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 4
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EARLY
C O N TACT WI T H I N D IA AN D TH E
MEDITERRANEAN WORLD, FROM
T H E FO URTH CE N TU RY BC TO
T H E FO URTH CEN TU RY AD
Bérénice Bellina and Ian Glover

Introduction
From early in the first millennium AD, elite groups in many parts of Southeast Asia,
except in the remote and forested interior of the mainland or in the eastern islands of
Indonesia and the Philippines, adopted Hindu and Buddhist cults, political ideologies and
ritual language as shown by the many religious monuments, images and inscriptions.
There are some ambiguous external historical sources, Chinese and Indian, such as the
accounts of the mysterious kingdom of Funan in the Mekong River Delta of present-day
Cambodia and Vietnam, translated from Chinese sources and compiled by the French
scholar Paul Pelliot, and the Arthasastra of Kautilya, which record the process of
“Indianization”. The textual data are presented and analysed in numerous books and
articles1 and this historical information is not considered in this chapter, which deals
almost exclusively with the surviving material evidence from archaeology.
According to the periods in which they wrote, and the scholars’ background, various
explanations have been proposed for this process. Early in the twentieth century, the
European colonization of Asia led many scholars to think that the transfer of Indian
culture was due to large-scale migration of Indians to Southeast Asia. This scenario was
carried to an extreme by supporters of the “Greater India” movement, such that the
renowned scholar R. C. Majumdar could assert that “the Hindu colonists brought with
them the whole framework of their culture and civilization and this was transplanted in
its entirety among the people who had yet not emerged from their primitive barbarism”.2
In contrast to this colonialist approach, O. W. Wolters has written of the selective
“localization” of Indian cultural elements and emphasized the innovative and dynamic
character of Southeast Asian societies.3 In a rather similar vein, Kulke speaks of
“convergence” between small principalities on both sides of the Bay of Bengal, linked by
a complex network of exchange relations and being partners in a mutual process of
civilization.4 Nowadays, all regional specialists agree that acculturation in this region,
whether one wants to call it “Indianization”, “localization” or “convergence”, was
clearly linked to expanding trade networks and more especially to the maritime routes. In

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order to understand this process, it is necessary to study the formation and evolution of
these networks across an area from the eastern coasts of the Indian subcontinent to the
different regions of Southeast Asia.

Exchange networks in South Asia and Southeast Asia*

During the period under study, India witnessed the emergence of several mature states:
the Mauryas, Kushanas and the Guptas in North India, and the Satavahanas in the
Deccan. South India also contained some powerful chiefdoms such as the Cheras, Cholas
and the Pandyas, some of which emerged as urbanized kingdoms such as that of the
Pallavas, who ruled modern-day Tamil Nadu during the third/fourth to the ninth
centuries AD. Despite the political plurality, what mattered for trade was the codification
of crafts under guilds, which acted as banks and places for investment and the
monetarization of parts of the economy, as shown by the wide range of coins issued by
cities in different areas. Trade based on profit is well described in the Arthasastra, and an
elaborate bureaucracy developed, especially in the Mauryan state. There was a
considerable development of both overland and maritime trade routes, although with
many regional variations in the organization of trade. The period also saw the rise of
specialized trading communities (vanijas and setthis) in the middle Ganga Valley, dealing in
salt, textiles, metals and pottery.
The newly spreading cults of Buddhism and Jainism accepted the accumulation and
reinvestment of wealth; a concept quite alien to the culture of the earlier Vedic period in
which reciprocal exchange of the “prestige goods” type had been the normal method of
distributing exotic and luxury items. Long-distance trade between the agricultural
hinterland of the middle Ganga Valley, ports such as Gange and Tamralipti in the Delta,
and those at the mouth of the Narmada Valley on the west coast such as Broach (Barygaza
in the Periplus), developed rapidly at this time. The gemfields and gold-rich deposits of
South India were quickly integrated into these trading systems.5
With a lack of written records, we cannot analyse in the same detail as India, the
structure of exchange within Southeast Asia for the thousand years from the fifth century
BC onwards. Good archaeological documentation is still scarce and we depend over-
much on models based on analogies from more recent historical and ethnographic
situations. For instance, Bronson, Wheatley, Wolters, Miksic and Wisseman Christie
have all proposed evolutionary or structural models for Southeast Asian exchange
systems.6 Although useful, these are generalized and abstract and, for the most part, lack
firm support from empirical data from the past.
However, we know that late prehistoric settlements of the second and early first
millennia BC in Mainland Southeast Asia regularly occur in small stream valleys which
feed the major river systems. These, perhaps quite isolated, villages were linked by
far-reaching exchange networks which saw marine shell ornaments being taken over
1,000 km from the coast, and copper and tin ingots and artefacts entering communities
far removed from the ore sources. Marble, marine shell, serpentine and other rare stone
material, ceramics and doubtless many perishable items exchanged hands along the river
systems. As Higham in chapter 3 makes clear, the middle of the first millennium BC in

*See Chapter 6, Figure 6.3.

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Southeast Asia was a period of profound economic, social and political change. The Iron
Age in Southeast Asia was marked by increases in wealth and social complexity leading to
powerful territorial polities. Large or valuable objects, such as Dong Son bronze drums
and nephrite ornaments from Vietnam, arrived by sea to enter long-established exchange
routes along the rivers. Thus, it is evident that intra and inter-regional exchange routes
were well developed before they were linked to the more developed South Asian trading
systems.
Wisseman Christie has argued for the emergence of three clusters of producer-trading
states in Peninsular Malaysia during late centuries BC .7 But throughout most of Southeast
Asia at this time, the highest level of political organization was what might be called
chiefly society, or at best some nascent states in which and barter and gift-giving were
likely to have been the principal modes of exchange, since there is no evidence for
coinage. In central Vietnam, the Sa-Huynh Culture probably represented a culturally-
related series of chiefdoms which were closely involved in overseas trade, as shown by the
Sa-Huynh, or Sa-Huynh influenced, artefacts and urn burials widely distributed in the
Philippines, northern Indonesia and parts of Thailand.

