making them) from such marine shell species as Trochus and Tridacna at inland sites in Central Thailand such as Kok Charoen, Ban Kao, Ban Na Di, Obluang and Tha Khae (Natapintu 1984), exotic stone for armrings at Ban Na Di and other sites in the northeast (Higham and Kijngam 1984: 63-70) , and the import of lead, tin and copper ores and metal to sites such as Ban Chiang and Non Nok Tha, also in Northeast Thailand (Piggott & Natapintu 1984). Similar evidence is available for the late neolithic Phung Nguyen and early bronze age, Go Mun, cultures of Vietnam (Ha Van Tan 1980).

lndo-Roman Commerce I want to return now, briefly, to the subject of lndo-Roman commerce, about which

Manfred Rascke (1978:605) aptly noted, "Much is asserted, little is proven .... in the absence of an accessible body of evidence, hypothesis replaces fact and the

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Occasional Paper No. 16, Centre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull

passage of time produces the assumption that, what was tentatively suggested in a previous decade, is, in the absence of contravention , established proof." Nevertheless there is evidence ; physical evidence in the form of Rhodian '"' amphorae and Italic Arretine ware on the South Indian coast, of Roman gold coin hoards throughout South India, of numerous Classical intaglios and seals throughout southern India and Sri Lanka, and a few in Southeast Asia, of Mediterranean lead in the Satavahana coinage of Central India (Wheeler 1954, Seeley & Turner 1984; Turner1989), of an Indian ivory figurine at Pompeii. And we have detailed contemporary and product specific descriptions of the structure of the trade in Classical texts such as the Periplus , Strabo's and Ptolemy's Geographies , and Pliny's Natural History . There is sufficient detail that historians such as Warmington (1928), Miller (1969) and Raschke (1978), and archaeologists such as Wheeler (1954) have been able to develop a comprehensive and, on the whole, convincing structure for the trade between India and the Roman world as it existed at the beginning of the Christian era. These exchange systems were more developed than the ones I have described for Southeast Asia and approximate to Renfrew's ( ibid .) ' Middleman Trading', and ' Port of Trade' modes. And in many cases, particularly at the western ends of the trade routes, these were entrepreneurial ventures, undertaken for commercial profit, facilitated by the use of coinage, and underwritten by accumulated capital.

Eastwards from India, however, the data, historical and archaeological, becomes much more sparse. Indeed, Wheeler (1954:206-7) was unwilling to extend to Southeast Asia the well- structured trading systems which he could describe for \' India and the Erythraean Sea, and attributed the few western-derived items found up to that time in Thailand and Vietnam to what he called "drift", by which I think he , meant movements of objects through intermittent, short-distance reciprocal [ exchange networks. Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of' some of the more durable items surviving from these trading networks. Certainly he did not believe that the well organized mercantile commerce of the Indian Ocean extended at that time across the Bay of Bengal. Raschke (1978: 653) too, is doubtful if commercial links between India and Southeast Asia were on a regular basis until well into the first millennium AD ~ that is to say between about the 3rd to 6th centuries AD. The western items they refer to are, of course, the famous Pong Tuk lamp from a ~ monastic site on the north bank of the Meklong River in Western Thailand (Coedes 1928), a coin of Antoninus Pius and some inscribed gemstones, rings, medallions and statuary from India and the Mediterranean seals at Oc-Eo (Malleret 1960-62), and other locations in Vietnam, Since then quite a few other finds have been made or recognised and these are enough, I believe, to argue that regular exchange links between India and Southeast Asia commenced earlier than Wheeler or Raschke allowed; although it is unclear whether we can refer to this as trade, specifically a commercial exchange entered into for financial profit, or an extension of the 'Big Man' prestige goods reciprocal type of economy which is so well documented for recent Melanesia (Brookfield & Hart 1971 : 314-31), and postulated by me for earlier societies within Southeast Asia as well as for many other parts of the prehistoric world (Renfrew 1975; Sherratt 1976:558-61). Since Wheeler wrote, further finds , for the most part casual, unprovenanced discoveries, have been documented of western artifacts in Southeast Asia, and I will list these before turning to the problem of lndianization and the recent evidence from the site in Thailand which we have been excavating, Ban Don Ta Phet, which has produced the earliest and most abundant evidence to date for Indian links with Southeast Asia.

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The important recent finds of early Indian or Western Classical antiquities in Southeast Asia are these :

A copper coin of the Western Roman Emperor Victorinus (AD 268-70), minted at Cologne and found at U-Thong in Western Thailand (landes 1982), and preserved in the National Museum there (Figure 2).

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KUlWElAES fJ_.L R, IM '

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Figure 1 South and Southeast Asia locating important archaeological sites and categories of artifacts mentioned in the text . Of the etched beads, only those found in Southeast Asia are located. For South Asia, see Dikshit 1949. Key to the numbered sites: 1 Arikamedu, 2 Kok Charoen, 3 Ban Kao, 4 Ban Na Di, 5 Tha Khae, 6 Ban Chiang, 7 Non Nok Tha, 8 Phung Nguyen, 9 Pang Tuk, 10, Oc-Eo, 11 Ban Don Ta Phet, 12 U-Thong, 12 Buni, 14 Chansen, 15 Beikthano, 16, Khlong Thorn, 17 Saraburi, 18 Chaiya, 19 Taxila, 20 Khao Mogul, 21 Ban Plai Nam, 22 Bhita, 23 Likiang, 24 Khao Sam Kao, 25 Kuala Selinsing, 26 Shi Zhai Shan and Lijiashan , 27 Sa Huynh, 28 Xuan An, 29 Dongson, 30 Tham Ongbah, 31 Khao Jamook, 32 Adittanalur, 33 Coimbatore, 34 Kok Khan, 35 Sisulpalgarh, 36 Mantai.

r"'

~' An Indian ivory comb from the moated settlement at Chansen in Central Thailand

Figure 3). This comes from a good context in Period 11 which the excavators, Bronson and Dales (1978:28-30, fig.7) dated to between the 1st - 3rd centuries AD. This piece is now on exhibition in the National Museum, Bangkok.

A few sherds of lndo-Roman Rouletted Ware of the 1st century AD (Figure 4) were recognised by Walker among other pottery belonging to the Buni Complex grave assemblages of this same period on the north coast of Java (Walker & Santoso 1980). More recentlythe Balinese archaeologist Ardika has identified quite numerous fragments of Indian rouletted ware at sites on the nortn coast of Bali

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where they are associated with small red glass beads of the mutisalah type, and fragments of a stone mould of a Pejeng-type of bronze drum.

Figure 2 Obverse of a Roman coin of the Emperor Victorinus (AD 268-70) minted in Cologne, Germany and found at U-Thong, Thailand (landes 1982). National Museum of U-Thong.

Excavations at Beikthano in Central Burma (Aung Thaw 1968) have provided good evidence for a town with a palace and stupas based on Indian Buddhist models. Among the finds are one etched bead (see the discussion below) and a number of lndianizing Pyu coins. The excavator with the aid of four C-14 results and stylistic comparisons with various Indian architectural prototypes dates the site to the 1st-5th centuries AD; but the coin evidence (Cribb 1981) suggests that Beikthano was occupied well into the 8th century AD.

The site of Khlong Thorn (also known as Khuan Lukpad or "bead mound" in Krabi Province has become famous for its rich collection of glass and semiprecious stone beads, and rather notorious for the means by which most were acquired. In an attempt to salvage some reliable information and in situ finds several programmes of survey and limited excavation were conducted by Thai and foreign archaeologists between 1973 and 1986. Veraprasert (1987), and Bronson (1990) document the history of investigation of the site and list, and illustrate some of the finds 1. Among the ones which particularly concern me here are a number of etched agate and camelian beads, a carnelian bead in the form of a lion like the ones from Ban Don Ta Phet (see below), glass collar beads similar to those from Arikamedu, a defaced Roman coin, apparently not datable (Veraprasert 1987: 328), at least two, and perhaps many more Roman carnelian intaglios. Two of these portray the Goddess

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n Tyche or Fortuna, and a pair of fighting cockerels (Figure 5). Both are common '/ Roman types and can be dated to the late 1st - early 2nd centuries AD.2

Figure 3 Ivory comb from Chansen , phase 2, Central Thailand , dated to about 3rd century AD . From Bronson and Dales 1973, fig .?. National Museum, Bangkok.

