Diversity at a Port City in Southeast Asia: Te Case of Singapore in the Fourteenth Century
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Diversity at a Port City in Southeast Asia: Te Case of Singapore in the Fourteenth Century Derek Heng Professor & Chair, Department of History, Northern Arizona University, USA Senior Honorary Fellow, Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre, ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore 47 Research on the history of Singapore in the Over the last thirty years, archaeological research fourteenth century, when the frst documented has demonstrated that the settlement was prolifc, settlement on the island came into existence, is maintaining a fairly high level of material cultural very rich. Since the arrival of Sir Stamford Rafes consumption and economic production. Te broad in 1819, there has been a persistent efort to bring range of imported and locally produced items, light to the pre-colonial history of Singapore including ceramics, metalware, foodstufs, and through textual research, art historical discourse, even coins, to name but a few types of artefacts and more recently, through archaeological recovered, along with the diferent values that research. Te result has been that we have a rich were inherent in these fnds, indicate that the depiction of the fourteenth century world in consumption patterns of the inhabitants of Singapore, which provide the backdrop for the Singapore in the fourteenth century were varied Malay traditional stories, such as those recounted and complex. Taken together, the historical and in the Sejarah Melayu (“Malay Annals”), as well as archaeological records provide glimpses of what Chinese accounts that we now know so well. must have been a cosmopolitan society, if not in terms of the diferent ethnic groups that composed the population at large, then at least in terms of Temasik: a their tastes, activities and customs. cosmopolitan Temasik, from this perspective, appears to have been a well-connected urban centre. settlement? Yet consumption patterns alone can be a fairly superfcial means of determining and characterising cosmopolitanism. Te outward Indeed, the late Paul Wheatley (1921-1999), an display of a cosmopolitan culture, made apparent eminent historical geographer and scholar of by such visible attributes as the things that people pre-modern Southeast Asian urbanism, noted in would use, and even such tangible practices as the 1960s that Temasik, the fourteenth century the food that is consumed, is only one aspect of settlement located at the mouth of the Singapore what could be a broader and deeper diversity River, was perhaps one of the port-cities in the that may be refected in how the settlement Malacca Straits region with the richest historical functioned, how it subsisted and survived, textual information related to it.1 From an urban and how it saw itself as a cultural identity. historical point of view, there is a combination of information on the inhabitants’ ethnic Tis paper will endeavour to assess these three backgrounds, the nature of the trade that took aspects of cosmopolitanism by looking at the place, the nature of its politics, and the descriptions settlement’s trading and consumption patterns; of the built features of the settlement – all these the possible agricultural practices and activities point to Temasik as a thriving urban centre that was that the inhabitants maintained, and the engaged with the external world, both regionally aesthetics and religious practices developed by as well as further afeld. the population. 48 to the diferent aesthetic experiences of the use of Diversity as a port these ceramics. Ceramics also refect the diferent values that the of trade: the case of inhabitants of Temasik were able to support and appreciate. While bowls and plates were the normal Chinese ceramics forms of ceramics that were imported, there were also other, more unique, forms. Te latter included Trough the fourteenth century, Temasik large celadon (a grey-green glaze) platters that were maintained a small but vibrant trade with the exported to the Middle East, small fgurines such external world. Te archaeological recoveries from as Bodhisattvas in Qingbai (a blue-white colour) more than ten excavations in the area north of the glaze, and white-glazed fgurines of a couple in a Singapore River, including excavations at Empress copulating position, mounted on the inside of a Place, the Padang, the former Supreme Court small ceramic box. Tis range of artefacts refect building (now the National Gallery), and the old the diversity of consumer preferences and usage Parliament House (now Te Arts House), to name that were present in Temasik, which included but a few, have produced a material cultural record utilitarian, religious, ceremonial and even that demonstrates that Temasik imported a wide entertainment purposes. Te values and religious variety of foreign products. outlook of the inhabitants would have been fairly diverse to have made the importation of such a As an example, ceramics imported by Temasik, range of forms and items possible. which were primarily high-fred types made in China, ranged from cheaper examples made