Late Tang Ceramics and Asia's International Trade (John Guy)

John Guy Late Tang Ceramics and Asia’s International Trade John Guy Late Tang Ceramics and Asia’s International Trade ometimes, an event occurs which dramatical- a single site. As such, this find makes a unique Sly enlarges the boundaries of our knowledge contribution to our understanding and apprecia- and raises our understanding of the realities of tion of late Tang material culture and its place in the past. The discovery of the Belitung shipwreck international trade. in the Java Sea is one such event. The archaeological recovery of the wreck and its cargo has The scope and significance of these artefacts are revealed the largest and most comprehensive examined in detail in this volume. The purpose of assemblage of Chinese glazed ceramics found this chapter is to provide an historical setting for to date from late Tang dynasty, together with a the Belitung shipwreck and to examine through group of rare gold and silver vessels, and silver the medium of its ceramic cargo the geographi- ingots. This cargo represents the most important cal scope of China’s international ceramic trade hoard of late Tang artefacts ever discovered at at the close of the first millennium. Fig. 1 Traditional Arab dhow, of lashed and stitched hull construction with lateen-rigged sail. Manuscript painting depicting Arab merchants en route to India, dated 1237. Folio from al-Hariri's Maqamat, by a scribe from Wasit, Persian Gulf (Photograph courtesy of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris). 58 Late Tang Ceramics and Asia’s International Trade Three critical facts emerge from the archaeologi- cent of the artefacts recovered from the wreck cal investigation and research of this wreck and site, and of these the vast bulk are the iron-deco- its cargo: the ethnicity of the ship, the origin of rated stonewares from the Changsha kilns of its cargo, and date. A study of the ship technology Hunan province. Relatively small quantities of ce- and identification of the ‘ethnicity’ of the vessel is ramics from other regions make up the balance: provided elsewhere in this volume (pp. 6–21, 31– green-glazed Yue wares from Zhejiang together 38), so I will give only a summary of the findings. with coarse green stonewares from the kilns of It became clear early on in the underwater inves- Guangdong (some two thousand pieces), white- tigation of the shipwreck that the hull construc- green earthenwares (some two hundred pieces) tion was not Chinese, lacking as it did multiple and white-glazed stonewares (some three hun- planking, the use of iron nails, or the presence dred and fifty pieces), Xing ware from Hebei and of bulkheads. Rather, the lashed and stitched a coarser ware possibly from Henan. The latter hull construction, which would have been ren- include three dishes decorated with underglaze dered watertight by extensive caulking, points cobalt blue, the first complete Tang ‘blue-and- to a vessel belonging to the Arab-tradition of white’ wares of this kind to be discovered (nos shipbuilding, that is, a dhow (fig. 1). A variety of 107–109). timbers were employed in its construction, some of which are unique to the Indian subcontinent. Maritime Asia was experiencing a revolution This raises the possibility that the ship was built in the ninth century. The relations that China either in the Arabian peninsula using imported had enjoyed over the preceding centuries with Indian timbers (as are known to have been trad- the West were in flux. Use of the sea routes was ed), or (less likely), in India to Arab design. The actively encouraged as the overland Silk Route precise origin of the vessel is less critical to our through Central Asia became prey to insecurity study than the fact that this is the first Arab dhow and disruption. The maritime routes, active al- discovered in Southeast Asian waters. ready for perhaps a millennium, were now to be developed as both China’s gateway to the markets The second and also unique aspect of this of India, West Asia and the Mediterranean world shipwreck is the cargo – the richest and largest and, increasingly, to ensure that China had an consignment of early-ninth-century southern uninterrupted supply of the forest and marine Chinese trade ceramics. These ceramics, some products of Southeast Asia. China was becoming sixty thousand pieces, made up ninety-eight per increasingly aware of the rich potential of these Late Tang Ceramics and Asia’s International Trade 59 Late Tang Ceramics and Asia’s International Trade lands as sources of exotic commodities as a result contacts proving, on occasions, too great a strain 1 Suishu, cited in Wheatley of tribute missions from the region. on state resources. Southeast Asian countries 1959, 20. were the chief offenders, with Java repeatedly It is a paradox of Tang China that a country