Bronson (1990) also refers to other intaglios with scenes of elephants, a lion, the god Perseus, an unidentified woman, and some seals with Pallava inscriptions. Some of these seals are purely Classical while others are undoubtedly Indian. Most are kept in the Wat Khlong Thorn in the care of the Abbot, Phrakru Arthorn Sangwornkij . Amongst the glass from Khlong Thorn, Veraprasert (op. cit. 326) refers to rim fragments of a blue glass container "very similar to Roman glassware", and both Veraprasert and Bronson document the evidence for the local manufacture of glass and stone beads in addition to those presumably imported as finished pieces. Bronson describes the site as more of a specialised manufacturing centre than an entrepot; a place where expatriate (Indian) craftsmen worked under the protection of an enterprising local ruler, importing some raw materials (glass cullet and agate blocks) as well as finished goods (beads and seals) . There is also evidence for tin smelting, perhaps for export to tin-short India . The activities at Khlong Thorn lasted over several centuries and not all of it can be ascribed to the very early days of trade across the Bay of Bengal. And the isolation of the site from major population centres and urban sites with monumental architecture makes it difficult to fit it into existing categories such as 'port of trade', 'central place for exchange' and so on. Bronson sees Khlong Thorn more as a 'Co.lonial Enclave' in

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Renfrew's scheme (1975: 43), as some type of early offshore technology park set in a tropical wilderness. and in doing so he highlights the unusual features of the site as well as how little we really know about the structure of trade between India and Southeast Asia at this time.

Figure 4 lndo-Roman rouletted ware from the Buni Complex sites of Kobal Kendal and Cibutak, on the northwest coast of Java, Indonesia (13 on fig.1 ). From Walker and Santoso 1980: fig .1) National Museum, Jakarta.

Increasing numbers of etched beads are being reported in Thailand, particularly from museums in the south. However, few of these have been verified by archaeologists really familiar with Indian stone beads, and in some cases these have turned out to be banded glass beads such as the ones from Khlong Thorn illustrated by Bronson (1990). This last site has however produced a few genuine etched beads .1 4

One spherical black and white etched agate bead was found at Ban Chiang; I have seen photographs of etched beads said to have been found near Saraburi; and a

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survey in Suphanburi Province in 1982783 (Glover 1987) revealed quite a number of etched beads from looted sites roughly falling within the triangle formed by UThong, Suphanburi and Nakorn Pathom. However, the largest group (about 15) of casual finds of etched beads are those in the former collection of General Montri, mainly coming from around U- Thong, and now in the National Museum, Bangkok. Among these is a broken and weathered example of the large (Dikshit Type 3) polychrome bead like the one excavated from Don Ta Phet in 1976 and also in the National Museum, Bangkok. Two more of this rare type are still in the hands of private collectors in U-Thong (Suchitta 1984, and Figure 6 here). I had a preliminary look at the former collection of Air-Marshal Montri in January 1987 and can verify that these are true etched stone beads (there are also many glass ones in the collection) in the Indian style, most probably imports, and belonging to this same general period.

Figure 5 Roman carnelian intaglios from Khlong Thorn, Krabi province, South Thailand. Wat Khlong Thorn Collection.

Although not always securely dated, the newer finds described above add to the body of material demonstrating contacts between Southeast Asia and the- lndoRoman world from the last few centuries BC to the early centuries of the Christian era. Nevertheless these scattered, and mostly individual and poorly provenanced

l finds, could still have travelled eastwards along short-range reciprocal exchange \networks (Wheeler's 'drift') and are not sufficient on their own to invalidate the argument, based primarily on historical sources, that the real development of mercantile links between India and Southeast Asia came only from the mid first millennium AD3. In order to do that we need the evidence of a substantial body of finds, from good contexts and which demonstrate something more than the

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transfer of highly portable prestige objects. I argue later that the excavations at Ban Don Ta Phet have provided such evidence.

I Cm. • • • • Figure 6 Etched carnelian pendant from a disturbed site at Kok Samrong, 5 km north of UThong, Thailand. Private collection, U-Thong.

lndianization in Southeast Asia This is another, immense, and related field of research which I can only just touch

on. The influence of Indian Hindu-Buddhist civilization in Southeast Asia from the ·middle of the first millennium AD is undeniable and found almost everywhere except in the remote and forested interior of the mainland or in the eastern islands of Indonesia and the Philippines. From this time on we have numerous religious monuments and icons, the latter imported from India or modelled on Indian prototypes; evidence for the use of Indian scripts and languages, at least for political and religious propaganda; and some ambiguous external historical sources, Chinese and Indian. These data have provided most of the evidence for lndianization and are also presented and analyzed in numerous books and articles of which I mention only Georges Coedes' The lndianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), Wolters' (1967) Early Indonesian Commerce, and Wheatley's more recent (1983) Nagara and Commandery; origins of the early Southeast Asian urban traditions .

lt is clear that traditional societies throughout most of western Southeast Asia were undergoing a dramatic process of restructuring through the 1st millennium AD. This included demographic, political and mercantile centralisation, with the appearance of true urban forms which were organised into kingdoms formally subscribing to Indian principles of polity - although the realities may have been rather different

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(Wheatley 1983: ch.7). That lndianization in Southeast Asia was closely linked to trade seems clear from the elusive Indian historical and mythological sources ( ibid . 264), and much of this was by sea. Voyaging to Suvarnabhumi or Suvarnadvipa , the fabled Land of Gold was a hazardous undertaking and shipwreck, ordeal by scorching sun, tempest, hunger and thirst, as well as plagues of serpents and insects are among the perils to be expected by travellers. lt is clear that these were speculative mercantile voyages for commercial profit, financed by merchant guilds in many parts of India. Kautilya, in the Arthasastra , that famous manual of advice for achieving worldly success, originally compiled in the 4th century BC, ranks the pursuit of profit above all other goals of life, even the paths of virtue and love. As a later writer put it "Who goes to Java, never returns. If by chance he returns then he brings back enough money to support seven generations of his family" . Most of the existing Indian texts seem to have been compiled, in their existing forms , only in the early centuries of the Christian era but are thought to reflect a reality of lndianSoutheast Asian voyaging established in the late centuries of the pre-Christian era. In them Suvarnabhumi is reported both as a place for profitable trading and as a field for Buddhist proselytization. At least three missionaries are named in the text Sasanavamsappadipika, Gavampti, Sona and Uttara: the last two are said to have been despatched by the Emperor Asoka to convert the people of Suvarnabhumi soon after the 3rd Buddhist council in the middle of the 3rd century BC.

I emphasise these Indian historical sources because, in the context of Southeast Asian prehistory, it is important for us to appreciate that the late prehistoric period saw the expansion of a complex and powerful mercantile system into an area in which trade networks certainly existed, but for which the most appropriate models are the ethnographically-known reciprocal exchange cycles of eastern Melanesia -Kula, Vitiaz Strait , Mailu and others.4 By the early part of the Christian era these rather separate Southeast Asian exchange systems had been linkea into a vast network of trade stretching from Western Europe, via the Mediterranean basin and the Red Sea, to South China. This period saw the first appearance of what can be called the World System , the economic integration by trade of most of the inhabited globe, excepting the Americas and Australasia. Its significance for the subsequent development of Southeast Asian societies cannot be ignored.

The cemetery of Ban Don Ta Phet The archaeological site of Ban Don Ta Phet (Figure 7) lies on the southern edge of

the village of that name, 8 km north of the district headquarters of Phanom Tuan, and 2 km west of route 324 between Kanchanaburi and U-Thong in west-central Thailand. The village is on a low mound rising above low swampy ground which is today under rice and sugar cultivation.

Antiquities were found there by school children in September 1975 and excavations were undertaken by the Thai Fine Arts Department between November 1975 and May 1976. A number of funerary deposits were identified , richly equipped with iron tools and weapons, bronze vessels and jewellery made from bronze , bone, ivory, glass and semi-precious stones . An exhibition of finds from the site was held at the National Museum in Bangkok in 1976 and for that occasion a booklet describing the excavation and some of the finds was written by Chin You-di (1976) , who was in charge of the excavatior. from February to May 1976.

