New (polarised) light on old sherds: an investigation of provenance and production technology of Southeast Asian tempered earthenware through petrographic analysis

Abstract

Earthenware is arguably one of the most common materials found at archaeological sites across Southeast Asia. Yet, it has also received the least attention from scholars in the region. The potential for earthenware sherds to contribute towards a greater understanding of Southeast Asia’s past, therefore, has not been fully tapped. Studies on Southeast Asian earthenware have focus primarily on the formal and stylistic analyses of the artefacts. The materials characterisation of these objects with scientific techniques, on the other hand, has been relatively less frequently undertaken. The use of scientific techniques for the analysis of Southeast Asian tempered earthenware has the potential to provide insights into the issue of provenance, and this is the main focus of this thesis. Through the use of petrographic analysis, this thesis seeks to address the question of whether the sherds are of a local or non-local origin. This may be achieved through the identification of the types of inclusions in the artefacts. Once the provenance of the sherds is determined, other issues, such as trade patterns, as well as production technology and organisation, may be explored. Tempered earthenware from five archaeological sites across Southeast Asia were analysed for this thesis. Whilst the majority of the samples analysed are from sites in Singapore, sherds from Kota Cina, Melaka, Sri Ksetra, and Bagan, were also included in this thesis. This allows for comparisons to be made between the individual sites, as well as between maritime Southeast Asia (represented by Singapore, Kota Cina, and Melaka) and mainland Southeast Asia (represented by Sri Ksetra and Bagan). This is one of the reasons for the selection of the various sites for this thesis. This thesis is significant in its contribution to the field of Southeast Asian earthenware studies, which has been (and still is) a relatively understudied area of Southeast Asian archaeology. In particular, this thesis is significant in demonstrating the utility of applying scientific techniques to the analysis of tempered earthenware, especially non-diagnostic body sherds, in the context of Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, the limitations of this thesis are also acknowledged, chief amongst which is the small sample size of the materials analysed. The limitations of this thesis, however, should not merely be viewed as such. Along with the additional questions raised during the course of this thesis, these limitations may be considered as an invitation to conduct further research on the tempered earthenware of Southeast Asia.