The role of Indo-Roman trade in the articulation of South and

Southeast Asian exchange networks
Although our knowledge of intra-regional trading networks is uneven, archaeology
provides evidence enough to demonstrate that they were already dynamic and expanding
before they became interlinked. These networks were greatly stimulated by their
integration into Indian trade to the west. Indo-Roman commerce had generated a rising
demand for exotic and prestigious items of consumption and adornment in the urban
civilizations of the Mediterranean Basin – that “splendid and trifling” trade in spices,
perfumes, precious stones and pearls, silks and muslin, tortoiseshell, ivory and rhinoceros
horn, dyes and ungents, ghee, lac and so on scorned by the high-minded historian,
Edmund Gibbon, for undermining Roman republican virtues. Unfortunately most of
the traded items mentioned in the classical texts were perishable and archaeologists can
rely only on those surviving the tropical conditions.
As an example of the demand for exotic products in the west, one need only look at
the spice trade and particularly at the trade in cloves, the unopened flower buds of the
tree Eugenia aromatica, whose home was in the northern Moluccan islands of eastern
Indonesia. Cloves were already known in China in the third century BC , and were
described by Pliny in Rome in the first century AD. At the production end, the trade in
cloves, nutmeg and mace transformed Moluccan society from scattered kin-based
communities of hunter-gatherers and shifting cultivators to stratified coastal trading states
and petty empires. As one author has pointed out,

It was the spice trade which was partially responsible for the Indianization of
Southeast Asia and which later facilitated the spread of Islam. So this western
demand for an aromatic flower bud of rather little value to the native peoples of the
Moluccas transformed, in the long run, the economic and political face of Asia.8

Later in this chapter we emphasize some of the most frequent and enduring materials
found in late prehistoric archaeological contexts in India and Southeast Asia which

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provide evidence for this contact and exchange; especially pottery and bronze vessels and
ornaments of semiprecious stone and glass, coins and seals. However, it must also be
remembered that ideas and technologies also travelled; glass-making was one, as some of
its products survive to bear witness. We also believe that the techniques of iron-smelting
and forging were taken from India to Southeast Asia in the mid-first millennium BC ,
although no iron products of certain Indian manufacture have so far been identified from
Southeast Asian sites. The tradition of making large stone slab tombs and other
“megalithic” structures in western Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula may also reflect
these early links, although those of Neolithic Beinan in southeastern Taiwan probably
have an entirely local origin.

Coins, seals and other rarely found objects

Roman coins of gold, silver and copper
have been found in very large quantities in
India, particularly in the south, but only a
few seem to have been carried further east
and the contexts of these finds are always
unclear. They include the well-known
second century AD medallions of Marcus
Aurelius and Antoninus Pius found at
Oc Eo, a third-century copper coin of
Victorinus from U-Thong in Thailand
(Figure 4.1), and another Roman coin, too
worn to be properly identified, found at
Figure 4.1 A copper coin of Western Roman
Khuan Lukpad in Peninsular Thailand (see Emperor, Victorinus (AD 268-70) found at
Figure 6.5). Of clear Indian origin is an U-Thong, Thailand. (Photograph by I. C.
ivory comb from Chansen Phase II Glover).
decorated with a pair of horses, a hamsa
and a “vase of abundance” (Figure 4.2).
Carnelian intaglios and seals, two at least of well-known second-century AD Roman
types, were found at Khuan Lukpad. Many other seals and sealings, some “classicizing”
and others with Brahmi or Kharoshthi inscriptions, or images of boats, have been found

Figure 4.2 Ivory comb from Chansen Phase II, Western Thailand, decorated with a pair of horses,
a hamsa and a “vase of abundance”. The find was dated to the third century AD.
(Drawing courtesy of the publishers of Asian Perspectives).

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there as well as at a number of other Southeast Asian sites. This material is quite well
known and has recently been described in a number of books and articles by Himanshu
Ray; it is more thoroughly discussed and illustrated in chapter 6 by Phasook Indrawooth.
Unfortunately, very little of this material may be attributed to a specific context and the
date of its arrival in Southeast Asia may only be guessed at. What we can be reasonably
sure of is that all these western items came to the region from, or via, India; thus they
provide support for the development of early contacts across the Bay of Bengal.

Stages in the development of Indian – Southeast Asian exchange links

A study of the different traded materials allows us to confirm the existence of two distinct
phases. The first seems to start about the fourth century BC and to end around the second
century AD. The scattered evidence of this phase (Phase I) enabled the Dutch historian
Van Leur to refer to regular but less intense and archaeologically less-visible contacts that
preceded Indianization.9 During Phase II (second–fourth century AD ), intra and inter-
regional exchange intensified. From about the mid fifth century AD, fully Indianized
kingdoms appear in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, coastal Vietnam and western
Indonesia, and this theme is taken up in subsequent chapters of the book.

