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Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines 51 | 2020 Ladakh Through the Ages. A Volume on Art History and Archaeology, followed by Varia Preliminary field notes on the ancient ceramics of Ladakh Notes préliminaires de terrain sur les céramiques anciennes du Ladakh Samara Broglia de Moura Electronic version URL: https://journals.openedition.org/emscat/4191 DOI: 10.4000/emscat.4191 ISSN: 2101-0013 Publisher Centre d'Etudes Mongoles & Sibériennes / École Pratique des Hautes Études Electronic reference Samara Broglia de Moura, “Preliminary ﬁeld notes on the ancient ceramics of Ladakh”, Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines [Online], 51 | 2020, Online since 09 December 2020, connection on 13 July 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/4191 ; DOI: https:// doi.org/10.4000/emscat.4191 This text was automatically generated on 13 July 2021. © Tous droits réservés Preliminary field notes on the ancient ceramics of Ladakh 1 Preliminary field notes on the ancient ceramics of Ladakh Notes préliminaires de terrain sur les céramiques anciennes du Ladakh Samara Broglia de Moura Introduction 1 Ceramics are one of the fundamental materials in archaeology for the understanding of chronologies and cultural interactions; they are usually the most abundant material found in archaeological sites and, since shapes and techniques evolve over time, constitute one of the best elements at our disposal for the dating of a site. Furthermore, ceramics have proven to be important indicators of interactions between regions, providing crucial information about the groups at stake in areas of cultural diversity. Although Ladakh was a trading centre located at the intersection of major cultural complexes, and although at almost every archaeological site sherds of pottery are found, their potential for understanding Ladakh’s rich history has so far not been properly explored. 2 This paper will give a brief overview of the research previously conducted in Ladakh on the topic, before introducing the fieldwork that I have been carrying out there since 2015. I will then present the types of ceramics found in the region in a chronological order, from Prehistory onwards, along with comparisons with neighbouring regions. Previous research on the ancient pottery of Ladakh 3 The first report of ancient pottery in Ladakh was made in 1904 by August H. Francke (1994, p. 71) and Dr. Shawe, when they discovered several intact jars during the excavation of a tomb near Leh. Two of these jars had painted decorations and were described by Dr. Shawe (Duncan 1906, p. 148). According to him, the pots were made of a clay of drab colour, and were decorated with painted dark red “volutes”. They were Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 51 | 2020 Preliminary field notes on the ancient ceramics of Ladakh 2 rather small in size, 10 cm in height, 7,6 cm in diameter around the rim and 10,1 cm in diameter around the body (fig. 1). Most of these ceramics were filled with human bones. In 1909, Francke wrote a report for the Archaeological Survey (ASI) announcing the discovery of a second nearby tomb (Francke 2002), which he characterized as belonging to the “Dardic” culture. The ceramics described by him were handmade (shaped without a potter’s wheel) and of various sizes, several of which showed impressed linear ornaments (Francke 1994, pp. 71-72). Figure 1. Painted pottery discovered by Francke and Shawe in a grave near Leh, Ladakh © Rev Dr Shawe (from Duncan 1906, p. 148) 4 Francke (1994, p. 74) tried to establish a chronology for the funerary context of the ceramics, with arguments that would nowadays be avoided: he compared the type of burial1 of the skeletons from Leh with those from the “Empire of Eastern Women” described in the Sui Shu2 and by Hiuen Tsiang3 (Beal 1884, p. 199), and concluded that the grave and its materials were datable to the first half of the 1st millennium CE4. 5 In 1904, Francke (1905) also found several sherds of painted ware at the site of Balumkhar. Accord to him, the jars were similar in shape to those found at the grave in Leh, but here they were ornamented with red pigments. Duncan added that the jars of the grave excavated in 1904 and those from Balumkhar had the same colour5 (Duncan 1906, p. 147). In 1906, Francke (p. 325) published the discovery of painted pottery from the Alchi fort, where he had found two sherds with red designs similar to those from Balumkhar. Francke (1994, p. 117) mentioned that the sherds from Alchi were sent to Shimla, but it seems that at least eleven sherds of the painted pottery from Alchi were sent to the Pratap Singh Museum in Srinagar. 