Interpreting Southeast Asia's Past

Interpreting Southeast Asia's Past PDF

Author: Peter Sharrock

Publisher: NUS Press

Published: 2008-01-01

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 9789971694050

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Interpreting Southeast Asia's Past: Monument, Image and Text features 31 papers read at the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, held in London in September 2004. The volume covers monumental arts, sculpture and painting, epigraphy and heritage management across mainland Southeast Asia and as far south as Indonesia. New research on monumental arts includes chapters on the Bayon of Angkor and the great brick temple sites of Champa. There is an article discussing the purpose of making and erecting sacred sculptures in the ancient world and accounts of research on the sacred art of Burma, Thailand and southern China (including the first study of the few surviving Saiva images in Burma), of a spectacular find of bronze Mahayana Buddhas, and of the sculpted bronzes of the Dian culture. New research on craft goods and crafting techniques deals with ancient Khmer materials, including recently discovered ceramic kiln sites, the sandstone sources of major Khmer sculptures, and the rare remaining traces of paint, plaster and stucco on stone and brick buildings. More widely distributed goods also receive attention, including Southeast Asian glass beads, and there are contributions on Southeast Asian heritage and conservation, including research on Angkor as a living World Heritage site and discussion of a UNESCO project on the stone jars of the Plain of Jars in Laos that combines recording, safeguarding, bomb clearance, and eco-tourism development.

Southeast Asia-China Interactions

Southeast Asia-China Interactions PDF

Author: Geoff Wade

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 680

ISBN-13:

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The relations between the societies and states of Southeast Asia and China have been of enormous significance to both these regions, extending back for literally thousands of years. This useful single-valume edition of key studies on Southeast Asia-China interactions, which were first published in the 'Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society' (and its precursors), includes classics such as Wang Gungwu's 'The Nanhai Trade' and Paul Wheatley's 'Geographical Notes On Some Commodities Involved in Sung Maritime Trade'. In this compedium, 18 studies examine political, economic, and social interaction as well as the flows of people and technologies which have tied these regions together over the period.

Sino–Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century

Sino–Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century PDF

Author: Derek Heng

Publisher: Ohio University Press

Published: 2009-11-15

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0896804755

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China has been an important player in the international economy for two thousand years and has historically exerted enormous influence over the development and nature of political and economic affairs in the regions beyond its borders, especially its neighbors. Sino–Malay Trade and Diplomacy from the Tenth through the Fourteenth Century examines how changes in foreign policy and economic perspectives of the Chinese court affected diplomatic intercourse as well as the fundamental nature of economic interaction between China and the Malay region, a subregion of Southeast Asia centered on the Strait of Malacca. This study’s uniqueness and value lie in its integration of archaeological, epigraphic, and textual data from both China and Southeast Asia to provide a rich, multilayered picture of Sino–Southeast Asian relations in the premodern era. Derek Heng approaches the topic from both the Southeast Asian and Chinese perspectives, affording a dual narrative otherwise unavailable in the current body of Southeast Asian and China studies literature.

Ancient Southeast Asia

Ancient Southeast Asia PDF

Author: John Norman Miksic

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-10-14

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 1317279042

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Ancient Southeast Asia provides readers with a much needed synthesis of the latest discoveries and research in the archaeology of the region, presenting the evolution of complex societies in Southeast Asia from the protohistoric period, beginning around 500BC, to the arrival of British and Dutch colonists in 1600. Well-illustrated throughout, this comprehensive account explores the factors which established Southeast Asia as an area of unique cultural fusion. Miksic and Goh explore how the local population exploited the abundant resources available, developing maritime transport routes which resulted in economic and cultural wealth, including some of the most elaborate art styles and monumental complexes ever constructed. The book’s broad geographical and temporal coverage, including a chapter on the natural environment, provides readers with the context needed to understand this staggeringly diverse region. It utilizes French, Dutch, Chinese, Malay-Indonesian and Burmese sources and synthesizes interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives and data from archaeology, history and art history. Offering key opportunities for comparative research with other centres of early socio-economic complexity, Ancient Southeast Asia establishes the area’s importance in world history.

Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300_1800

Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300_1800 PDF

Author: John N. Miksic

Publisher: NUS Press

Published: 2013-09-30

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 997169574X

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Beneath the modern skyscrapers of Singapore lie the remains of a much older trading port, prosperous and cosmopolitan and a key node in the maritime Silk Road. This book synthesizes 25 years of archaeological research to reconstruct the 14th-century port of Singapore in greater detail than is possible for any other early Southeast Asian city. The picture that emerges is of a port where people processed raw materials, used money, and had specialized occupations. Within its defensive wall, the city was well organized and prosperous, with a cosmopolitan population that included residents from China, other parts of Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Fully illustrated, with more than 300 maps and colour photos, Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea presents Singapore's history in the context of Asia's long-distance maritime trade in the years between 1300 and 1800: it amounts to a dramatic new understanding of Singapore's pre-colonial past.