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The cemetery was attributed by Chin You-di to a settled farming community of the late Iron Age , dating to between 50 BC and AD 250 ; the period before the appearance of centralised kingdoms organised according to political and religious models introduced from India. Nevertheless, as Chin recognised, certain items of jewelry, particularly the etched agate and carnelian beads provided evidence for contacts with India, where this tradition (Beck 1933) was long established.

Following the Thai FAD excavations at least three students at Silpakorn University undertook studies of the excavated material (Mukpuksachanan 1977; Natapintu 1976; Sihumatya 1977), and in London , Warangkhana Rajpitak undertook the metallurgical examination of the bronzes and produced one report (1979) and a Ph.D. Dissertation (1983) in which she identified some unusual characteristics of the Don Ta Phet bronzes: the use of very high tin :copper alloys (in the range of 20-28% tin) , and a manufacturing process which involved the lost-wax casting of containers with exceptionally thin walls (on some vessels these may be only 0.3-0.5 mm) , followed by limited hot-working, annealing and quenching and polishing on a lathe or wheel. Her preliminary conclusions were published (Rajpitak and Seeley 1979) and some suggestions were made about the cultural and economic ... significance of the Don Ta Phet bronzes. I shall return to these points later in the paper.

After the Thai work of 1975-76 another. excavation season was undertaken in 1980-81, jointly by the Institute of Archaeology, London, and the FAD in which a further 20 funerary deposits were revealed with a generally similar range of furnishings (Figures 8 & 9) . I have already published on the reasons which lay behind this second excavation programme (Glover 1980), and two preliminary reports are available (Glover 1983, and Glover, Charoenwongsa, Alvey and Mongolkamnounket 1984) and I will not repeat the details here. Five radiocarbon dates calculated from organic temper obtained from pottery give a calibrated age for the site of 360-390 B.c .s

In addition to the publications already mentioned specific aspects of the later research programme at Don Ta Phet have been the subject of the following undergraduate and postgraduate reports : Bennett (1982) studied the composition and metallographic characteristics of the iron from the 1980-81 season . Alvey (1983 & 1990) analysed the spatial organisation of the cemetery and the use of computer aided statistical analyses of the grave goods to specify the limits to individual burial deposits in the absence of recognisable grave cuts . Williams (1984) examined the manufacturing methods of the semi-precious stone beads, and the drilling and staining processes of the etched beads. Kishor Basa is currently studying the glass beads together with those from contemporary sites in Southeast and South Asia. J.M. Johnson has undertaken a petrographic analysis of the pottery.

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NE W SC: HOOL

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Figure 7 Plan of the archaeological site of Ban Don Ta Phet, western Thailand, locating the trenches of all three excavation seasons.

A third field season at Ban Don Ta Phet was undertaken for two months from December 1984 when the excavation of the site was essentially completed (Glover 1990). The results obtained then complemented the data from the earlier seasons and were generally in agreement with them. The range of finds was generally similar although some unusual pieces of bronze and stone jewellery were found. One ornament, which is described below,was almost certainly made on the central coast of Vietnam.

However, some stratigraphic features observed in the final season added substantially to our knowledge of the site , for we found evidence for a bank and ditch on the southern and western sides of the cemetery with a thin, dark, organic stained layer underlying some of the burials on the inside of the bank. In most parts of the site soil conditions made it impossible to recognise any internal stratigraphy in the cemetery (see Alvey 1983 for details of this). but the presence of the ditch

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and bank, combined with the regular layout of the funerary deposits, the partial nature of the human remains and some funerary objects, and the lack of stylistic change in the materials in the grave furnishings persuade me that the entire cemetery belongs to a very short period of time; perhaps even it was laid out on a single occasion. 6

The material evidence from Ban Don Ta Phet There are two categories of finds which provide the evidence for exchange between India and Thailand at this time. These are beads and some of the bronze vessels. Other items which occur in abundance at the site, such as low-fired earthenwares, and the forged iron tools and weapons are entirely local , even parochial in character.

Beads More than 3000 beads have been found at Don Ta Phet and it is convenient to divide these into two categories : glass beads, and those made from semi-precious stones such as crystal , agate and carnelian. Numbers vary from two or three up to several hundred in a single burial, although some burials which were rich in beads .. had rather few bronze vessels or iron tools, and there seems to be no simple correlation between the number of beads (or any other single category of material for that matter) which could give us an obvious indication of the wealth or status of the deceased.

Beads are generally found in the lower part of the funerary deposits and mostly at the western end, glass and stone beads together and with no clear orientation; that is to say that there was little evidence to show that they had been deposited as strung necklaces. If they had been worn in this way such necklaces must have been broken (as many iron tools and bronze vessels clearly were) as part of the funerary rite. Or the beads could have been sewn on to clothin.p for decoration as is still the custom in parts of northern Thailand, Burma and Tibet.

lt is worth noting that a substantial number of the glass beads were in the form of natural mineral crystals, particularly those of the cubic, octahedral, rhombic, dodecahedra!, tetraganol and hexagonal prism systems (Figures 9 & 1 0) . This suggests that the bead makers were quite familiar with natural gemstones and were perhaps imitating them for a provincial marketS Red, green yellow and blue beads, and annular shapes, are present, but bright or intense colours are rare and most common were pale whitish-green and honey-coloured beads which are not, as far as I have been able to discover, very well represented among published collections of either Indian (Dikshit 1969; Francis 1982a: Col. Pl.1 & 2), or Southeast Asian beads (Lamb 1965). And such beads seem to be absent, or at least unreported from the rich bead deposits found in Peninsular Thailand at places such as Khlong Thorn, Takuapa, and Laem Pho near Chaiya. From the point of view of contacts with the west, the most interesting of the glass beads are large, translucent green six- sided prisms (Figure 9) . Parallels for these shapes in glass are hard to find in the

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Figure 8 Detail of burial context 46 at BDTP 1981 showing spherical carnelian beads surrounded by bronze bowls. On the far left is the truncated stepped conical lid, or 'stupa' illustrated in fig.23, and next to it is the base of the 'cage' supporting the fighting cock in fig.20.

archaeological literature. Beck (1941: PI.XI, 3 and 12) illustrates one from Marshall's excavations at Taxila, Malleret (1962:PI.LVI) found a few at Oc-Eo in South Vietnam, and Hutchinson (1987:3) refers to prismatic 'green glass' beads from Roman sites in Britain which, on examination, sometimes turn out to be emeralds ! 9 This is suggestive, for these large hexagonal beads from Don Ta Phet are remarkably similar to the famous beryl crystals of South India which were so popular in the Buddhist cultures of North India as well as the Roman world, and which attracted the attention of Pliny the Elder. Examples of these are portrayed on Gandharan sculpture and Pliny (Book XXXVII,XX, 77-9, Eicholz (ed) 1962) refers to glass imitations of these beryls being made in India. The composition of a few of these beads from Don Ta Phet has been analysed to date and some are a sodalime-silica glass with a trace of manganese, a composition said to be typical of Mediterranean glass of the 1st millennium AD.10

Only a few of these translucent faceted beads have so far been found at other Southeast Asian sites 11 and there is no evidence of glass manufacturing at this time east of India, so there is a probability that these 'glass beryls' were made in India or further west, and traded into Southeast Asia. This suggestion makes more sense when the evidence from the etched stone beads and bronzes is taken into account.

14


Figure 9 Four hexagonal glass beads stacked on top of one another in burial context 56, BDTP. They were probably wrapped in cloth or a basket on burial. These beads imitate the prism_ system of beryl crystals.

Of the 3500 or so beads found in the three seasons at Ban Don Ta Phet, more than 600 were made of hard, semi-precious stone such as agate, carnelian, rock crystal and jade (possibly nephrite) . By far the most common were spherical carnelians, then small facetted carnelians, cylindrical and barrel-shaped banded agates, small unmodified rock crystals and small cylinders of jade (Figure 11). In addition to the ones illustrated, a few 'tiger's claw' beads, and slotted and commashaped nephrite pendants (Chin You-di 1978) were found during the 1975-76 season only. All of these beads were drilled for suspension with cylindrical holes 1.0-1.5mm in diameter. Williams (1984) studied the drilling methods of these beads and it has recently been argued that her SEM photographs of the striations inside the drill holes demonstrate the use of diamond-tiffed drill bits such as the ones more recently used by the Cambay bead makers. The facetted lozenge shaped carnelians were cut and polished on some sort of wheel, and the spherical and barrel-shaped beads were polished to a very high surface finish. Lamb (1965) has already commented on the technical mastery shown by the makers of early Southeast Asian hardstone beads.

