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A Note on Finds of Early Chinese Ceramics Associated with Megalithic Remains in Northwest Lampung

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

E. Edwards McKinnon
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Extract

Finds of imported ceramics, especially early Chinese stonewares, are relatively rare in the mountainous interior of Sumatra. In 1977, however, Indonesian archaeologists discovered a series of five megalithic sites in Kecamatan Sumberjaya, Kabupaten Lampung Utara, about 85 kilometres northwest of Kotabumi the district administrative centre and some distance south of the road to Liwa and Krui. These sites were completely unknown in the Dutch colonial period and only came to light when Javanese immigrants moved in to the area in the nineteen fifties. Consequently, the present names by which these locations are known tend to reflect recent Javanese usage rather than indigenous nomenclature. Excavations at the complex known as Telagamukmin in Desa Purwawiwitan, Kecamatan Sumberjaya in 1980 revealed considerable quantities of locally made earthenware sherds and fragments of imported south Chinese stonewares dating from the ninth to tenth centuries, the Five Dynasties and northern Song periods in China. A bronze bracelet, two bronze blades and other metal fragments were also recovered. Quantities of ceramic sherds have also been recovered as surface finds at other locations including Batuberak and Batutameng Desa Purajaya, Ciptaarga, Bungin and Cabangdua.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , September 1993 , pp. 227 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1993

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References

1 There are, of course, one or two notable exceptions such as the Lolo site (Danau Gadang) in Kerinci where Song period stonewares were found in association with bronze materials (including a fragment of a tympan of a nekara), obsidian flakes and locally made earthenware. A.N.A.T.a.T. Van der Hoop, , “A prehistoric site near the Lake of kerinchi (Sumatra)”, in Proceedings Third Congress of Prehistorians of the Far East, 1938, Singapore, pp. 200–204Google Scholar.

2 Indraningsih, J. Ratna, Sukendar, Haris, Aziz, Budi Santoso and Awe, Rokus Due, Laporan Penelitian di Lampung: Berita Penelitian Arkeologi No. 33 (hereafter BPA No. 33) (Jakarta: Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional, 1985), p. 7Google Scholar.

3 Batuberak is now known as Kebuntebu. Batutameng (from “tameng”, Javanese: a shield — thus a stone shaped like a shield).

4 Wolters, O.W., Early Indonesian Commerce: A Study of the Origins of Srivijaya (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 206Google Scholar.

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6 The Palas Pasemah inscription, which is slightly damaged, is to be found in situ on the bank of the river Wai Pisang in close proximity to a number of earthen mounds known locally as “punden”. As villagers report the occurence of beads in these mounds, they appear to be the sites of burials though to the best of my knowledge no human remains have been found. The Jabung inscription recovered from the edge of the Wai Sekampung at Jabung is now in the Pugungraharjo Archaeological Site Museum.

7 De Bruyn Kops writing in 1919 notes that Menggala was the most densely populated centre in Lampung and that most of Lampung's pepper was despatched from Menggala to Palembang by water. Menggala is located on the first appreciable high ground upstream from the river mouth, a key point on the river. The modern road into Menggala from Bandar Lampung crosses a wide area of rice sawah, apparently once a former river bed, which may be of some archaeological interest.

8 Wolters, , Early Indonesian Commerce, p. 162Google Scholar.

9 The discovery of the kettledrum was made on 9th October 1991 when a woman digging in a field near what appears to be the edge of a former riverbed struck the tympanum with her changkul, breaking it into five pieces. Despite the damage it should be possible to reconstruct the tympanum, which displays a twelve-pointed star, satisfactorily. The sides are virtually undamaged with the shoulders displaying a row of flying birds facing anticlockwise with other geometric patterns. Dimensions are given as: tympanum D. 0.60 m; D. base 0.65 m; H. 0.50 m. The drum is now in the Lampung Provincial museum. Sherds of earthenware and some imported stonewares from between the thirteenth century to the nineteenth or twentieth century were found in the same vicinity. Provincial Department of Culture Office report: 11th November 1991.

