This thesis examines data collected during the salvage of the cargo of a merchant ves-sel foundered in the Java Sea, by a short inscription in a fragment of a bowl and coins dat-ed to around 970 CE. The wreck’s position indicates that the ship was on her way to the island of Java; the verssel herself belongs into the so called ‘lashed-lug and doweled’, Western Austronesian (‘Malayo-Indonesian’) tradition of boat-building. The surviving cargo ranges from Chinese stonewares and Southeast Asian ceramics to Middle Eastern glassware, tin and lead from –proposedly– the Malay Archipelago, and a wide variety of “smaller finds”, most of which can be attributed to the broader area of the western Indian Ocean. The find palpably demonstrates the far-reaching and well-institutionalised trade rela-tions throughout early medieval Asia. It is often assumed that pre-modern Asian com-merce was largely organised in small-scale ventures, the so called “pedlar trade”, and a number of sources indicate structural features of the ships facilitating this commerce that could have supported such a “particularised” exchange. However, a critical assessment of the composition and distribution of the ship’s payload and a virtual reconstruction of the ship and her initial loading pattern reveal that the vessel’s ceramic cargo in all probability was not acquired, handled, and bound to be marketed as a particularised “peddling” ven-ture, but managed by a single authority. The huge amount of ceramics carried on the ves-sel raises questions regarding frequency, volume and modus operandi of maritime ex-changes in tenth-century Southeast Asia, implying that the ship’s tragic voyage was but an attempt at instituting a virtual monopoly in such trade.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:634258 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Liebner, Horst Hubertus |
| Contributors | Caldwell, I. |
| Publisher | University of Leeds |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/6912/ |
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