lectures

1. Urbanism in a Southeast Asian Context
Malay World Seminar Series Number 3
Lives in Ancient Southeast
Asian Cities
John N. Miksic
National University of Singapore
Southeast Asia as a Centre of Ancient Urbanism
Forts, Ports, Palaces, Temples, Markets

3. What’s Special about Southeast
Asia?
• Environmental Diversity
• Low Population Density
• Location at the Crossroads of the World

4. Southeast Asia, 50 CE

6. Angkor: “Nagara”
Yashodharapura, from
Sanskrit pur, “rampart,
fortification”

7. The Unique Relationship of Cambodian Ecology, Art, and Politics.
Angkor’s
three centres

9. Phnom Kulen:
Jayavarman II, 802

10. Urban-rural divide in Angkor:
Suryavarman II at court on a mountainside

12. Social types: the
ascetic

13. Banteay
Srei

14. Importance of Phnom, “hills” in the mental landscape of ancient
Southeast Asians

15. Commoners
and slaves

16. The army as a
mirror for
society: Status
differentiation
in Khmer
culture

18. The “Chinese House”

19. Trade and Markets
 Zhou Daguan, Chinese visitor, 1296: “The
quarter around the south gate of the city is
the real trade centre.” Marketing mainly
controlled by women.

20. French archaeologist B.P. Groslier found many Chinese as well as Persian ceramics
near the south gate of Angkor Thom.

21. Chinese Porcelain
around 1000 CE
Persian Turquoise Fritware
Sherd

22. Chinese
mission came
to Southeast
Asia in 1320
to buy tame
elephants.
Went to three
places:
Champa,
Cambodia,
Longya men
(Singapore)

23. Chinese porcelain:
much more in Alam Melayu than
on the mainland
 Different buying power because natural
products sought by China were in Alam
Melayu;
 Alam Melayu more accessible;
 Alam Melayu more interested in trade as an
occupation
 Orang Melayu were the main shippers.

24. Alam Melayu:
Borobudur ship,
800 CE;
Bali coast, 100
CE

27. Winds and Sea Routes

28. ALAM MELAYU ON
THE BASIS OF
CERAMIC STYLE

30. Sungai Batu, Kedah

36. Marco Polo, 1292, Ma Huan, 1430: “””We disembarked from our ships and
for fear of these nasty and brutish folk who kill men for food we dug a big
trench round our encampment, extending down to the shore of the
harbour at either end. On the embankment of the trench we built five
wooden towers or forts; and within these fortifications we lived for five
months.”

37. Kota Cina “Chinese Fort”
11th to 13th centuries
Possible overseas Chinese settlement
First described in 1825

38. Coexistence of
Buddhists, Hindus.

39. Malay
Pottery

41. Chinese Pottery
(30%)

42. Arabo-
Persian
pottery;
Patani;
Indian
beads

43. Life in Kota Cina
• Probably multi-ethnic. Permanent Malay
population, seasonal visits by Indians,
Chinese, Arabs, Persians
• Occupational specialization – goldsmiths,
etc.
• Used Chinese coins as medium of
exchange
• Reasons for rise, decline unknown; existed
from 1080 to 1250. Maybe connected with
Aru in Malay Annals.

45. Majapahit
1292-1525.

46. On our way we stayed to look at a fragment of
the ruins of the ancient city of Modjo-pahit,
consisting of two lofty brick masses, apparently
the sides of a gateway. The extreme perfection
and beauty of the brickwork astonished me. The
bricks are exceedingly fine and hard, with sharp
angles and true surfaces. They are laid with
great exactness, without visible mortar or
cement, yet somehow fastened together so that
the joints are hardly perceptible, and sometimes
the two surfaces coalesce in a most
incomprehensible manner. Such admirable
brickwork I have never seen before or since.
Traces of buildings exist for many miles in every
direction, and almost every road and pathway
shows a foundation of brickwork beneath it - the
paved roads of the old city.
[Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, 1869: p. 77]

48. Nawanatya, a literary work composed to be read aloud in the court of
Majapahit, asks "What is called the nagara? All where one can go out (of
his compound) without passing through paddy fields". In Islamic
Mataram, negara referred to a royal residence, in the lands called
negara agung; further away were the manca negara.

51. Wells

56. Makam Puteri Chempa; Chinese,
Thai, Vietnamese pottery

58. Urban relationship with its hinterland: still poorly known

59. Raffles meets the Temenggong, 1819

62. Adityawarman: King of
Malayu, Sumatra, 1343-1375

63. The Singapore
Stone

67. Items brought to trade include gold, silk, floral pattern cloth, pottery, metal pots.
Trading goods of Quanzhou are obtained by piracy. Oceangoing large ships heading
towards the western oceans are not hindered by the indigenous (people). When
returning boats approach the Straits of Karimun, the sailors have to install arrow
guards and special cloth screens and sharpen weapons to prepare for defense.
200-300 ships inevitably come. If one is lucky to have a good wind it is possible
to escape but if they get caught, people are slaughtered and their goods are
taken.
Longya men: Men and women reside beside Chinese people. [They wear a] bun
hairstyle [and] short blue/green shirt (bu).These clothes are of low quality.

68. Xian [“Siam”, somewhere in the lower Chao Phraya
valley.]
In recent years the Xian [”people of Shan”] came with
seventy odd junks and raided Dan-ma-xi and attacked the
city moat. The town resisted for a month, the place
having closed the gates and defending itself, and they not
daring to assault it. It happened just then that an Imperial
envoy was passing by Dan-ma-xi, so the men of Xian drew
off and hid, after plundering Xi-li.

75. Suan: “computation”

76. 15th century persistence:
Melaka period

77. “Whoever is lord of
Malacca has his hand on
the throat of Venice.”
Tome Pires, 1515

78. Ponti Vecchio, Firenze

81. Hang Tuah’s Tomb