1 5


0 2 3 /..

Figure 10 Hexagonal translucent green glass bead in the BDTP School Collection, and below, a typical corrundum crystal of the trigonal system. Many lightly tinted translucent glass beads at BDTP seem to have been made in imitation of the crystal structures of natural gemstones.

Figure 11 Various carnelian and agate beads · from BDTP, 1975-76 season displayed in the National Museum, Bangkok. The outer circle are mainly spherical carnelians, the most common type of stone bead at the site, and the inner circle is made up entirely of etched beads.

1 6


•

5Cm .,

Figure 12 Etched agate (white on black) and carnelian (white on red) beads from BDTP. 1981. Over 50 etched beads are documented from the site, a larger number than from most South Asian sites.

Deposits of carnelian and agate are known in Southeast Asia, although geological formations in which these micro-crystalline rocks are formed are not particularly common there. The great centre of origin in the Old World is undoubtedly western India where they have been mined since the Bronze Age ·from the gravel beds of the rivers draining the basaltic Deccan Trap formations (Bauer 1968: 508-18) . However, one deposit of carnelian at Khao Mogul north of Lopburi in Central Thailand has been exploited at some time in the past, and unfinished hardstone beads have been recorded at Ban Plai Nom near Don Chedi (Glover 1987: 89), as well as at Khlong Thorn, Krabi Province (Veraprasert 1987: 327). None of these can properly be dated, and certainly there is nothing to suggest that they are of comparable antiquity to those of Don Ta Phet.

Nevertheless, sites in western Thailand of the later prehistoric - early historic period are very rich in agate and carnelian beads and these are also well distributed throughout mainland and island Southeast Asia. We must either think of a number of yet undiscovered manufacturing sites in the region or accept, at least for the moment, the notion that they were mostly imported from India. Bibliographic references to Indian semi-precious stone working are abundant and cannot all be cited here, but see, for instance Possehl (1981). Bellwood (1978: 276-7) discusses the distribution of these plain spherical and facetted carnelians within Southeast Asia and summarises the arguments for, and against, their ultimate source in India.

Probable though it may be that the plain carnelian and agate beads were imported, this is difficult to prove given their ubiquity and simple forms. But among these stone beads there is a particular variety known to archaeologists as 'etched beads', about which there must be less doubt. More than 50 etched beads were found

17


during the three seasons at Don Ta Phet (Figures 11 & 12) and about an equal number have come from looted sites in the region around U-Thong town (Glover 1987 and see below), a smaller number from Krabi as noted above, and a few from sites in central and northeast Thailand.13

Most of these belong to the well-known Type 1 etched beads as characterised by Beck (1933), Mackay (1933), and Dikshit (1949) on which a white design is etched, or stained on the natural red or greyish-black of the polished stone surface. Carnelians, which in the raw state are more often salmon pink than red, have usually been roasted to strengthen their colour through oxidization (Possehl1981; Francis 1982b: 2), and the black agates may also have been darkened by boiling them in a sugar syrup followed by oxidation of the organic solution which readily penetrates the microscopic fibrous structure of the chalcedony group of quartz minerals. Most books on gemstones (eg. Bauer 1968: 522-3 and Schumann 1977: 136) indicate that this technique, known for some time in Rome, was introduced from there to ldar-Oberstein in Germany about 1820. But ... examination of etched agates from Thailand and India shows that it was regularty practised in antiquity .

. :~':)

Figure 13 Left: SEM photograph of a striped white on black etched agate bead (sf.1554 '), BDTP context 65. The stress fractures sometimes shown by the etching process are clearly shown. Right: EDAX spectrum from an etched white stripe on bead sf.3355, BDTP. The peaks, from left to right, indicate the presence of AI, Si, P, K, Ca, Ti and Fe.

The technique of etching the surface layers of agate and carnelian extends back to the Harappan Civilization of the western part of South Asia in the 3rd millennium BC and although etched beads were traded west to Mesopotamia at this time (Reade 1979) none of the distinctive Harappan beads have so far been discovered east of the Ganga-Yumna Doab.

Etched beads went through periods of popularity and relative decline in India (Beck 1933: 387-8, and PI. LXXI) although it is unlikely that this very specialised craft died out altogether. After the Harappan period they reappeared in the Ganga

1 8


Valley between about 600 BC and AD 200 (Gaur 1983: fig.4) , and then came back into fashion among Moslem medieval communities, particularly in the region from Iran to Sind, although etched beads have been found as far west as Crimea and the Caucasus. The etched beads from Don Ta Phet most closely match those of the second Indian period, as Chin You-di recognised, and detailed examination by Williams (1984) and myself of the Don Ta Phet beads, those in the British Museum and in the Beck Collection of the University Museum in Cambridge confirm th is resemblance, although we found that there is greater variability in the detailed application of the etching medium and its effect on the beads than either Mackay or Beck recognised. They referred to the application of a paste made from carbonate of soda and the crushed shoots of the kirar plant ( Capparis aphylla ) which is painted onto the polished surface of the bead before it is baked over a charcoal brazier. Experiments by Mackay, Beck and more recently by Williams and Kenoyer (pers. comm) all confirm that white designs can be permanently induced onto the polished surfaces of carnelian by this method, and also that the juice of the kirar plant is not necessary. The latter merely provides a sticky medium so that the caustic soda can be applied in thirflines. On the other hand, using non-destructive analytical methods such as ED · (Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analyzer) we failed to pick up any trace of sodium ept on one bead from the site of Kish in Lower Mesopotamia and on the modern experimental pieces made by Williams (Figure 13). lt may be that sodium, if. it was used, has been leached from most of the archaeological specimens by gr~undwater over the intervening millennia. More experiments and analyses are .. eebed before we can be sure on this point, but we feel that staining media other than sodium may have been used in manufacturing some of these beads, and this could point to various centres of manufacture.

Not all the etched beads from Thailand can easily be .referred to Indian types of Beck's second period and there is one variety in particular, of large asymmetric pendants stained in alternating bands of black and white on the natural red carnelian (Figure 6) that has only one, and a not very close, parallel so far published from India. Dikshit refers to this as Type Ill, Variety B, and illustrates a unique specimen from Bhita near Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh where it is roughly dated to sometime between the 3rd century BC and the 6th century AD (Dikshit 1949: 14 and PI IV, and K.P. Gupta pers. comm., June 1983). Other examples of this type have come from Don Ta Phet, Kok Samrong, Don Makkak and Ban Tung Ketchet , all within 25 kms of U-Thong town (Glover 1987), and in January 1988 there was one broken specimen on exhibition in the National Museum, Bangkok from Air Marshal Montri's collection, which is also thought to have been found near UThong .

Rather comparable to these beads, but more roughly made and in two colours only, are two large etched agate beads from Likiang on the eastern border of Tibet, the source of which puzzled Beck (1933: 393). Since Beck wrote many Tibetan etched agates have been illustrated, particularly in the journal Ornament (Liu 1980, Ebbinghouse and Winsten 1982, and Alien 1982) and it is clear that Tibet, particularly somewhere in the Kamba territories on the east, was another centre for the manufacture of etched agates and carnelians, and that in this tradition the practice of staining the natural stone black before etching the white lines was well established . White etching on red carne lian is rare , or absent among Tibetan beads, at least a~ong those so far published, of which the most common are the so-called Dzi or 'Eye Beads', which became cult objects in the 1960s and 70s

1 9


among the neo-Buddhists of the west coast of the United States. A similar technique, using fossilized wood rather than agate seems to have been practised somewhere in northeastern India up to comparatively recent times, for such beads, referred to as Pumtex (Alien 1986) are common heirlooms of various tribal groups on the northern borders of India and Burma.

