Archaeologists have made some progress in the study of ancient Southeast Asian textiles, but the results of this form of research are likely to remain limited to verifying the types of plants used to make the fibres and dyes, and possibly the weaving techniques employed. It seems likely that we will have to depend on indirect methods for the foreseeable future in our attempts to reconstruct the textiles used in early Southeast Asia. Historical sources contain some data, but these have serious limitations. Most surviving documents only refer to textiles in passing. Many terms used to refer to them are no longer understood. Old Javanese vocabulary concerning textiles is extensive, a sign of their interest in this topic and its importance in society, but there is scant chance that the literal meanings of these words will ever be recovered.

For several years I taught a course on traditional arts of Southeast Asia in the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries, in which I emphasized the importance of textiles in trying to understand the roles of what in the West we call art and artists. No female artists and very few male artists are mentioned in ancient inscriptions. Artists were not a separate category of people in ancient Java; as in early twentiethcentury Bali, the making of objects possessing what is now called artistic value was a common activity of children as well as adults, as were performances of music and dance. Artists were not marginal members of society, though some people were certainly recognized as more skilful than others in creating textiles or pottery, both of which were exclusively made by women. The high aesthetic and technical value of Southeast Asia textile production only came to be acknowledged in the West in the midnineteenth century. Since that time, scholars have elevated the importance of textiles as a medium of artistic expression in traditional Southeast Asia from the status of a craft to the cultural equivalent of painting and sculpture.

Textile art in precolonial Southeast Asia had great ceremonial and symbolic value. Locally made textiles commanded high economic value not only within Southeast Asian societies but also in diplomatic gift exchange with China.