The Maritime Silk Road: Global Connectivities, Regional Nodes, Localities

2022·4.1 MB·English

by  Franck Billé

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The Maritime Silk Road
Global Connectivities,
Regional Nodes, Localities
The Maritime Silk Road
Asian Borderlands
Asian Borderlands presents the latest research on borderlands in Asia as well as
on the borderlands of Asia – the regions linking Asia with Africa, Europe and
Oceania. Its approach is broad: it covers the entire range of the social sciences
and humanities. The series explores the social, cultural, geographic, economic
and historical dimensions of border-making by states, local communities and
flows of goods, people and ideas. It considers territorial borderlands at various
scales (national as well as supra- and sub-national) and in various forms (land
borders, maritime borders), but also presents research on social borderlands
resulting from border-making that may not be territorially fixed, for example
linguistic or diasporic communities.
Series Editors
Tina Harris, University of Amsterdam
Willem van Schendel, University of Amsterdam
Editorial Board
Franck Billé, University of California Berkeley
Duncan McDuie-Ra, University of New South Wales
Eric Tagliacozzo, Cornell University
Yuk Wah Chan, City University Hong Kong
The Maritime Silk Road
Global Connectivities, Regional Nodes, Localities
Edited by
Franck Billé,
Sanjyot Mehendale and
James W. Lankton
Amsterdam University Press
Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden
Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout
isbn 978 94 6372 224 7
e-isbn 978 90 4855 242 9 (pdf)
doi 10.5117/9789463722247
nur 682
Creative Commons License CC BY NC ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-nd/3.0)
 All authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2022
Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 9
The Maritime Silk Road: An Introduction 11
Franck Billé, Sanjyot Mehendale, and James Lankton
Global Connectivities
1 Spaces, Places and Things 27
The Spatial Dimension of Early Indian Ocean Exchange
Eivind Heldaas Seland
2 Open Space and Flexible Borders 45
Theorizing Maritime Space through Premodern
Sino-Islamic Connections
Hyunhee Park
3 From Regional to Global 71
Early Glass and the Development of the Maritime Silk Road
James W. Lankton
Regional Nodes
4 Archaeological Evidence of Shipping and Shipbuilding Along
The Maritime Silk Road 97
Jun Kimura
5 Networks and Cultural Mapping of South Asian Maritime Trade 129
Ariane de Saxcé
6 Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean World 149
Relocating Agency from the “Center” to the “Periphery” and from the
Maritime Silk Road to the Maritime Ivory Route
Shadreck Chirikure
Localities
7 Chinese Ceramics on the Maritime Silk Road 179
The Importance of Context
John N. Miksic
8 Urban Demographics along the Asian Maritime Silk Road 215
Archaeological Small Finds and Settlement Patterns at Premodern
Port-Settlements of the Malay Region
Derek Heng
9 Indian Ocean Trade through Buddhist Iconographies 243
Osmund Bopearachchi
Contributors 267
Index 271
List of Figures
1.1 Ortelius’s historical map of the Indian Ocean, with sea
snakes off the coast of India 29
1.2 The production of historical space 31
1.3 Viewshed of selected features near Berenike, Egypt 34
1.4 Sea-to-land visibility in the Red Sea 34
1.5 Ras Fartak/Cape Syagros, viewed from the west 35
1.6 Ras Filuk/Cape Elephant, viewed from the west 35
1.7 Map of the Aksumite kingdom; Red Sea coast to the left 37
1.8 South India with the temple at Muziris 38
2.1 Sea routes connecting the Islamic Middle East and China
described by Ibn Khurradādhbih and Jia Dan 51
2.2 A prototype of Balkhī School world maps (10th century) 53
2.3 The five great seas described by Zhou Qufei, Lingwai daida
([1178] 1999) 59
2.4 Map in Zhi Pan, Fozu tongji (1265–1270, 255) 60
2.5 The Eastern Ocean/junk zone and the Western Ocean/dhow
zone 63
4.1 Scale models ships 100
4.2 Map of excavated ships in the Southeast Asian waters 101
4.3 Pegged mortise and tenon joints, based on the Uluburun
shipwreck, 1300 BCE 103
4.4 Buried hull strakes of the Pak Khlong Kluay shipwreck 106
4.5 Mortise with a surviving portion of a peg in place 106
4.6 Inner surface of the hull plank 106
4.7 Photograph of a sewn-plank boat (sambūq or kambārī) from
Zafar, Oman 109
4.8 Second photograph of a sewn-plank boat from Zafar, Oman 109
4.9 Excavated sternpost (or stempost) section and planks of the
Phanom Surin ship 109
4.10 Pahlavi script on the torpedo container jar from the Phanom
Surin shipwreck 110
4.11 Pahlavi script on the fragrant woods, possibly dating to the
eighth century CE 111
4.12 Ewers from the Belitung shipwreck and from the Gallery of
Horyu-ji Treasures 112
4.13 Structure of the Punjulharjo shipwreck 114
4.14 Shapes of the Punjulharjo shipwreck hull and of the Chau
Tan shipwreck 116
4.15 Woven palm fiber for SEA ship construction without metal
fastenings 116
4.16 Butt joint of SEA ship timbers 117
4.17 Holes of blind dowels at the longitudinal butt with hooked
scarf joints 117
4.18 Salvaged ceramics of the Chau Tan shipwreck 118
4.19 Exposed hull of the Nanhai No.1 shipwreck 120
5.1 Indian Ocean networks of trade according to the Periplus 131
5.2 Indian Ocean networks of trade according to the Periplus,
without geolocalization 131
5.3 Indian Ocean networks of trade according to archaeological
data 133
5.4 Distribution of containers 136
5.5 Distribution of ornaments 137
5.6 Distribution of valuables 138
5.7 Distribution of bullae, molded ware, figurines, and jewels 140
5.8 Distribution of moldmade ware and an example 141
5.9 Distribution and examples of bullae 142
5.10 Distribution and examples of terracotta figurines, from the
Deccan and the Tamil area 143
5.11 Distribution map of jewelry and some examples from Sri
Lanka and South India 144
7.1 Map of Southeast Asia 181
7.2 Sumatran trade model 183
7.3 Road to Dieng Plateau 187
7.4 Musi River at Palembang, South Sumatra 192
7.5 Laying out excavation site at Kota Cina, northeast Sumatra 193
7.6 Midai Island, fourteenth-century ceramics 195
7.7 Yuan Dynasty jar, from eastern Riau Archipelago, Indonesia 196
7.8 Removal of fifteenth-century jars from Site 4, Cardamom
Mountains, Cambodia 200
8.1 Venn diagram of social differentiation based on economic
activities, aesthetic preferences, and purchasing power 220
8.2 Map of the Sungei Bujang settlement area 223
8.3 Excavated sites of the Temasik period 228
9.1 Buddhist sites and regions in South Asia 248
9.2 The Eight Great Perils 250
9.3 Two sides pillar from site no. 37 of the Nāgārjunakoṇḍa 253
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the patience and resilience of our contributors as the
project suffered a number of setbacks on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Heartfelt thanks go as well to our colleagues who generously offered com-
ments and suggestions. Particular thanks go to Chapurukha Kusimba
and Steven Sidebotham, whose own work on the Maritime Silk Road was
invaluable.
The authors also gratefully acknowledge the financial and institutional sup-
port of the Tang family, the Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, UC Berkeley,
and the Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley.
Finally, we would like to thank the series editors, Willem van Schendel and
Tina Harris, our copy-editor Lila Stromer, our indexer Cynthia Col, as well
as Evangeline McGlynn for her work on the maps.