Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:12:41.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Metal production and social organisation in fourteenth-century Singapore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2020

Shah Alam Zaini
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ancient Singapore is often discussed exclusive of its cultural and historical context, a backward projection of the modern, independent city-state. Temasek is understood mainly in terms of being a maritime entrepôt with extensive trade connections. This research is interested in Temasek as a proto-historic Malay port-city, namely its social, political and economic organisation. It is an aspect of early Singapore, and of the Malay World, in general, we know very little about. However, more than three decades of archaeology have provided a wealth of data related to daily life in the settlement and the data has provided hints of a diverse sociocultural landscape. This study focuses on the relationship between metal production and social organisation, and employs a conceptual and interpretative framework that is both multidisciplinary and cross-cultural. Craft production is as much a social and political phenomenon as an economic and technological one, and studies of production systems can shed light on issues of power and control over resources and labour. The data suggest the presence of a social stratum that could generate and mobilise resources independent of the ruling elite. Metals were rare and valuable commodities during this period, however, the ruling class in Temasek did not appear to control nor restrict production of iron and copper-based goods as it did with glass. The results are by no means the final word on ancient Singapore or Malay society. Instead it provides a provisional model that can be tested with archaeological data, refined and expanded as more material becomes available.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 489 - 506
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For a summary of material dating to c.2003 see Miksic, John N., Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300–1800 (Singapore: NUS Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The Malay World here refers to the eastern coastal regions of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and parts of southern Thailand. It is not a culturally homogenous zone.

3 See for example, Christie, Jan W., ‘State formation in early maritime Southeast Asia: A reconsideration of the theories and data’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 151, 2 (1995): 235–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Day, Tony, Fluid iron: State formation in Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Tambiah, Stanley J., ‘The galactic polity in early Southeast Asia’, in Culture, thought and social action: An anthropological perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 252–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolters, Oliver, History, culture and region in Southeast Asian perspectives, rev. ed. (Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University; Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See for example, Peter V. Lape, ‘On the use of archaeology and history in Island Southeast Asia’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 45, 4 (2002): 468–91.

5 Henry T. Wright, ‘Developing complex societies in Southeast Asia: Using archaeological and historical evidence’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology 2, 4 (1998): 344.

6 Ibid.

7 Cathy L. Costin, ‘Craft production systems’, in Archaeology at the millennium: A sourcebook, ed. Gary M. Feinman and Douglas T. Price (New York: Kluwer Academic, 2001), p. 274.

8 Shah Alam Mohamed Zaini, ‘Metals and metalworking at the Parliament House Complex, Singapore’, M.A. thesis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1997).

9 See for example, Bennet Bronson, ‘Patterns in the early Southeast Asian metals trade’, in Early metallurgy, trade and urban centres in Thailand and Southeast Asia, ed. Ian C. Glover, Pornchai Suchitta and John Villiers (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1992), pp. 63–114.

10 Kenneth G. Hirth, ‘Political economy and archaeology: Perspectives on exchange and production’, Journal of Archaeological Research 4, 3 (1996): 214.

11 Costin, ‘Craft production systems’, p. 274.

12 See for example, Joyce C. White and Vincent C. Pigott, ‘From community production to regional specialization: Intensification of copper production in pre-state Thailand’, in Craft specialization and social evolution: In memory of V. Gordon Childe, ed. Bernard Wailes (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, 1996), p. 151.

13 Cathy L. Costin, ‘Craft specialization: Issues in defining, documenting, and explaining the organization of production’, Archaeological Method and Theory 3 (1991): 3.

14 Carla M. Sinopoli, ‘The organization of craft production at Vijayanagara, South India’, American Anthropologist 90, 3 (1988): 580.

15 Hirth, ‘Political economy’, p. 213.

16 See for example, Cathy L. Costin, ‘Introduction’, in Craft and social identity, ed. C. Costin and R. Wright, Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Special Issue: Craft and Social Identity 8, 1 (1998): 12–13; Hirth, ‘Political economy’, p. 213.

17 Gary M. Feinman and Christopher P. Garraty, ‘Preindustrial markets and marketing: Archaeological perspectives’, Annual Review of Anthropology (ARA) 39 (2010): 167–91.

18 Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, ‘Distinguished lecture in archaeology. Breaking and entering the ecosystem: Gender, class and faction steal the show’, American Anthropologist 94, 3 (1992): 5511–67; Gil J. Stein, ‘Heterogeneity, power, and political economy: Some current research issues in the archaeology of Old World complex societies’, Journal of Archaeological Research 5, 1 (1998): 6.

19 For example, Laura L. Junker, ‘The development of centralized craft production systems in AD 500–1600 Philippine chiefdoms’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 25, 1 (1994): 1–30; Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450–1680, vol. 1: The lands below the winds (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 101–19; White and Pigott, ‘Community production’.

20 Reid, Lands below the winds, pp. 102, 106.

21 Gullick, Indigenous systems, p. 31.

22 Junker, ‘Philippine chiefdoms’.

23 R.O. Winstedt, ‘The Malay Annals or Sejarah Melayu’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS) 16, 3 (1938): 84.