Apart from Don Ta Phet and the region around U-Thong, very few etched beads have so far been recognised or published from Southeast Asia (see Figure 1 for the distribution) and despite the relative lack of systematic excavation in most countries it is my feeling that they will always be rather rare east of India. In Thailand I know only of about 10 unprovenanced etched beads also in the former collection of Air-Marshal Montri Hanwichai (including the one mentioned earlier); seven beads from Khao Sam Kao, Chumpon District in the peninsula illustrated by Srisvohat (1987) and Veraprasert (1987: 356); at least two from Khlong Thom14; one black agate disc bead with radial white lines (a typical southern Indian type, see Dikshit 1949 PI. V, 24-25) which was illustrated by Pornchai Suchitta 15 from an unprovenanced site in Southern Thailand; one from the monastery location at Ban Chiang and now in the site museum there 16; and one in a private collection of antiquities from Saraburi, north of Bangkok. Undoubtedly others exist in provincial museums and private and temple collections but they have not so far been unambiguously distinguished from multicolour glass beads which were later made in imitation of the etched stone beads; compare for example the glass beads illustrated by Bronson (1990: fig.2), and the etched agate beads from Taxila (Beck 1941). Within Southeast Asia and outside Thailand, etched beads are even rarer: Evans (1928a: 123 & 1928b: 139) reports what seem to be several etched agate and carnelian beads among from the ancient settlement at Tanjong Rawa, Kalumpang Island, Kuala Selinsing, Malaya; a few haye been found on the island of Palawan in the Philippines (Fox 1970: col. Pl.1a); three were excavated at Leang Buidane Cave in the Talaud Islands of north-central Indonesia (Bellwood 1978: 275-6 and fig.1 0); one has been published from the excavations at the early city of Beikthano in Central Burma (Aung Thaw 1968: fig .76), one cylindrical etched carnelian was found in Tomb 13 at Shi Zhai Shan (Zuo Ming 1974), and another was found in Tomb 24 at Lijiashan (Zhang Zhenqi 1987: 110), both in Yunnan Province, South China. These examples are rather securely dated to the Western Han period ( 175-118 BC) and are very similar to two of the beads from burial context 73 at Don Ta Phet (Glover et al . fig . 46), and to many in northern India (cf. Jamal Hassan 1982: 133) .

All the examples from Southeast Asia (with the exception of the large asymmetric banded black, red and white specimens mentioned earlier) can be found represented in collections in India, and they best match those from Beck's Middle Period (500 BC - AD 200) although there are many varieties which are common in India and rare in Southeast Asia - such as the flat black agate disc bead with radial lines reported by Evans (1928a & b) at Kuala Selinsing and seen by Suchitta in Peninsular Thailand. If we are to look for the closest match for the Don Ta Phet beads within the Indian subcontinent, then we must look to sites in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and especially to Taxili! in the northern Punjab. Beck ( 1941: 390-1) mentions 41 etched beads found during Marshall's excavations early in the century and more have been found in later seasons there, mostly at the Sirkap mound. All these can be dated to a few hundred years before and after the start of the Christian Era.

20


Other types of bead Apart from the etched beads, there is one large carnelian pendant carved in the

form of a leaping lion (Figures 14 & 15) which is almost certainly Indian in origin (and a small broken fragment of another or similar animal was found in context 46 at BDTP) Parallels for these pieces have been found at Khlong Thorn in Peninsular T~ailand (Veraprasert 1987: 327), and smaller crouching lion pendants are commonly found in the Buddhist reliquaries of the Gandhara Civilization: see for example the crystal lion (Figure 16) from the Dharnararajika stupa at T axil a (Marshal! 1951, Vol.lll, PI. 496), and the one illustrated by Wilson (1841: Pl.1, 6) in his Ariana Antiqua . Numerous other examples of such lions are to be found in museums with good collections of Gandhara material although few are provenanced and dated. Before represention in human form was acceptable (a tradition which developed only from the 1st century AD) Buddha was often shown by one of his attributes such as the footprint, the umbrella of royalty, the empty throne, or the lotus, bull or elephant to recall the circumstances of his conception and birth, or as a deer to remind devotees of the sermon in the deer park at Sarnath (Coomaraswamy 1966: 30-1). However a particularly common representation was of Buddha as a lion, a reference to him as Shakyasimha , or Lion of the Shakya Clan, and it is highly probable that the lion bead from Don Ta Phet is an early Buddhist icon, and as such probably the earliest witness to Buddhist ideas and values yet recognised in Southeast Asia.

Figure 14 Carnelian lion pendant (sf.3333) from BDTP, context 73, 1981.

21

I. C. -Glover Early Trade between India and Southeast Asia

,~} -~

~· /i~ .t_.y

0 5cm

Figure 15 Carved carnelian lion pendant (sf.3333) from BDTP burial context 73, 1981 . Drawing by Sayan Prishanchit.

Finally , I should mention another sort of bead again, probably an import, but this time from Vietnam. This is a pale green nephrite 17two-headed animal pendant (Figure 17) found inside a bronze bowl in context 324 in the 1985 season at Don Ta Phet. One other bead of this type has been found at, or near U- Thong, and is now with the former collection of Air-Marshal Montri in the National Museum, Bangkok (Chin You-di 1978: fig .2a and p.12) . Two such beads have also been found in the Philippines where they are included in the ethnic category of the lingling-o ornament (Fox 1970: fig.37a & pp.126-31 ), but they are a characteristic, even diagnostic, artifact of the Sa-Huynh Iron Age Culture of the central coastal region of Vietnam (Chua Van Tan 1979: 30-1) and at least one has been found in context at Xuan An, a Dongson Culture site in the southern part of the Red River Valley (Ha Van Tan 1980; Ha Van Tan and Trinh Duong 1977). Over 50 such animal beads have now been found in Vietnam and they are all dated to the last few centuries BC.

22


Figure 16 Crystal crouched lion pendant from the Dharmarajika stupa, T axila. From Marsh all 1951, Plate 49b.

We can summarise the evidence for the beads from Don Ta Phet thus: some, if not all, of the glass and semi-precious stone beads were acquired by exchange from the Buddhist civilizations of northern India. The presence of objects of Buddhist veneration (even though the context of deposition can not be said to be that of established Buddhist religious practice) gives some credence to the traditional Indian historical accounts as preserved for instance in the Mahavamsa and the Sasanavamsappadipika , that Buddhist missionaries such as those said to have been despatched to Suvarnabhumi by the Emperor Asoka, were active in Southeast Asia at this time.

The bronze vessels from Ban Don Ta Phet Bronze was used for three categories of grave furnishings at Don Ta Phet: for

containers (Figure 19), bird figurines (Figure 20), and for ornaments such as bracelets, anklets and small bells (Figure 21-22). The latter are either very simple forms ubiquitous in Southeast Asia or ,such as some high-tin bronze, U-section anklets, found only at Don Ta Phet and the nearby Ongbah Cave. Some of the bronze vessels, however, present strong evidence for contacts with India, as has already been pointed out by Rajpitak and Seeley (1979).

Nearly 300 bronze containers were found in the 90 or so funerary deposits excavated during the three seasons. Many of these are incomplete, having been deliberately broken or crushed before or during burial, and the thin walls and brittle alloy used meant that we had many problems in recovery and conservation. A full

23


....

Cm Figure 17 Two-headed nephrite animal pendant (sf.6184) from BDTP burial context 324, 1985. This is a characteristic artifact type of the iron age Sa Huynh Culture of central coastal Vietnam, and it is believed to have been imported from there in antiquity.

classification of the vessels has not yet been made, but it is clear that there is considerable variation in size, form, and presumably function. There are flatbottomed cylindrical and waisted canisters, more-or-less hemispherical bowls in various sizes, and a few unique pieces such as a stepped, truncated cone, or stupa-like form (Figure 23), a large bucket or situla with thick walls which is made with a high-lead, low-tin bronze. This vessel (Figure 24) is so far unique to Thailand and most closely resembles some objects in bronze and pottery from the contemporary Dongson Culture of North Vietnam, whence I believe it was imported.