Phase I (fourth century BC to second century AD )

Trade between the classical world and India

Indo-Roman commercial undertakings seem to have been highly organized and are quite
well documented in classical writing dating from the second century AD, even though
there is much uncertainty about the details. Revisions are regularly proposed for dating
the growth of this trade from the evidence provided by archaeology. We argue that
virtually all new data on this trade is likely to come from archaeology, which has barely
started to research the problem, rather than from literary and historical sources, which
seem to be finite and mostly known.
In India, there is abundant physical evidence of trade in the form of Mediterranean
amphorae and Italic Arretine ware on the South Indian coast, of Roman gold-coin
hoards throughout South India, and of numerous classical intaglios and seals throughout
southern India and Sri Lanka. There is also Mediterranean lead in the Satavahana coinage
of Central and Eastern Deccan. In the Mediterranean, although Asian imports have
largely died (slaves and elephants) or decayed beyond recognition (silks and cotton, wood
and lacquer), there exists a remarkable reminder of this trade in the form of the exquisite
Indian ivory figurine buried under the ash of Pompeii.10
But what is lacking in identifiable artefacts is more than made up by the wealth of
textual data. For instance, there are detailed contemporary descriptions of the structure
of the trade in the Periplus, in Strabo’s and Ptolemy’s Geographies and Pliny’s Natural
History.11 There is sufficient detail that historians such as Rashke and archaeologists such
as Wheeler have been able to develop a comprehensive and, on the whole, convincing
structure for trade between India and the Roman world, as it existed at the beginning of
the Christian era.12 These exchange systems were more developed than those described
for Southeast Asia and approximate to the “Middleman”, and “Port of Trade” modes. In
many cases, particularly at the western ends of the trade routes, these were

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entrepreneurial ventures undertaken for commercial profit, facilitated by the use of

coinage and underwritten by accumulated capital.

The trade between India and Southeast Asia

In Southeast Asia, very few items may securely be assigned to the western world. Those
reaching the region, such as a few coins and intaglios, came through South Asia. The
bulk of the archaeological evidence consists of Indian or Indian-made objects, some of
which show western influence. In Phase I they are found in non-Indianized contexts.
The first evidence of regular exchange consists in glass and stone beads and ornaments,
and ceramic and bronze vessels. It seems to us that vessels of this phase are very similar to
Indian types, whether imported or locally made. They testify already frequent exchange.
Three types of vessels seem to characterize this period; bronze containers with a central
knob or cone, pottery rouletted wares, and stamped wares.

S E M I P R E C I O U S S T O N E B E A D S A N D P E N DA N T S

During Phase I, the semiprecious stones agate and carnelian, and to a lesser extent rock
crystal and nephrite, were used for most of the beads and pendants widely found in
Southeast Asia, replacing the softer materials such as serpentine, limestone, marble and
shell used to make ornaments beforehand. These new types of ornament have chiefly
been discovered unevenly distributed in burials, indicating that they were probably the
valued possessions of an emerging elite who used them in life, as in death, as indicators
of status. The rich finds of agate and carnelian beads at sites such as Ban Don Ta Phet
(Plate 2), Khao Sam Kaeo and Noen U-Loke in Thailand, at Giong Ca Vo and other Sa
Huynh sites in Vietnam, at Gilimanuk in Bali and Leang Buidane in the Talaud Islands,
Indonesia, show the wide acceptance of these new materials.13
In addition to the simple beads of agate and carnelian there are some very unusual lion
pendants from Ban Don Ta Phet (Plate 3), Ban U Taphao and Khao Sam Kaeo. (They
occur also in Han Period tombs in South China), all of which have close Indian
correlates. Alkaline-etched agate and carnelian beads must also be brought into the
picture. This very specialized craft tradition originated 4,500 years ago in the Harappan
period and such beads were widely manufactured in India from about 600 BC . The
presence in the late centuries BC of spectacular decorated stone beads in Burma,
Thailand, Vietnam, Yunnan, Indonesia and in the Philippines may best be understood
through the operation of exchange networks.
For a long time it has been assumed that all the agate and carnelian found in Southeast
Asia in this early period (as with glass ornaments – see below) originated in India. This is
because South Asian workshops developed the highly skilled techniques to make fine
beads out of these hard stones. The richest sources of microcrystalline quartz rocks
known in antiquity are also in the volcanic rocks of the Deccan Plateau. Furthermore, no
beads made of these materials have yet been found in Southeast Asian contexts prior to
the Iron Age.
Until the early centuries AD, the assumption of Indian origin probably remains true.
But from this period onwards we find evidence of local manufacture is found at Khuan
Lukpad and Kuala Selinsing, both on the western coast of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, and
to a lesser extent at Oc Eo in southern Vietnam. Whether the raw materials came from

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South Asia or if Southeast Asians had found and started to exploit local sources, as some
recent trace element studies seem to suggest, is not yet known.14
Agate and carnelian are difficult to work and require skilled techniques including the
knowledge of how to heat the stone to make it easier to knap and to induce changes in
colour by heating and staining. This led Peter Francis to suggest and Bérénice Bellina to
demonstrate, that some Indian craftsmen probably settled in Southeast Asia.15 When local
workshops first developed, and how much Indian influence was involved in the specialized
craft of bead-making, are among important topics currently being investigated.16