24 For example, Christie, ‘Maritime states’, p. 280; Oliver W. Wolters, The fall of Srivijaya in Malay history (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 8.

25 For example, Barbara W. Andaya, To live as brothers: Southeast Sumatra in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993), pp. 30–33; John M. Gullick, Indigenous political systems of western Malaya (London: Athlone, 1988); Pierre-Yves Manguin, ‘The merchant and the king: Political myths of Southeast Asian coastal polities’, Indonesia 52 (1991): 47.

26 J.G. de Casparis, Prasasti Indonesia II: Selected inscriptions from the 7th to 9th century A.D. (Bandung: Masa Baru, 1956), pp. 15–46; Christie, ‘State formation’, p. 266.

27 See Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya.

28 See Miksic, Singapore, for a summary.

29 Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1961), p. 83.

30 Excavations north of the wall were ongoing at the time of writing, with no report of finds.

31 Wheatley, Golden Kersonese, p. 83.

32 Stein, ‘Heterogeneity’, pp. 8–10.

33 Winstedt, ‘Sejarah’, pp. 54–81; see Wolters, Fall of Srivijaya, for an alternative perspective.

34 For example, Armando Cortesão, ed., The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires and the Book of Francisco Rodrigues, vol. 2 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1944), pp. 230–38.

35 Pierre-Yves Manguin, ‘Palembang and Srivijaya: An early Malay harbour city rediscovered’, JMBRAS 66, 1 (1993): 33–4.

36 Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, pp. 304–5.

37 Ibid., p. 83.

38 John N. Miksic, ‘Intrasite analysis of 14th century Singapore’, in Uncovering Southeast Asia's past: Selected papers from the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, The British Museum, London 14th–17th September 2004, ed. Ian C. Glover, Vincent C. Pigott and Elisabeth A. Bacus (Singapore: NUS Press, 2006), pp. 335–46.

39 George Cowgill, ‘Origins and development of urbanism: Archaeological perspectives’, ARA 33 (2004): 538–9.

40 Rescue or salvage archaeology characterises Singapore archaeology. Although large areas are excavated, and large amounts of cultural material recovered, the excavations themselves, are contingent upon urban redevelopment plans; see Miksic, Singapore, pp. 222–63.

41 Kwa Chong Guan, ‘16th century underglaze blue porcelain sherds from the Kallang Estuary’, in Early Singapore, 1300s–1819: Evidence in maps, text and artefacts, ed. John N. Miksic and Cheryl-Ann Low M.G. (Singapore: Singapore History Museum, 2004), pp. 86–94; David Sopher, The sea nomads (Singapore: National Museum, 1977); M.W.F. Tweedie, ‘The Stone Age in Malaya’, JMBRAS 26, 3 (1953): 69–70; Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, pp. 82–3.

42 For example, Hutterer, Karl L., ‘An evolutionary approach to the Southeast Asian cultural sequence’, Cultural Anthropology (CA) 17 (1976): 221–42Google Scholar.

43 Virunha, Chuleeporn, ‘Power relations between the Orang Laut and the Malay kingdoms of Melaka and Johor during the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Recalling local pasts: Autonomous history in Southeast Asia, ed. Chutintaranond, Sunait and Baker, Chris (Chiang Mai: Silkworm, 2002), pp. 141–66Google Scholar.

44 Miksic, Singapore, pp. 367–88.

45 Costin, ‘Craft production systems’, p. 277.

46 Ibid., pp. 277–85.

47 For example, Janusek, John W., ‘Craft and local power: Embedded specialization in Tiwanaku cities’, Latin American Antiquity 10, 2 (1999): 107–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, ‘Multiple identities of Aztec craft specialists’, in Costin and Wright, Craft and social identity, p. 147; Takeshi Inomata, ‘The power and ideology of artistic creation: Elite craft specialists in Classic Maya society’, CA 42, 3 (2001): 321–49.

49 Costin, ‘Craft specialization’, pp. 18–43.

50 Miksic, ‘Singapore’, p. 343.

51 Ibid., pp. 263, 335.

52 Ibid., pp. 338, 343–5, 351–2.

53 Ibid., pp. 372–4.

54 Ibid., p. 285.

55 Wheatley, Golden Khersonese, p. 83.

56 Barbara A. Lewis, ‘The Singapore Parliament House Complex organic material, a compendium of three reports; Report I: The Singapore Parliament House Complex molluscan fauna and presence of coral’ (n.p., 1996), p. 8.

57 Ibid., p. 8.

58 Miksic, Singapore, pp. 266–80, 284.

59 Shah, ‘Metal finds’, pp. 32–3.

60 Miksic, ‘Singapore’, p. 243.

61 Lewis, ‘Organic material: Report I and II: The Singapore Parliament House Complex non-molluscan fauna’.

62 Ibid., ‘Report II’.

63 M.L. Parry, ‘The fishing methods of Kelantan and Trengganu’, JMBRAS 27, 2 (1954): 77–144.

64 Shah, ‘Metal finds’, p. 31.

65 Miksic, Singapore, p. 257.