as being counselled to visit less frequently (cf. also mighty as this, with its capital city Chang’an pp. 152–153). perhaps the most prosperous and sophisticated city on earth, had not developed the maritime Attitudes within China to international trade technology to exploit the benefits of interna- also varied widely. The Confucian-driven tional trade. Generally speaking, China seemed court view was increasingly at odds with the content to allow foreign mariners to visit her commercial hunger of Chinese merchants (and southern ports in search of trading opportuni- often of provincial government officials), who ties, although there were times when China ac- sought to profit from this trade. The benefits of tively encouraged international maritime trade. trade proved irresistible, and with some notable Shortly after the reunification of China in the exceptions, the official attitude shifted from con- sixth century under the Sui (581–618), China be- doning to actively encouraging (and taxing) this gan to encourage the exploration of the Southern trade. The charade of trade disguised as tribute Ocean ( Nanhai) in search of the ‘strange and the grad ually slipped away in the late Tang period precious’.1 However, throughout much of China’s and in the Southern Song and Yuan periods over- history official attitudes to commerce and trade seas trade was actively promoted. Formal recog- remained ambivalent at best; the court was keen nition of this shift in government attitude came to receive the wondrous goods that distant lands with the establishment of a series of new posts could offer, but Confucian orthodoxy and the to control the movement of foreign shipping Chinese concept epitomized by its self-char- and goods in the southern ports. The Office of acterization as the ‘Middle Kingdom’, required Superintendent of Shipping Trade (shiboshi ) was that foreign trade with the court was explained established at Guangzhou by 714, and equivalent in terms of tribute missions to the emperor. The posts quickly followed at Quanzhou and else- volume of such missions became so great that where. Such moves were a reaction to economic periodically the court had to request foreign reality and the desire of a centralist state to en- countries to show a little less enthusiasm, and force its authority and capitalize on the revenue visit less often – the reciprocal nature of these generated through such trade. 60 Late Tang Ceramics and Asia’s International Trade Over the course of the second half of first mil- temples have been traced.2 These archaeological lennium, the southern port cities of Guangdong, remains point to large foreign communities well 2 Chinese sources make it clear that both Hindu and Buddhist Fujian and Zhejiang grew in importance, fuelled sustained over many centuries. merchant communities existed in by the Southern Ocean trade. The cities of both Guangzhou and Quanzhou, though only the Hindu remains Hangzhou, Ningbo, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and The Chinese port most frequently referred to in at Quanzhou can be traced Guangzhou all saw the growth of their expatriate the Arabic literature is Khanfu (Guangzhou) in archaeologically. See Guy 2001. merchant communities. These consisted of Ma- the middle and late Tang periods, with Zaitun 3 Wang Gungwu 1958, 80. lays (that is, peoples of western insular Southeast ( Quanzhou) challenging this pre-eminence early 4 Lo Hsiang-lin 1967, 177. Asia), Chams (from central Vietnam), Indians in the Song period. Instability and corruption and West Asians, each resident in different quar- in southern China caused periodic difficulties ters (fanfang ) assigned to them in the city. The for the foreign merchants engaged in trade with most populous communities were the non-Mus- China. The accounts of these troubles provide lim Persians ( Bosi), including West Asian Jews the only statistical evidence available for the size and Nestorean Christians, and Muslim Persians and cosmopolitan nature of these communities. and Arabs (Dashi ). The latter community was In 758/9 the Arab and Persian community of extended the special privilege of appointing offi- Guangzhou sacked the city as an act of rebel- cials from within their community to administer lion against the levels of local corruption under Islamic justice, rather than be subject to Chinese which they were oblige to trade, and escaped law. Such a privilege demonstrates the economic by sea to Tonkin, from where they continued importance attached to foreign trade by the Chi- to operate. In Hangzhou the sacking of the city nese government, and of the dominance of the by Chinese rebels in 760 resulted in the death Arab Muslims in the expatriate community. of several thousand Bosi and Dashi merchants.3 When a recurrence of such violence occurred

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