GLASS IN SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

Glass, mainly in the form of beads, appears commonly in archaeological sites in South
and Southeast Asia in the first millennium BC and more or less accompanies the regular
adoption of iron. The first finds of true glass from the Indian subcontinent occur in the
Iron Age painted grey-ware culture of northern India from about 1,000 BC . From this
time onwards glass beads were regularly made in many parts of the subcontinent,
although few sites are closely dated and most beads are casual finds lacking specific
contexts.17 Francis identified four regional traditions of early-glass making in India, of
which by far the most important for the exchange with Southeast Asia was on the Tamil
Nadu coast. Here, Arikamedu and Karakaidu, south of Madras, were the best-known
production sites, where the beads were drawn into long hollow tubes and then cut into
sections to be annealed. Francis refers to these as “Indo-Pacific Monochrome Drawn
Glass Beads”, or more simply “Indo-Pacific Beads”, and they were manufactured in
Southern India from at least the fourth century BC . They were widely traded for over
1,500 years to Africa, Japan and Korea, as well as to Southeast Asia. Production was
dominated by small opaque monochrome red beads often known as mutisalah (“false
pearls”) in Indonesia, where they are particularly common.
Based on a study of manufacturing debris from archaeological sites, Francis concluded
that beads of this tradition were also made at various times from the first century BC
onwards at Mantai and Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, Khuan Lukpad and Satingpra in
southern Thailand, Kuala Selinsing in Malaya, Muara Jambi in Sumatra, and Oc-eo in
Vietnam.18 Two features tend to distinguish early South Asian from West Asian and
European glasses, these being a high alumina (Al2O3 >3.5–4 per cent) and low lime
content (CaO <4.5–5 per cent). From compositional analyses it is clear that Indian glass-
makers at the turn of the Christian era used a number of distinct batch compositions to
produce a range of clear, translucent coloured and opaque glass beads.

E A R LY G L A S S I N S O U T H E A S T A S I A

A number of researchers have recently reviewed the evidence for early (i.e. prehistoric)
glass in Southeast Asia and discussed the relationships with India.19 The first glass is found
in the middle of the first millennium BC at Iron Age sites in Peninsular and Central
Thailand. Its spread closely matches that of iron. Indo-Pacific beads are the most
common type, and among them opaque brown-red and orange-red mutisalah are most
frequently found. In Thailand, they have been found in sites such as Ban Chiang, Ban Na
Di, Non Muang, Ban Tha Kae, Ban Don Ta Phet, Prasat Muang Singh, Khao Sam Kaeo
and Kok Ra Ka. They have also been found at Kuala Selinsing in Peninsular Malaysia and

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at Sembiran in Bali. Oc Eo in Vietnam has

yielded the largest number of glass beads of
any site in Southeast Asia and there was
some local manufacture there, although
some importation is also likely.
Ban Don Ta Phet (Kanchanaburi, Thai-
land) is important because it has yielded the
best dated and widest range of glass beads
with secure contexts of any site in Southeast
Asia. A few bangles and distinctive ear
ornaments were also found, and one typical
Sa Huynh style two-headed animal ear Figure 4.3 Sa Huynh style two-headed animal
pendant of nephrite from Vietnam (Figure ear pendant of nephrite from Vietnam. Ex-
4.3). The site is an Iron Age secondary cavated at Ban Don Ta Phet, 1985. (Photograph
by I. C. Glover).
burial location dated to the early part of the
fourth century BC (360–390 BC ), with
many semiprecious stone and glass beads, bronze vessels and ornaments, iron tools and
weapons. Glover mentions that a number of the translucent glass beads at Don Ta Phet have
cubic, bi-pyramidal, square prismatic or hexagonal prismatic shapes (Figure 4.4) and
imitate the forms of natural mineral crystals, especially the famous beryl crystals of South
India. Such crystal-shaped glass beads have been recorded only rarely in Southeast Asia.20
Early Southeast Asian glass beads may be grouped into two broad compositional types:
mixed-alkali glass, and potash glass. The mixed alkali glass beads are all opaque red
mutisalah beads with a high copper content, probably of Indian manufacture. The potash
glasses include all colours and degrees of opacity and it is now generally thought that
some were made locally in Southeast Asia, even at this early date, since they include forms
never found in India. Khuan Lukpad, Tha Muang (U-Thong) and Oc Eo were glass bead
manufacturing sites during the early centuries AD, but they have been much disturbed by
bead diggers. There is as yet no unequivocal evidence to date the manufacture of raw
glass back to the prehistoric period in Southeast Asia, although raw glass cullet may have
been imported earlier than this and worked into beads and other ornaments.

B RO N Z E V E S S E L S W I T H A C E N T R A L C O N E

This appears to be the most ancient container type indicating links between India and
Southeast Asia, occurring at a few sites in central and western Thailand such as in Ban
Don Ta Phet, a cave at Khao Kwark in Ratchaburi Province (where a Dong Son Drum
was also recovered) and from looted sites around Lopburi. At Ban Don Ta Phet about
30 high-tin bronze containers were excavated, many incomplete and very fragmentary.
They have relatively flat bases and some have a number of concentric circles surrounding
a central cone (Figure 4.5). The vessel walls are very thin – sometime less than
1 millimetre – and usually, but not always, have rather low sides, slightly curved to the
exterior.21 Metal vessels, probably bronze, also with a central cone, were found in the
1930s by the Swedish archaeologist Olov Janse in brick-built tombs of Chinese Han style
at Dong Son, Thanh Hoa Province, dated to about the first century AD. Other, rather
similar high-tin bronze bowls, but without the conical boss, have been found during tin-
dredging operations in West Malaysia.

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Figure 4.4 Translucent glass beads from Ban Don Ta Phet with cubic, bi-pyramidal, square
prismatic or hexagonal prismatic shapes imitating the forms of natural mineral crystals,
especially the famous beryl crystals of South India. (Drawing by A. Farrer).