in provincial kilns located around the port cities of Guangzhou and Quanzhou, to rarer examples Clues to Temasik’s from kilns located further north along the Chinese coastline, such as at Jiangxi and Jiangsu. Tere were culinary culture also expensive ceramics from such national kilns as Jingdezhen (Jiangxi), Dehua (Fujian Province) and Other than refecting the tastes and consumption Longquan (Zhejiang Province). patterns of imported ceramics, ceramic fnds also provide a glimpse of the possible culinary Te diferent sources of Chinese ceramics at practices of Temasik’s inhabitants. Storage jars, Temasik refected the settlement’s aesthetic both earthenware and high-fred stoneware, have diversity at a number of levels. On the one hand, been recovered from all excavated sites. While the aesthetic experience of an end user, when he earthenware jars come from neighbouring areas, or she handled a ceramic, would have difered including north Sumatra, Borneo and South signifcantly depending on the type of material used. Tailand,2 the high-fred stoneware jars come from Ceramic bodies were of diferent types, resulting in further afeld, primarily the south Chinese coastal diferent weight or densities. Te diferent glazes, provinces.3 Such jars were ofen not exported on including the colour, degree of transparency or their own, but were used as containers to ship opacity, as well as tactile characteristics such as the smaller ceramics as well as foodstufs. smoothness or roughness of the glaze, all contribute 49 None of the storage jars recovered from Singapore culture that adopted aspects of diferent culinary have any of the original foodstuf remains in them. cultures that found their way to Singapore. However, shipwrecks from the region, including the Belitung wreck (ninth century), Pulau Buaya wreck (early twelfh century), and Turiang wreck (late Agricultural practices fourteenth century), contain storage jars flled with foodstufs.4 Tese fnds from shipwrecks suggest and food sustainability that similar culinary ingredients were imported by Temasik’s inhabitants during the fourteenth in ancient Singapore century. Te types of storage jars recovered in Singapore are similar to those recovered from these shipwrecks. Because Temasik has traditionally been studied in the framework of a Malay port city, it has always As an example, two types of storage jars found in been assumed that the bulk of its inhabitants’ food abundance in Singapore – mercury jars (round- supplies was imported from abroad. Te Malacca bodied jars with narrow bases and small mouths Sultanate (1400-1511), along with the Johor that were used to store dense liquids such as Sultanate that succeeded Malacca, have frequently mercury and rice wine) and Jiangxi purple-clay jars served as the model of sustainability. While the – were likely to have been containers that originally hinterland of the port city of Malacca yielded contained glutinous rice wine produced in South produce such as fruits and possibly some cereals, Fujian and sauces from Jiangxi respectively in the supply was clearly insufcient to sustain the fourteenth century. Larger jars, such as those approximately ten to thirty thousand people, produced in the vicinity of the Chinese port which was the size of Malacca’s population at its cities of Guangzhou and Quanzhou, would have peak during the ffeenth century, during the high contained preserved foodstufs that were known to trading seasons of the year.6 Instead, such staples as have been produced in the immediate agricultural rice were imported from such places as Ayutthaya hinterlands of these port cities, including fsh (Tailand) and Majapahit (Java). Malacca’s role as a and vegetables.5 Malay regional trade hub enabled it to import such staples for its own needs, as well as to redistribute It has to be understood that all of these are the surplus to other port cities in the region. postulations based on the archaeological record of storage ceramics. Nonetheless, it is likely that the Temasik was not in the same position as the Malacca population of Temasik used substantial quantities Sultanate. Tere were a few possible sources of cereal and varieties of imported foodstufs to complement staples that Temasik could have tapped into. Java the local production of food supplies. Te use of would have been one, as would have been the Gulf imported food ingredients hint at the possibility of Siam littoral, including Sukhothai in the early of familiarity with these culinary ingredients, fourteenth century and Ayutthaya in the later part which in turn would suggest that diferent foreign of the century. However, trade in the Malay world infuences were present in Temasik and afected the in the fourteenth century was a lot more dispersed culinary consumption patterns of its inhabitants. than it would be in the ffeenth century, and while Tis situation possibly led to either a diversity of it is possible that cereals such as rice could have culinary traditions present, or a hybridised culinary been supplied to Temasik on a consistent basis, the 50 ability of the port-city to attract regular supplies towards the eastern foot of Fort Canning Hill in a of rice may have been lower than in later periods.