6 After the work of Francke, it took almost 80 years for a new publication to appear on the subject. Neil Howard briefly mentioned a variety of painted pottery he found in the fortified sites he visited for his 1989 article on the fortresses of Upper and Lower Ladakh (Howard 1989, pp. 223-226). He presented a first critical analysis of the chronology proposed by Francke for the graves. Unconvinced by a pre-Tibetan date, Howard stated that most of the painted sherds found in fortified sites dated, according to him, from around the 10th century CE. The term “Dard” applied by Francke on many Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 51 | 2020 Preliminary field notes on the ancient ceramics of Ladakh 3 occasions to describe the culture of the graves was also criticized, as Howard did not agree with the use of such identification in view of the absence of factual evidence. According to him, the tombs could just as well have belonged to any of the many cultural groups that have lived side by side in Ladakh over the centuries, and they could also have been made by any of the numerous travellers that passed through the region in the historical period (Howard 1999, p. 226). 7 Howard also wrote an article dedicated to painted pottery in 1999. After conducting surveys in nine sites in Upper and Lower Ladakh and studying their painted ceramics, the author categorised them into two main groups: the ones from Lower Ladakh he called “Lower Ladakh delicate style”, and those from Upper Ladakh he regarded to be coarser. The majority of those sherds were discovered in fortified and monastic sites. The chronology he elaborated extended from the 8th to the 16 th century CE; it was primarily based on data from the Balumkhar fort, as this site had sherds from the beginning and from the end of his chronological framework6. Additionally, Howard mentioned a handful of sites with painted pottery from the Chemre valley that he dated to the 17th century. 8 In 1993, S. B. Ota (p. 103) briefly mentioned the pottery discovered in a stratigraphic trial pit excavated in Kiari (Changthang) and dated to 900 BCE. The only rim published was described as handmade and showed similar features to the pottery recovered from the Neolithic site of Burzahom in the Kashmir valley for Period II (2500-1700 BCE) (Anonymous 1964, p. 20 and p. 27, fig. 6). Despite the fact that the rim from Kiari was compared with a neck from Burzahom that does not have a similar shape, it is still the only one in Ladakh for the period that was documented in a stratigraphic context. 9 Between 2002 and 2014, Martin Vernier and Quentin Devers collected ceramics from all parts of Ladakh in the course of their own research, and these were handed over to the ASI after the Franco-Indian Archaeological Mission in Ladakh (or MAFIL) was created in 20137. In the first two years of its work, MAFIL undertook the documentation of a number of sites in Nubra, from which it collected further ceramics, and also conducted a study on both the ceramics previously collected and those they were collecting themselves, focusing exclusively on the Nubra region. This research, led by Aurore Didier8, analysed 1 200 sherds from 22 locations (Bruneau 2013, p. 24), and resulted in the creation of a general typo-chronology extending from the Neolithic period to the Namgyal Dynasty9 (16th-19th century CE). This research brought to light a number of important new elements, such as the presence of possible post-Kushan ceramics, which opened up new perspectives for the exploration of the history of the valley. 10 As a summary, we can say that since the first publication of archaeological ceramics in Ladakh, at the beginning of the 20th century, very few studies have been carried out on the topic. The only detailed scientific analysis of this important material was conducted in 2013 and showed the potential of such a study, but was unfortunately restricted to the Nubra valley. It is in light of this state of affairs that I decided to undertake the following study, to explore the research potential of ceramics in the other parts of Ladakh and see what information they could provide about the overall history of the region. Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 51 | 2020 Preliminary field notes on the ancient ceramics of Ladakh 4 The archaeological surveys and study of ceramics 11 The pottery collected by Devers and Vernier (excluding the sherds from Nubra valley, which were already studied by Didier) was investigated in 2015, 2016 and 2018 by the author at the ASI’s office in Ladakh10 (Mini Circle Leh). In the course of this study, it became evident there was a need for a better understanding of the archaeological contexts of these sherds. Also, in a number of cases too few sherds had been collected, calling for new surveys in order to create more adequate sample sizes.

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