Examples of this type of container made from pottery, stone, bronze and silver have
been found widely distributed in many different cultural settings in the Indian
subcontinent. In pottery they occur in levels of the last centuries BC at Taxila in
Pakistan, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Nevasa in Maharashtra, Sisulpalgarh in Orissa, in
Bengal and Bangla Desh, in Andhra Pradesh, and at Arikamedu in Tamil Nadu. At
Mahastangarh, in Bangla Desh, vessels of this type in Northern Black Polished Ware are
dated to the third–second centuries BC . One complete specimen made from black
granite was recovered in the nineteenth century from the reliquary chamber of a

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ruined early Buddhist stupa near Taxila

(Figure 4.6).
A great variety of silver, copper and
bronze knobbed-base bowls were also
found at both the Bhir and Sirkap mounds
in Taxila. In southern India, bronze bowls
of this type occur in megalithic graves in
the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu. Casal
excavated one at Souttoukeny dated to
about the second century BC . Janse referred
to a comment by Bruce Foote to the effect
that such vessels “greatly resemble Graeco-
Roman art works”. In summary, these
distinctive bowls, though far from common
in Southeast Asia, can be said to be
widespread in the subcontinent. It seems
highly probable that the form has its origins
in the West, even though the Asian
examples exhibit shapes and decorative
variations not known there. Janse com-
pared the Vietnamese examples with the
Megarian type of bronze bowl found in Figure 4.5 High-tin bronze bowl with central
Macedonia, and when Marshall described cone and concentric rings from Ban Don Ta
Phet. (Drawing by Anne Farrer).
the knobbed base vessels from Taxila he
suggested that they may have been stylized
versions of a Greek ceramic type known as
the phiales bowl, common in the Mediter-
ranean world in the third and second
centuries BC .
If the ultimate origin of this vessel form
was among the western classical civiliza-
tions, they quickly spread into South Asia
and soon after that into Southeast Asia.
Arrival in India by the maritime route is
unlikely owing to their absence on the Figure 4.6 Black granite bowl with central
western coast and it is more likely that cone from the reliquary chamber of a stupa
near Taxila, Pakistan. (Photograph courtesy of
they came by a land route. Gardin who The British Museum).
studied the pottery from Aı̈ Khanum,
commented that Hellenistic pottery
forms, including Megarian bowls, very
quickly reached Central Asia;22 and it is possible to follow and date their spread via the
Near East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, along the Ganga Valley, and then down the east
coast of India into Tamil Nadu. Once they reached South Asia, the knobbed base bowl
with a central cone underwent modifications in form and probably in function.
Specification of the route(s) for the transmission of this vessel type to Southeast Asia
remains for the future.

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RO U L E T T E D WA R E

This wheel-made pottery constitutes a very significant item in the evidence for exchange
between South and Southeast Asia. It has been well known in India since the excavations
of Wheeler at Arikamedu in the 1940s. The most common form is a flat-based shallow
dish, about 6 centimetres deep and up to 32 centimetres in diameter. The bevelled rim
curves slightly inwards. The surface is highly polished, brown to red-grey in colour, and
the interior body mainly grey. Decoration comprises one to three interior bands of
impressed rouletted designs.23 The flat vessel shape derives from the forms of protohistoric
Black and Red Ware pottery (BRW) found in the earliest levels at Arikamedu which,
together with Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW), spread from the Ganga Valley
into southern India during the Mauryan period.
Rouletted ware is found in many sites in the subcontinent, from the south to the
northeast. Among these are Anuradhapura, Kantarodai and Mantai in Sri Lanka;
Arikamedu, Karakadu and Kodumanul in Tamil Nadu; Amaravati and Brahmagiri in
Andhra Pradesh; Sisulpalgarh in Orissa; Tamluk and Chandraketugarh in Bengal; and
Mahasthangarh in Bangla Desh. This distribution shows a pattern of trade along the east
coast.
A tight chronology for rouletted ware remains a matter of debate. Wheeler dated it to
the first and second centuries AD. Begley placed its appearance in the second century BC
and suggests that it could have lasted until the first century AD. In Sri Lanka, Deraniyagala
suggested an even earlier origin based on radiocarbon dates for the oldest levels of Period
IV at Anuradhapura, between 500 and 250 BC . However, such early dates need
confirmation before they can be accepted. It is generally agreed that rouletted ware was
locally made in only a few centres, probably in Tamil Nadu,24 since the fabric is very
homogenous. These centres are still to be identified and we find it difficult to accept
Gogte’s arguments that it all came from Bengal where very little, and that not typical
rouletted ware, has been found.25
In Southeast Asia, rouletted ware has been excavated, sometimes in dated contexts, in
Bali, Java and Vietnam. Walker and Santoso were the first to identify three rouletted ware
bowls from sites of the Buni Complex on the north coast of Java.26 Two of these are of
the classic Indian type (Figure 4.7) while the third is better compared to an Indian
ceramic type called “russet coated painted Andhra ware”, contemporary with rouletted
ware. Sembiran, a coastal site on the north coast of Bali, is especially rich in rouletted
ware sherds, Arikamedu Type 10 stamped ware (see Figure 2.7) and Indo-Pacific beads.
This site was excavated by Ardika and Bellwood and dates from the last centuries BC to
the early centuries of the Christian Era.27 The vessels are wheel-made with a fine fabric
and decorated with two or three bands of rouletting. Some sherds were examined by
neutron activation analysis and compared with samples from Arikamedu, Karaikadu and
Anuradhapura. The results showed a great similarity between the rouletted ware from all
these sites, confirming the concept of a single source.28 Finally, one sherd of dark grey
rouletted ware was found in Phase 1 at Tra Kieu in Central Vietnam, dated to the first
century BC and the first half of the first century AD. Mineralogical analysis by Prior
confirmed that the fabric was indistinguishable from that of sherds from Wheeler’s
excavations at Arikamedu.29
Thus, the presence of Indian-made rouletted ware in Southeast Asia puts the matter of
contact between these regions beyond question. Although the chronology for these

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imports needs greater precision, it seems

likely that the appearance of rouletted ware
in Southeast Asia was just a little later than
the knobbed bronze vessels.