24

Occasiom

-·~- " - --

were all

~)from BDTP burial context 324, age Sa Huynh Culture of central

there in antiquity.

but it is clear that there is function . There are flat

hemispherical bowls in stepped, truncated cone, or

thick walls which is made is so far unique to Thailand

and pottery from the whence I believe it was


!Cm M - - - -

,;, •' -·· ···:.: ·: . 1)'

/o : ' - ~ -- .

... 1c -r--r __ _;.~..<E- ~<-. ~\ / .: • • -A -:-) ., • · -.~~- - -. .. .; . ,

~~.,,.~i:~~=-~~;--~~;:~2/J

Figure 18 Iron tools and weapons from BDTP. Flat bar adzes are a common type, but shafthole billhooks are so far known only from BDTP and some disturbed sites in Kanchanaburi, Ratchaburi and Lopburi Provinces of western and central Thailand. The socketed spears were all deliberately mutilated before burial.

25


Figure 20 Bronze fig .608) and cage (sf.485) from burial conte 46, BDTP 1981. Three other bird figurines were found in the 1975-76 season. Nationa Museum, Bangkok.

26

Asia

~) and cage (sf.485) from burial context ound in the 1975-76 season. National

Occasional Paper No.16, Centre forSouth-East Asian Studies, University of Huff

Figure 21 Bronze bracelets with radius and ulna (sf.3491-2), burial context 79, BDTP 1981

Figure 22 High-tin bronze anklets with U section (sf.495) burial context 71 , BDTP 1981.

27

L


Figure 23 Stepped truncated conical lid or 'stupa' in bronze (sf.490) burial context 46, BDTP 1981 . The piece is shown in situ in Fig.8. Bangkok National Museum.

5Cm

Figure 24 Leaded bronze situla (sf.91 0) from burial context 56, BDTP 1981. The drawing shows the reconstructed form of the vessel which was deliberately crushed on burial.

There are several characteristics of these bronze vessels which I want to call attention to: metallic composition, and manufacturing processes, forms and decoration, distribution, and finally their possible function.

28

:ia

(sf.490) burial context 46, BDTP Museum.

56, BDTP 1981. The drawing i~erately crushed on burial.

vessels which I want to call ng processes, forms and


The composition and manufacturing methods have already been mentioned earlier in this paper, and are rather fully discussed by Rajpitak & Seeley (1979: 27-30), and in Rajpitak 1983, so I will only summarise the main points here. Most of the vessels were made of a high-tin bronze (23-28% Sn), cast with thin walls, and were then hot-worked, quenched and annealed to varying degrees. Some vessels (Figures 25-6) had bands of fine incised decoration below the rims and a few included scenes of people, houses, horses, cattle and buffaloes which are also present on more recently discovered (Figure 27) high-tin bronze bowl fragments found during tin mining near the Thai-Burmese border in Ratchaburi Province (Luamai 1986). These pieces remind one of processional scenes on the famous Gundla Iota vessel from the Kulu Hills, Kangra District, now in the British Museum (Figure 28); the glass encrusted shell mirror back from the Hellenistic Treasury at A'i Khamoun (Rapin 1990: 182-99, Plate 84) , and the terracotta plaque from Bhita (Figure 29.

Rajpitak and Seeley ( ibid.) suggest that this intractable alloy used for these bowls was chosen because of its resemblance to yellow gold when freshly polished, and they point to occasional finds of high-tin bronze bowls in India with similar properties, such as those from Adittanalur in Tinnevelly District, Tamilnadu (Re3" 1915), Coimbatore in the Nilgiri Hills (Breeks 1873), and Taxila where Marshal! (1951) found 28 in the Mauryan strata at the Bhir mound. They refer to an interesting observation made by Nearchus when he travelled through this region with the Macedonian army in the 4th century BC and preserved in Strabo's Geography (15.1.67) that the local people used "brass that is cast, not the kind that is forged ... " with the strange result that, "when they fall to the ground they break to pieces like pottery". Such a description fits equally the bowls from the Bhir mound at Taxila and those from Don Ta Phet. Copper-tin alloy artifacts are rare in India (which is deficient in tin) at this period and true brass (copper:zinc), which is not so brittle was only just coming into use. Taking these points into account, and the already demonstrated links between Thailand and northern India, it would seem probable that these high-tin cast bronze vessels (which are outside the normal range of Indian metallurgy). were imported from Southeast Asia.

Figure 25 Rim fragments of incised high-tin bronze bowls from BDTP, 1975-76. One animal appears to be a horse and if this identification is correct the piece provides the earliest evidence for the presence of the horse in Southeast Asia. Bangkok National Museum.

29


jcm- -

Figure 26 Left: bowl with incised decoratiion of people and house structure, above stylized lotus flower decoration which curves under the base, from BDTP, 1975-76. Right: base piece of a similar decorated high-tin bowl from Khao Jamook, Ratchaburi Province. Bangkok and Ratchaburi national Museums,

S I 3

f' . .:.: . -r---1·'-' =-~ Figure 27 Parts 1 and 2 of a second decorated high-tin bowl from Khao Jamook, Ratchburi Province. The small inset shows how they fit together. Ratchaburi National Museum

30

ia

house structure, above stylized BDTP, 1975-76. Right: base Ratchaburi Province. Bangkok

from Khao Jamook, Ratchburi ri National Museum

Occasional Paper Nq.16, Cef/tre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull '···'I .. •

Figure 28 The Gundla Vase was found in a ruined Buddhist stupa at Kulu, Kangra Distri northwest India in 1857 and is traditionally dated to the early centuries of the Christian E1 ~ is now in the British Museum. ..,

Figure 29 Terracotta plaque from Bhita, India. Drawing after G. Lecuyot.

3 1

I. C. Glov~r Early Trade between India and Southeast Asia

Within Southeast Asia bronze vessels with identical composition and similar forms have been recovered from the tin- gravels of western Malaya (Batchelor 1978) and one was found in Ongbah cave on the Kwae Yai River in western Thailand (Sorensen 1974: fig.22) . Fragments of high-tin bronze vessels have also been identified by Rajpitak (1983 : 131 -9) at Kok Khan in Sakorn Nakorn Province, and this unusual and 'difficult' alloy is also found in small quantities at Ban Chiang and Ban Nadi in northeast Thailand (Seeley & Rajpitak 1984: 1 07) in the late prehistoric Iron Age levels. The Tham Ongbah bowl is roughly dated by one radiocarbon date of 2180 ±180 BP (K.300) from a wooden coffin with which the iron tools and bronzes are thought to have been associated, and this is at least in harmony with the other evidence for this sort of material. Batchelor ( 1978) also documents a number of high-tin, hemispherical bowls which have been found over a number of years in the tin gravels of western Malaya. Unfortunately, these cannot be dated.

Knobbed-base vessels Most of the bronze bowls are undecorated and flat or gently curved inside, but a number - at least 20 in the 1980 and 1985 seasons alone - are finished on the inside of the base with a series of concentric circles surrounding a conical boss which is sometimes cast integrally with the vessel, and sometimes rivetted on (Figure 30) .18

I know of only one other example of this type of vessel from Southeast Asia, a bronze bowl in the Guimet Museum collections which is reported to have come from Than Hoa Province of North Vietnam, but in India it occurs in a modified form on at least one of the Nilgiri high-tin bronze bowls now in the British Museum (Breeks 1873); on a silver dish from Taxila (Marshall1960 PI. VII), and it is replicated in pottery in the 'knobbed ware' (Figure 31) first identifieu at Sisulpalgarh, an early historic town site in Orissa (Lal1948 : 89 and PI.XLIV B) In the ~ast 30 years or so this distinctive ceramic form has been recognised at over a dozen sites in Bengal , Orissa and the Ganga Valley (see fig.1 ). lt occurs in a variety of fabrics but seems to be most common in a late phase of Northern Black Polished Ware which can be dated to the last centuries before the Christian Era.

