provenance research on 14th-century greenwares found in singapore

Stulemeijer: Provenance Research on 14th-Century Greenwares Found in Singapore NSC Working Paper No. 9
local manufacture, ch’ih chin (already obsolete coinage, when Dayuan wrote
his remarks), porcelain ware, iron pots, and suchlike.
These historical descriptions are thus far the only direct descriptions of the two known
inhabited locations in ancient Singapore. Both locations seem to have thrived on trade,
either regulated or unregulated. Important is the mention of porcelain ware being used in
trade. Greenware is in Chinese a porcelain ware; in Chinese there are only words for
Earthenware (Taoqi 陶 器 ), and Porcelain (Ciqi 瓷 器 ). In the Modern Chinese language, there
is another term for the modern concept of "stoneware" (shiqi 炻 器 ) 1 .
It is unknown whether there was one or there were several production centres exporting
their Greenware products to Singapore in the fourteenth century. This <strong>research</strong> will likely
be able to identify if the Greenware objects found in Singapore were produced in several
areas in China or only one. If there was one production centre trading its wares through and
in Singapore, it is likely that the other products named by Wang Dayuan were also from or
traded with one area in China.
14 th -century Singapore seems to have been unique in other ways in addition to its
geographical location. There seem to be no similar ports-of-trade in the region fulfilling the
same purpose as Singapore. There were vaguely similar locations earlier and later but none
at the same time as Singapore. Kota Cina in North Sumatra played the same role around the
turn of the first millennium, as did Palembang in South Sumatra, though more up river, not
so near the coast in the 7 th through 12 th Century, and then later there was Malacca in the
late 14 th early 15 th Century. Nor were there similar places in Vietnam, the Philippines, Siam
(Thailand), or Majapahit (Indonesia).
For local trade, by which I mean trade within the Southeast Asian region, little is known. As
A. B. Lapian (1985) mentions, the Orang Laut, though not a term preferred by these ‘people
of the sea’, were an extensive group of people who lived their lives on or next to the sea.
They could be found from Thailand to Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Singapore, Kalimantan,
1 Information and Chinese characters provided by Sharon Wong Wai Yee PhD.
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