MEGALITHS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Megalithic graves are generally thought to

be collective tombs for clans or other kin
groups (Figure 4.8). Such tombs, and
sometimes alignments and other structures,
are relatively common in south-central
Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, parts of Java
and some of the eastern Indonesian islands.
They are very rare in most of Mainland
Southeast Asia. Links with the well-known
Iron Age megalithic graves of southern
India have long been proposed. In the
1930s, van der Hoop carefully surveyed
and excavated in Java and Sumatra a range
of stone images, dolmens, menhirs, circles,
terraces and slab graves. He showed that
they were, for the most part, constructed
by indigenous iron-using peoples. How-
ever, he also recognized external contact in
the form of the glass and stone beads to
which he attributed an Indian origin, and
the carvings of Vietnamese Dong Son
drums on the stone reliefs at Batu Gajah
and Airpurah on the Pasemah Plateau in
southern Sumatra.
Figure 4.7 Rouletted ware bowls from Kobak
Because of the lack of well-dated mega- Kendal and Cibutak, Java. (Courtesy of the
lithic structures, the exact timing for the National Museum, Jakarta).
arrival of these external cultural traits and
materials is still unresolved, but it seems
probable that they belong to the early Metal
Age of the late centuries BC to early
centuries AD, when prestige items such as
Dong Son bronze drums and semiprecious
stone and glass beads were coming through
the developing exchange networks.30 At
this time it seems that links between
Sumatra and southeastern India, the centre
of the Indian Iron Age megalithic tradition,
were particularly close. The Sumatran Figure 4.8 Megalithic stone circle at Batu
megalithic graves regularly contain agate, Kantan, West Java, Indonesia. (Photograph
carnelian, crystal and glass beads of exactly courtesy N. Y. Kim).

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the same varieties as those found in India, so it seems reasonable to see the fashion for
building such tombs as introduced at this time.

Phase II (second to fourth centuries AD )

During the second phase, inter and intra-regional exchange intensified and is marked by
a lesser diversity but greater quantity of items available for study. Most of the
archaeological evidence now consists of Southeast Asian-made ceramics inspired by
Indian models. These include the kundika and kendi pottery types, and stamped and
moulded ceramics, which clearly show the adoption of Indian forms and decorative
techniques. From this time, objects in contexts referred to as “Indianized” may be found.
Glass and stone beads still came from India along the oceanic trade routes, but local
manufacturing in an Indian tradition is now beyond doubt and it is difficult to separate
imported from locally-made products on the data so far available.

The Kundika
This is a form of pitcher with a long neck and a spout swelling at the base (Figure 4.9). The
kundika (sometimes referred to as a “sprinkler”) is an Indian ceramic form extensively
adopted in Southeast Asia from the last
centuries BC , but only for a brief period. It
is a specialized form of the more common
spouted vessel commonly known in South-
east Asia as the kendi.31 The kundika
becomes rare in South Asia after the
sixth–seventh centuries and was primarily
associated with Hindu rituals. However, it
has also been found in Buddhist sites dating
from the beginning of the historical period
and was frequently made in the distinctive
Red Polished Ware. Easily identifiable
kundika vessels occur in Pyu sites in
Burma, such as Beikthano, in the Mon
site of Winka south of Thaton on the
Tenasserim coast, in Dvaravati sites in
Central Thailand (Chansen and Ban Khu
Muang), at Oc Eo in South Vietnam, at
Tra Kieu in Central Vietnam and in
Central Java.

Stamped and moulded ceramics

Southeast Asian pottery with stamped or
moulded designs (Figure 4.10) also derives
from Indian prototypes which remain to Figure 4.9 Kundika from Kausambi, UP, India.
be studied in detail. In South Asia such (Drawing by B. Bellina from Sharma 1969:
forms occur for the first time during the 178).

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Figure 4.10 Stamped pottery from Beikthano, Burma/Myanmar. (Drawn by B. Bellina from Aung
Thaw 1968, fig. 71).

last centuries BC and last until the sixth–seventh centuries. They are found in major early
historic sites such as Mathura, Ujjain, Chichli and Paithan. Most often, this ceramic is red
and the stamped or moulded decoration, located on the shoulder, consists of symbolic
motifs like the srivatsa (vase of abundance), the wheel, the svastika, the hamsa (goose),
plant motifs like rosettes and leaves, or geometrical motifs. At Mathura, for example, this
type of ceramic appears in the Kushana levels and continues into the Gupta levels of the
fourth–fifth centuries. A moulded pitcher found in the Gupta levels displays on its
shoulder three decorated bands ranged in tiers. A bowl found in Ujjain phase III, first
century BC to sixth/seventh centuries AD, displays a series of astamangala.
The Burmese stamped ceramics show strong similarities to those discovered in India
and are commonly found in early Buddhist sites such as Beikthano, Halin and Sri Ksetra.
Other local adaptations of this stamped or moulded ceramic type are found in Thailand,
in Dvaravati sites such as Chansen Phase V (see chapter 6). As in Pyu sites, the decoration
comprises a series of rectangular frames, each separated by a vertical dotted band,
enclosing an animal such as an elephant or a cow, a floral motif, or a scene with a horse
and rider or a dancer. Sherds with a band of rosettes from Phra Praton in Central

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Thailand strongly resemble examples excavated in Kondapur, Andhra Pradesh. Although

occasional vessels may have been imported from India, we believe that the Southeast
Asian stamped ceramics are a local product, one that reflects the adoption and adaptation
of Indian techniques and style.32

Moulded ware ornamented with radiating flower petals

The type of pottery has been found in the Pyu site of Beikthano (Figure 4.11) and also
seems to be a local product derived from an Indian model. The Beikthano sherds are
decorated with bands of lotus or acanthus flowers radiating towards the edge of the
vessel. Such radiating lotus flower decoration is common in South Asia, as for instance
on the Kundla vase, and is also seen on some of the earlier bronze bowls found at Ban
Don Ta Phet and Khao Jamook in Thailand. A stone vessel with such a design comes

Figure 4.11 Sherds stamped with radiating petal motifs from Beikthano, Burma/Myanmar.
(Drawing by B. Bellina).