The function of these knobbed-base vessels is not at all clear; for the most part the excavators have beer. satisfied to describe the form, attributing them to a fabric class, noting their stratigraphic context and, if we are lucky, including an illustration. lt is far from certain if they are confined to certain types of functional contexts such as burials or ritual deposits in religious buildings, or whether they were a rare but purely utilitarian form. The Nilgiri bowls almost certainly come from megalithic graves (Knox 1985: 525) and the splendid black granite bowl from near Taxila in Pakistan, which is now in the British Museum (Figure 32) was found in 1861 in the centre of a ruined masonry bu ilding by two zamidars while digging for treasure (Mitra 1862 and Errington 1987). Almost certainly this was a foundation deposit for a stupa.1 9

Whatever the function of the ceramic and metal vessels it is difficult to believe that this stone basin was made for a secular or utilitarian purpose.20

32

G

composition and similar forms n Malaya (Batchelor 1978) and ai River in western Thailand onze vessels have also been Sakorn Nakorn Province, and

11 quantities at Ban Chiang and 984: 107) in the late prehistoric tiated by one radiocarbon date tvith which the iron tools and this is at least in harmony with elor (1978) also documents a i been found over a number of tely, these cannot be dated.

or gently curved inside, but a IS alone - are finished on the lS surrounding a conical boss I, and sometimes rivetted on

essel from Southeast Asia, a ich is reported to have come lia it occurs in a modified form s now in the British Museum 960 PI.VII) , and it is replicated tif1.,;u at Sisulpalgarh, an early B) In the ~ast 30 years or so over a dozen sites in Bengal, variety of fabrics but seems to Polished Ware which can be

all clear; for the most part the

r, attributing them to a fabric ucky, including an illustration.

of functional contexts such er they were a rare but

come from megalithic graves from near Taxila in Pakistan, nd in 1861 in the centre of a for treasure (Mitra 1862 and

deposit for a stupa .1 9 it is difficult to believe that

20


Figure 30 Drawing and photographs of two knobbed-base bro~ze bowls ~rom BDTP, 1981. The concentric circles around the conical knob are seen better m the drawmg.

33


Figure 31 Knobbed-base pottery from Sisulpalgarh, Orissa, India. From Lal1949.

Of course knobbed-base vessels are not confined to South and Southeast Asia. They comprise a well-known component of the Samian ware output from GalloRoman potteries of the 2nd century AD, and there are occasional bronze examples from the Late Bronze or Iron Age in Anatolia and Luristan. I am not willing to speculate about the function of these nor even whether there is any historical relationship between these occurrences widespread in place and time.

34

ia

i South and Southeast Asia. ware output from Galla

occasional bronze examples Luristan. I am not willing to

r there is any historical place and time.


Figure 32 Granite reliquary in the British Museum which was found with a crystal hamsa and gold foil inscription in a shrine at Taxila (BM 1867 4-27-1 & 2). See End note 19.

But reverting to those found in eastern India and Thailand, I think that, given the other evidence for connections across the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Early Historic Period, it is difficult to believe that these formal similarities arose quite independently in the two areas. Rather, I believe that these similarities provide yet further evidence for the penetration of Indian material culture style into Southeast Asia. If we seek an explanation for the meaning of the base knob and concentric circles, then I think that this should be seen as a commonly understood mandala, a schematic cosmological symbol representing perhaps Mt Meru and the surrounding oceans. These containers, whether of bronze, stone or pottery did not serve as everyday cooking, serving or food display vessels, but served some special purpose for ritual and funerary use only. They are witness to the adoption in Thailand, by some groups, of Indian moral, philosophical and political concepts. The finds on which this argument is based can be dated with reasonable certainty to the last few centuries BC and reinforce the position of Ban Don Ta Phet as the earliest 'lndianizing' site so far recognised in Thailand.

Summary The presence of two categories of material at Don Ta Phet: bronze ritual vessels, and carved carnelian lions, both having symbolic functions in Indian Buddhism, together with the other evidence for mutual exchange between northern and

35


eastern India and Thailand strongly suggests that Indian traders, and perhaps even Buddhist missionaries, were already active, in Southeast Asia well before the

· Christian Era. Wheeler was correct to argue a generation ago on the basis of the evidence that the few items at that time known to be derived from India or the Roman world came there through "drift" rather than through organised commercial relationships, but enough evidence is now at hand to refute this interpretation and to show that Southeast Asia was already part of a world trading system linking the civilizations of the Mediterranean Basin and Han China.

Acknowledgements The fieldwork on which much of this article is based was done in cooperation with the Fine Arts Department of Thailand and I particularly want to thank the various Directors General and Mr Pisit Charoenwongsa of the Division of Archaeology for their very great help. The research was supported by the British Academy, the Hayter and Gordon Childe Funds of the University of London, the Evans Fund of Cambridge, the Royal Society of the Antiquaries of London, and the British Museum. I am especially grateful to Kalyan P. Gupta, Dr Himanshu Ray, K.N. Dikshit, Rafiq Mughal, Surapol Natapintu, Robert Knox and Dr E. Errington for their help in tracking down various Indian parallels for the material from Don T a Phet, and calling my attention to new discoveries. Figures 3 and 4 are reproduced by permission of the publishers of Asian Perspectives, Figure 16 by courtesy of the Director of Archaeology of the Government of Pakistan, Figure 30 is reproduced by courtesy of the Director General of Archaeology of India, and Figur~ 32 by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.

Notes 1. Most publications on Khlong Thom are in Thai and others are unpublished reports available only in Bangkok. At the time of writing the most accessible publications are Veraprasert (1987) and Bronson (1990). The former refers to the more significant accounts written in Thai, except Srisvohat 1987 which contains by far the best illustrations.

2. Martin Henig of the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford has seen the photograph of these seals and has kindly provided me with these identifications. The seal showing Tyche he compares with the following; Nos.1 02-5, page 15 in Henig & Whiting (eds) 1985, and to Nos. 602-4 in Sena Chiesa 1966. The 'fighting cocks' seal he refers to Sena Chiesa 1966: No. 1341 , page 1341

3. Ray (1988 & 1990) basing her arguments on the development of shipping, follows the traditional chronology for early trade across the Bay of Bengal, while allowing that coastal trade on both sides of the Bay was probably well developed in the first millennium BC.

4. Miksic (1985: 1-35) presents a useful synthesis of the growth of external trade in the region around the Malay Peninsula from later prehistory to the 19th century AD.

5. Since there was no free charcoal in the site which could be associated with the burials, and thermoluminescence dating did not give consistent results, we had to look for a new source of datable material and this was provided by the organic temper (mainly rice) in some of the pottery which is a very friable, low fired earthenware and is unlikely to have been in use for long, and the rice inclusions which yielded the carbon are also from a short-lived plant. The British Museum date has too large a standard error because of the type of counter used, but the four Oxford dates are essentially the same and in order to obtain a single figure we have calculated a weighted mean of these as 2265±37 BP. Calibrating this date according to the tables in Stuiver and Pearson (1986:837) we get a range of 2340-231 0 BP or 360-390 BC. On these grounds therefore we date the cemetery at Ban Don Ta Phet to

36

n traders, and perhaps even 'heast Asia well before the tion ago on the basis of the e derived from India or the ·ough organised commercial ·efute this interpretation and Id trading system linking the

as done in cooperation with Y want to thank the various Division of Archaeology for Y the British Academy, the London, the Evans Fund of f London, and the British Himanshu Ray, K.N. Dikshit ~ E . , ..... rnngton for their help in I m Don T a Phet, and calling ~produced by permission of :~urtesy of the Director of . IS reproduced by courtesy gure 32 by courtesy of the

1ers are. unpublished reports accessible publications are

the more significant accounts e best illustrations.

een the photograph of these ~~e seal showing Tyche he

h1trng (eds) 1985, and to Nos. rs to Sena Chiesa 1966: No.

nent of shipping, follows the .1, while allowing that coastal he first millennium BC.

>wth of external trade in the 9th century AD.

associated with the burials s, we had to look for a neV.: te_mper_(mainly rice) in some l IS unlikely to have been in ~re also from a short-lived

mr bec.ause of the type of 1e and rn order to obtain a ~265±37 BP. Calibrating this ve get a range of 2340-231 o etery at Ban Don Ta Phet to


the earlier part of the 4th century BC The. results support, but not prove, the argument that the deposits at Don Ta Phet were laid down over a very short time.