10 Information from Pak Ayun of Bandar Lampung.

11 These two vessels are also in the Lampung Provincial Museum. The flask is similar to that found at Lolo in Kerinci which is thought to date from the early/mid first millennium a.d. [Bellwood, Peter, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago (London: Academic Press, 1985), p. 288Google Scholar]. The Labuanmer-ringai/Jabung area looks extremely promising for future archaeological research. The area has obviously been inhabited for centuries. In Desa Meringgai itself there is an important, strong spring of fresh water a few hundred metres north of a rectangular earthwork located in what is now a pepper plantation. The earthwork appears, on the basis of ceramic surface finds, to date from about the sixteenth or seventeenth century.

12 Forbes, Henry O., A Naturalists' Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago (reprinted, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

13 See, for example: Patullo, J., “Account of a Journey to the Lake of Ranow in the Interior of Kroee”, Malay Miscellanies (Bencoolen, 1820)Google Scholar, which gives some of the earliest intelligence of this area in the English language.

14 Kempers, A.J. Bernet, The Kettledrums of Southeast Asia: A Bronze Age World and Its Aftermath. Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia (Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema, 1988)Google Scholar. Krui is now administratively part of Kabupaten Lampung Utara.

15 Sukendar, Haris, Berita Penelitian Arkeologi No. 20. Laporan Penelitian Kepurbakalan Daerah Lampung (hereafter BPA No. 20) (Jakarta: Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional, 1979)Google Scholar.

16 BPA No. 20, p. 2.

17 Ibid., p. 3.

18 BPA No. 33, p. 7.

19 Ibid., p. 78.

20 BPA No. 20, p. 4.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. 5.

23 BPA No. 33, p. 7.

24 Ibid., p. 5.

25 Ibid., pp. 29, 33.

26 BPA No. 20, p. 11.

27 Gold is still collected in small quantities from many of the streams running down from the Bukit Barisan mountains.

28 Marsden, William, The History of Sumatra (reprinted, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

29 Forbes, Henry O., A Naturalists' Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago (reprinted, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 178Google Scholar.

30 McKinnon, E. Edwards, “A Note on Spurmarked Yuen-type sherds at Bukit Seguntang”, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 52, 2 (1979): 40–47Google Scholar; McKinnon, E. Edwards and Dermawan, B.S., “Further Ceramic Discoveries at Sumatran Sites”, in Transactions of the Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, no. 8 (1981): 2–17Google Scholar; Adhyatman, S., Notes on Early Olive Green Wares Found in Indonesia (Jakarta: Himpunan Keramik Indonesia, 1983)Google Scholar; Manguin, P-Y., “Palembang and Sriwijaya: An Early Harbour City Rediscovered”, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 66, part 1 (1993): 23–46Google Scholar.

31 Chui-mei, Ho, Charoenwongsa, Pisit, Bronson, Bennet, Srisuchat, Amara, and Srisuchat, Tharapong, “Newly Identified Chinese Ceramic Wares from Ninth Century Trading Ports in Southern Thailand”, SPAFA Digest, 11, 3 (1990): 12–17Google Scholar.

32 Van Orsoy de Flines, O.W., “Onderzoek naar en van keramische schervenin de bodem in Noordelijk Midden-Java, 1940–42”, Oudheidkundige Verslag, Bijlage A (1941–1947): 66–84Google Scholar.

33 BPA No. 33, p. 40.

34 Ibid., pp. 38, 40.

35 See also Branson's suggestion that the Pasemah megalithic tradition may be contemporary with Sriwijayan activity. Bronson, Bennet, “The Archaeology of Sumatra and the Problem of Srivijaya”, in Smith, R.B. and Watson, W. (eds.), Early South East Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 315–36Google Scholar.