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from Taxila, but the most significant comparison is between the pottery from Beikthano
and Ter in Maharashtra.
Mould-decorated pottery has a long history in South Asia and has been found
primarily in the western Deccan, with only one fragment coming from Kanchipuram in
Tamil Nadu. Characteristic vessels of this type, made with two vertical moulds, come
from Nevasa, Ter, Kondapur and Kolhapur. Begley has suggested an origin for this ware
in an earlier Hellenistic tradition. However, in considering its origins we must also take
into account the evidence from Aı̈ Khanum in Afghanistan. Here, fragments of moulds
for producing imitation megarian bowls have been dated to the last quarter of the third
century BC and these could well be prototypes for the South Asian Moulded Ware.

Conclusions
The discovery of Indian-made, or Indian-influenced, objects in archaeological sites in
Southeast Asia in the late centuries BC enables examination of the formation and
evolution of regional and inter-regional trading networks. During Phase I, this material
occurs in non-Indianized sites. During Phase II, the stamped and moulded ceramics and
seals provide valuable data which complement those gained from art history and
epigraphy. Art historical research for this later phase shows that the Indian influences into
Southeast Asia were multiple and did not originate in any one area. The material evidence
from archaeological sites for Phase I also suggests that almost every coastal region of
South Asia was involved in these trading networks, although most emanated from the
east coast and Bengal. During the last centuries BC the local networks of regional
exchange were linked together such that, with the exception perhaps of Indonesia,
which seems to have had closer contacts with southern India and Sri Lanka, it has not
been possible to identify any direct and exclusive link between any region of the Indian
subcontinent and any region in Southeast Asia.
A generation ago, on the basis of the few items then known to be derived from India
or the Roman world, Wheeler was perhaps correct to argue that there were only
sporadic exchange visits between communities situated on both sides of the Bay of
Bengal. Enough evidence is now at hand to refute this interpretation and to show that, by
the late centuries BC , Southeast Asia was already part of a world trading system linking
the civilizations of the Mediterranean Basin and Han China. Thus, the process of
Indianization had long roots reaching back into prehistory.

Notes
1 Coedès 1968; Kangle 1988; Kulke 1990; Mabbett 1977; Pelliot 1903; Wheatley 1983.
2 Majumdar 1952.
3 Wolters 1999.
4 Kulke 1990.
5 Ray 1991, 1994.
6 Bronson 1977; Wheatley 1983; Wolters 1967; Miksic 1984; Wisseman Christie 1990.
7 Wisseman Christie 1995.
8 Ellen 1977: 25.
9 Van Leur 1955.
10 During Caspers 1981.
11 Casson 1989.

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12 Wheeler 1954; Raschke 1978.

13 Glover 1990; Francis 2002.
14 Theunissen et al. 2000; Bellina 2001.
15 Francis 1991.
16 Bellina 2001.
17 Glover and Henderson 1995.
18 Francis 2002: Part 2.
19 Basa 1991; Glover and Henderson 1995.
20 Glover, (1990a) dated the burials at Ban Don Ta Phet to the early fourth century BC using
AMS dates on rice fragment inclusions in the pottery. However, Bellina, on the basis of stylistic
comparisons with materials found in India, prefers to date this material to the third or second
century BC . More evidence is needed to put the early dating beyond doubt.
21 Janse 1962.
22 Gardin 1985.
23 Begley (1986) argues that, contrary the common opinion, the decoration was not made with a
roulette but with a pointed tool held against the body which “chattered” on the interior
surface while the vessel was turned. Nevertheless, as it is in common use, we still use the term
“rouletted ware”.
24 Both Wheeler (1954) and Casal (1956) believed that rouletted ware was directly imported from
the Mediterranean, but it seems that only a few recent excavators in India accept this.
25 Gogte 1997.
26 Walker and Santoso 1980.
27 Ardika and Bellwood 1991.
28 Ardika and Bellwood et al. 1993.
29 Prior 1998: 106.
30 Megalithic structures of course continued to be built into modern times in many parts of
Indonesia. Here we are concerned only with the earliest forms.
31 Adhyatman 1987.
32 Bellina 1999.

Select Bibliography
The bibliography presents a reasonably comprehensive introduction to the main
publications on the subject matter discussed organized by theme, and roughly in the
order they are discussed in the chapter. Most of the books listed and some of the articles
touch on more than one theme but they are included here under the most relevant
heading. The books and articles themselves contain many additional bibliographic
references for readers who want to go further into the beginnings of economic exchange
and cultural contacts between India, the classical world of the Mediterranean and the
various countries making up modern Southeast Asia.

Indianization/localization
Bellina, B. (2001) “Témoinages archéologiques d’échanges entre l’Inde et l’Asie du Sud-Est:
morphologie, morphométrie et techniques de fabrication des perles en agate et en cornaline
(VIe siècle avant notre ère VIe siècle de notre ère)”, thèse de doctorat, Université Sorbonne
Nouvelle, Paris III.
Coedès, G. (1968) The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, (ed.) W. F. Vella, trans. S. B. Cowing,
Canberra: Australian National University Press.
Dagens, B. (1994) “Le temple indien en Asie du Sud-Est: archéologie d’une forme”, in F. Bizot
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pp. 259–72.
Kangle, R. P. (1988) The Kautilya Arthasastra, Delhi (reprint edition).