Laboratory No. Burial context sf. no. Libby age BM-21 06R 67 1502 2190±230 OxA-2012 60 1224 2280±70 OxA-2013 78 3360b 2320±80 OxA-2014 59 1480 221 0±70 OxA-2015 65 1578 2260±80

5730 half life 2257±230 2348±70 2390±80 2276±70 2328±80

6. Not all the excavation team agreed about this interpretation of the stratigraphic feature: Alvey (1983, 1990) is more inclined to see the burial as being made in separate shallow graves with low mounds above each. Erosion of these mounds led to a certain scattering of pottery, beads and bronze fragments beyond the immediate area of the interment. To me however, the explanation that most of the funerary deposits were laid out on a single occasion in one large pit, as secondary burials, takes into account most of the observations made during the two seasons, particularly the even depth of burials, the regularity of spacing and orientation, the similar range of grave furnishings, the fragmentary state of bones, and the fact that parts of some bronze, and perhaps also ceramic, vessels Wef.e missing from the graves. These explanations are not however, totally mutually exclusive. Unfortunately the construction of a road to the school between 1981 and 1984, trenches made during the 1975-76 Thai excavations, and opportunistic digging by the villagers of Don Ta Phet meant that we could not find evidence for a bank and ditch on the northern and eastern sides of the cemetery.

7. Only one burial (context 362 in the 1984-85 season) presented clear evidence that some of the glass beads had been strung together as in a necklace.

8. A comparative study of early Thai and Indian glass beads is being undertaken by Mr Kishor Basa, a Research Student at the Institute of Archa~ology, University College London; the comments made here are preliminary and may be changed in the light of his research.

9. Glass beads simulating natural emerald or beryl crystals seem to be rare in museum collections from the Mediterranean world . To date we have only found two in the holdings of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities of the British Museum. One (BM 81-7-9-8) is 33.9 cm long by 23.3 cm in diameter and is made of a translucent watery green glass and appears to have been drilled for suspension, as a natural gemstone would be. Only the surface weathering and refractions from the hydration layers clearly showed that it was made of glass. lt was accessed to the museum in 1881, and the catalogue entry, difficult to read, suggests that it comes from Amarit . The other piece (BM 87-7-6-25 from Tyre) is smaller, darker, more weathered but also is clearly made in the form of the hexagonal crystal of the beryl group (cf. Schumann 1977:90-6).

10. The composition of the glass beads at Ban Don Ta Phet has been investigated by Kishor Basa as part of his Ph.D. project, and we must await the completion of this before evaluating the results.

11. Malleret (1962: PI. LVI) illustrates glass beads of this sort from Oc-Eo in the TransBassac district of South Vietnam.

12. During her examination of the drill holes in the agate and carnelian beads from Don Ta Phet, Williams (1984) observed distinctive regular concentric grooves which she was unable to replicate using either metal or stone drill bits with abrasive sands. In a letter to me dated 24th July 1986 Or Leonard Gorelik suggested that such marks, which he had observed on

37


ancient beads from Mantai in Sri Lanka, Arikamedu in South India, on beads made by contemporary Cambay craftsmen, and replicated in his own experiments, could only have been produced by the use of diamond-tipped drills. The case for this at Mantai and Arikamedu is set out in Gwinnett & Gorelik 1986.

13. Every time I visit Thailand I have been shown more etched beads in private collections and provincial museums, and a detailed study of the range of their forms and techniques of manufacture would be timely. My preliminary observations suggest that Thai etched beads are not simply a random sample of the range of South Asian beads, so either Indian beadmakers produced for and exported to a discriminating market, or there was a yet undiscovered 'eastern' centre of manufacturing etched beads.

14. At least two etched beads (one white on black agate and one white on red carnelian) .were illustrated by Veraprasert in a presentation made to the Research Conference on Early Southeast Asia in Nakorn Pathom in April 1985, but they are not included in the only published version so far available of this talk (Veraprasert 1987). They are probably among those illustrated in Srisvohat (1987).

15. This etched bead was illustrated by Or Pornchai Suchitta in a presentation entitled "Early Glass and stone beads and ornaments in Thailand" given in the symposium IslandMainland Relations in late Prehistory on 1st February 1985 in the 12th Congress of the lndo-Pacific Prehistory Association at Penablanca, Philippines. This talk has not been published as far as I am aware. The specimen is possibly illustrated in Srisvohat 1987, although I have not been able to verify this.

16. This etched agate from Ban Chiang is not to my knowledge published, but was seen in the site museum there in January 1985. lt is a spherical black agate bead, 2cm diameter with three 'latitudinal' white bands, a type common at Don Phet. See, for instance, Glover et al. 1984 Fig.46, no. 73). This Ban Chiang bead is catalogued as 18912515 (1972) 437, and was donated to the museum by Prakru Vimolpamyakorn, the Abbot of Wat Bothi Sri Narai at Ban Chiang, and is said to have been found in the excavations in the monastery compound. lt is almost certainly from the Late Period at Ban Chiang, which White (1986: 279) now dates to 300 BC - AD 300, and should be nearly enough contemporary with the occurrence of this type at Don Ta Phet.

17. These bicephalous pendants are usually called jade in the literature but to my knowledge no previous finds have so far been mineralogically identified. In 1985 we were fortunate in having one small broken fragment from the handle of the pendant from Ban Don Ta Phet, and this was identified as actinolite by Or D.R.C. Kempe of the Department of Mineralogy of the British Museum (Natural History). Actinolite is an amphibole and includes nephrite, one of the two jade minerals, and Or Kempe comments that "it is safe to call this jade." (pers. comm. 14.3.1985).

18. There is some variability in the size and specific form of the bronze knobbed-base vessels at Don Ta Phet. Generally they have steep, almost vertical sides curving to a flat base, with some thickening in the centre of the base and at the rim . The walls are exceptionally thin, less than 0.5mm in some cases, and the vessels appear to have been turned or ground on a rotary device. The number and design of concentric circles varies also, but seven circles are commonly found, sometimes with a 'dot and circle' motif between the larger rings. A detailed study of the variability and manufacturing methods employed on these vessels has been started and will be included in a final report on the site.

19. This circular black granite vessel (BM 1867 4-27-1) was found in 1861 together with a crystal hamsa or goose (BM 1867 4-27-2) which was said to be resting on the centre cone of the bowl, and an inscribed piece of gold leaf, some 3 inches long known as the "Taxila scroll". The first two pieces were given by Cunningham to the British Museum in 1867 but the

38

ia, on beads made by 'ments, could only have for this at Mantai and

ds in private collections forms and techniques of that Thai etched beads eads, so either Indian et, or there was a yet

white on red carnelian) h Conference on Early

ot included in the only ey are probably among

a presentation entitled the symposium Islanda 12th Congress of the his talk has not been ted in Srisvohat 1987,

!lished, but was seen in te bead, 2cm diameter , for instance, Glover et 9/2515 (1972) 437, and f Wat Bothi Sri Narai at monastery compound.

le (1986: 279) now dates • h the occurrence of this

le literature but to my .tified. In 1985 we were ~ pendant from Ban Don le of the Department of amphibole and includes ~at "it is safe to call this

' bronze knobbed-base 11 sides curving to a flat lhe rim. The walls are Is appear to have been loncentric circles varies l"d circle' motif between I methods employed on In the site.

in 1861 together with a ~g on the centre cone of ~ known as the "Taxila Museum in 1867 but the

Occasional Papf!r No.16, Centre for South-East Asian Studies, · University of Hull

scroll was declared lost although not before a transcription was made and later publishec reads "(Gift) of Sira, depositing a relic of the Lord in the hamsa of her mother, the hams< her father. Might it become its place when a corporeal birth comes". (Errington 1987: 177· The British Museum attributes these pieces to Cunningham's Tape 32 of the Gangu grc (Taxila), but Errington ( ibid .) argues that they more probably came from another s perhaps the Taxi la Stupa 41, further west between Shahr Dheri and Usman Khattar. whatever the specific location there seems to be no doubt that the granite bowl wa Buddhist reliquary from the ruins of a religious building.

20. Sri K.N. Dikshit (A.S.I.) in a letter dated 22.1.85 suggested that the pottery knobb base bowls may have been "used by Buddhist monks as a special type of bowl from the century BC to the beginning of the Christian Era".

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EARL V TRADE BETWEEN INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: A LINK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WORLD TRADING SYSTEM

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