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Kulke, H (1990) “Indian colonies, Indianization, or cultural convergence? Reflections on the

changing image of India’s role in South-East Asia”, in H. Schulte Nordtholt (ed.) Onderzoez
in Zuidoost-Azië: Agenda’s voor de Jaren Negentig, pp. 8–32. Leiden: Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden,
Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van Zuidoost-Azië en Oceanië.
Mabbett, I. W. (1977) “The ‘Indianization’ of Southeast Asia: reflections on historical sources”,
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 8 (1 & 2): 1–14, 143–61.
Majumdar, R. C. (1952) Greater India, Delhi: Motilal Banararsidas.
Malleret, L. (1960–62) L’Archéologie du Delta du Mekong, Tomes. II–III, Paris: Publications de
l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient 43.
Pelliot, P. (1903) “Le Founan”, Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient 2: 248–333.
Wheatley, P. (1983) “Nagara and Commandery: Origins of Southeast Asian Urban Traditions”,
research papers 208–8, Department of Geography.
Wolters, O. W. (1999) “History, Culture and Religion in Southeast Asian Perspectives”, Studies on
Southeast Asia No.26, Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

South Asian exchange

Datta, A. (1998) “Ancient ports of coastal Bengal and its overseas trade with Southeast Asia: an
archaeological overview”, in M. J. Klokke and T. de Bruijn (eds) Southeast Asian Archaeology
1996, Hull, Centre of South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull, pp. 87–98.
Ray, H. P. (1989) “Early maritime contacts between South and Southeast Asia”, Journal of Southeast
Asian Studies XX (1): 42–54.
Ray, H. P. (1991a) “In search of Suvanabhumi: early sailing networks in the Bay of Bengal”, in
P. Bellwood (ed.) Indo-Pacific Prehistory 1990, Vol. 1, pp. 557–65, Canberra and Jakarta: Indo-
Pacific Prehistory Association.
Ray, H. P. (1991b) “Seafaring in the Bay of Bengal in the early centuries AD ”, Studies in History
6 (1): 1–14.
Ray, H. P. (1994) The Winds of Change – Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early South Asia, Delhi:
Oxford University Press.

Southeast Asian exchange

Bellina, B. (1997) “Les témoignages archéologiques d’échanges entre le sous-continent indien et
l’Asie du Sud-Est (VIe siècle avant notre ère -VIe siècle de notre ère)”, unpublished
dissertation for the DEA, Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle, Paris III.
Bellina, B. (1998) “La formation des réseaux d’échanges reliant l’Asie du Sud et l’Asie du Sud-Est à
travers le matériel archéologique (VIe siècle av. J.-C. – VIe siècle ap. J.-C.). Le cas de la
Thaı̈lande et de la Péninsule Malaise”, Journal of the Siam Society 86 (1 & 2): 89–105.
Bronson, B. (1977) “Exchange at the upstream and downstream ends: notes towards a functional
model of the coastal state in Southeast Asia”, in K. Hutterer (ed.) Economic Exchange and Social
Interaction in Southeast Asia: perspectives from Prehistory, History and Ethnography, Michigan Papers
on South and Southeast Asia 13: 39–52.
Cribb, J. (1981) “The date of the symbolic coins of Burma and Thailand – a re-examination of the
evidence”, Seaby Coin and Medal Bulletin 75: 224–6.
Glover, I. C. (1990a) “Early Trade between India and Southeast Asia – a link in the development
of a World Trading System”, Occasional Paper No. 16, University of Hull: Centre for South-
East Asian Studies (2nd revised edition).
Higham, C. F. W. (1996) The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia, Cambridge. Cambridge University
Press.
Leur, J. C. van (1955) Indonesian Trade and Society: Essays in Asian Social and Economic History, The
Hague: W. van Hoeve.
Miksic, J. (1984) “A comparison between some long distance trading institutions of the
Malacca Straits area and the Western Pacific”, Southeast Asian Archaeology at the XVth Pacific
Science Congress, University of Otago Monographs in Prehistoric Anthropology, 16:
235–53.

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Wisseman Christie, J. (1990) “Trade and State Formation in the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, 300
BC –AD 700”, in J. Kathirithamby-Wells and J. Villiers (eds) The Southeast Asian Port and Polity:
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Wisseman-Christie, J. (1995) “State formation in Early Maritime Southeast Asia: a consideration
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Wolters, O. W. (1967) Early Indonesian Commerce: a study of the origins of Srivijaya, Ithaca: Cornell
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Indian trade with the classical world

Begley, V. (1983) “Arikamedu reconsidered”, American Journal of Archaeology 87: 461–81.
Begley, V. and R. D. De Puma (eds) (1991) Rome and India – the Ancient Sea Trade, Madison,
Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
Brown, R. L. and A. M. MacDonnel (1989) “The Pong Tuk Lamp: a reconsideration”, Journal of
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Casson, L. (ed.) (1989) The Periplus Maris Erythraei, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
During Caspers, E. C. L. (1981) “The Indian ivory figurine from Pompeii – a reconsideration of
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Ellen, R. F. (1977) “The trade in spices”, Journal of the Indonesia Circle 12: 21–5.
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Semiprecious stone beads

Bellina, B. (2001) “Témoinages archéologiques d’échanges entre l’Inde et l’Asie du Sud-Est:
morphologie, morphométrie et techniques de fabrication des perles en agate et en cornaline
(VIe siècle avant notre ère VIe siècle de notre ère)”, thèse de doctorat, Université Sorbonne
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Possehl, G. (1981) “Cambay beadmaking”, Expedition 23(4): 39–47.
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Glass in South and Southeast Asia

Basa, K. K. (1991) “The Westerly Trade of Southeast Asia From C.400 BC to C. AD 500 With
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Bronze vessels
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Rouletted ware
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Megaliths
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