Epigraphy 1

Indonesia's Evolving International Relationships in the Ninth to Early Eleventh Centuries: Evidence from Contemporary Shipwrecks and Epigraphy
Author(s): Kenneth R. Hall Reviewed work(s): Source: Indonesia, No. 90, Trans-Regional Indonesia over One Thousand Years (October 2010), pp. 15-45 Published by: Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20798231 . Accessed: 14/02/2013 03:54
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Indonesia's International the Ninth Centuries: Contemporary to
Evolving in
Relationships Early Evidence Shipwrecks Eleventh from and
Epigraphy1 Kenneth r. Hall
records Java's
This study juxtaposes two sources of information: shipwrecks and epigraphic

north that mutually document the critical ninth- to early eleventh-century coast. The newly a series available artifacts include shipwreck era on of trade
commodities with implications about the nature of trade and its connection with the types of religious and diplomatic relations found in thewritten sources. The trade
artifacts, historical synergies paired with processes, that were data, Java epigraphic surviving and networks, hierarchies, culturally to Java's foundational and regional the offer information about mediated global tensions interaction. and Past
historiography of Java has been heavily biased

contact, how period after Dutch on to focus Javanese agriculture,
the ensuing loss of control over ports constrained the and how the roots for this later alienation date to the
toward the inland kingdoms of the
1 This study has evolved from my 2003-04 Fulbright-funded research in Java based at Gadjah Mada University's Center forComparative Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies and subsequent guest lectures delivered at Cornell University and theUniversity ofHawai'i in 2007; with thanks to the facultyand students ofGadjah Mada University and both Southeast Asia programs for their insightful responses, and the subsequent encouragement of Eric Tagliocozza. Indonesia 90 (October 2010)
16
Kenneth R. Hall
pre-1500 era. New archaeological evidence may help to correct this imbalance, but as yet, despite the mounting evidence for the involvement of Java's north coast in intensive sea trade by theninth century,no port site of thisperiod has been identified,
and there is little substantive evidence of coast-hinterland autonomous relations.
of the Javahinterland.
downstream
realms, with
coast and the hinterland have been seen in past historiography as two very separate
ports-of-trade as virtually "foreign" entities on the periphery
Consequently,
the
At present the only excavations

settlements have been
in west
of a purported port site associated with

Java, where there are four undated mid-to
late fifth-century inscriptions of the King Purnavarman, who ruled the Tarum River basin just east of present-day Jakarta, a land known in the inscriptions as
Tarumanagara.2 The Purnavarman
initiativesby the king: his effortsto improve coincidentally his port and develop local agriculture in the river delta region by building a dam; his claimed military victories over his local political rivals,which are said tobe thebasis of new societal stability,but
are
inscriptions
are notable
for their record
of three
authority over visiting or part-time residentmaritime diaspora;3 and his promotion of Indie religion, specifically his localization ofVisnu worship, as evidenced by the locally symbolic empowered feet of the monarch shown in an associated stone carving
depiction of Visnu's footprints.4
unaccompanied
by any
coincidental
effort to sustain
a naval
force to impose
his
While there are no as yet known archaeological sites to substantiate the tenth century east Java inscriptions that are focal in this study, the newly found shipwreck remains provide the opportunity to explore the contemporary Java coast setting,as the east Java downstream ports documented by the inscriptions were likely ship international merchant presence; destinations. The inscriptions acknowledge
2 J.Ph. Vogel, "The Earliest Sanskrit Inscriptions of Java," Publicaties van de Oudheidkundige Dienst in G. de Casparis, IndonesianPalaeography (Leiden: E. G. Brill, 1975), pp. Nederlandsch-lndiel (1925): 15-35; J. .L. 18-20; H. B. Sarkar, Corpus of theInscriptionsofJava (up to928 AD), vol. 1 (Calcutta: Firma
Mukhopadhyay,
Tugu," Bijdragen totde Taal-, Land, enVolkenkundevan Nederlandsch-Indie (BKI) 128 (1972): 298-307. 3 This is in contrast to the contemporary evolving maritime emporium of Srivijaya, on the neighboring and competing southeast Sumatra coastline. See Pierre-Yves Manguin, "Palembang and Sriwijaya: An Early Malay Harbour-City Rediscovered," Journalof the Royal Asiatic Society Malaysian Branch of the (JMBRAS) 66 (1993): 23-46; and Hermann Kulke, "Kadatuan Srivijaya: Empire or Kraton of Srivijaya? A Reassessment of theEpigraphical Evidence," Bulletin de l'Ecole Fran?aise d'Extr?meOrient (BEFEO) 81,1 (1993): 159-80. G. Coedes and L-. Ch.Damais, Sriwijaya:History, Religion, and Language ofan early Malay Polity, ed. P. Y. Manguin (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the royal Asiastic Society, 1992) includes a
of earlier studies. summary representative 4 at Recent work archaeological Tarumanagara-related west Java sites has revealed two networked temple
1971),
pp.
1-12;
J.Noorduyn
and H.
Th. Verstappen,
"Purnavarman's
River Works
Near
compounds, the larger ofwhich isBuddhist and overlaps with theheight of the Srivijaya age (c. 600 1025); the second is associated with a smaller site thathas produced two Visnu statues. See Pierre-Yves Manguin and Agustijanto Indrajaya, "The Archaeology of Batujaya (West Java, Indonesia): An Interim Report," inUncovering SoutheastAsia's Past, ed. Elisabeth A. Bacus, Ian C. Glover, and Vincent C Pigott (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2006), pp. 245-57. These excavations, paired with othersManguin and Indonesian archeologists are conducting in the Sunda Strait region,will provide the basis fora major rethinking of currentviews of this region's maritime history. See also N. Dalsheimer and P. Y. Manguin, "Visnu mi tr?set r?seaux marchands en Asie du Sud Est: nouvelle donn?es arch?ologiques sur le 1er Van der Meulen, S.J., "In Search ofHo-ling," mill?naire apr. J.-C," BEFEO 85 (1998): 87-123. J. Indonesia 23 (April 1977): 104, relates the "footprints ofVisnu" to a later inscription of the central Java which are placed over ruler Sanjaya (732),where the center of a monarch's power is said to be inhis feet, theheads of his enemies.
Indonesia's
Evolving International Relationships
17
were not associated craftproduction specific to the imported iron and othermetals that
indigenous negotiations authorities; multi-ethnic to Java, as these are prominent in the shipwreck the consequential cargoes; communities and "alien" between port upstream-based political In such and the societal consequences. ports, the actions and interests of merchants and artisans intersected with those of local rulers and
agriculturalists,with wider implications relative to the future of maritime trade and societal development in the Indonesian region of the Indian Ocean.
at the Indonesia's century to the late tenth century, document importance at Silk Road," crossroads of the "Maritime critical Java Sea Straits of Melaka, which caravan to the "Silk Road" route across Central Asia. that time became the alternative late ninth
The focal shipwrecks, a mix of Southeast Asian and Arab vessels thatdate from the
Not only do the shipwrecks have significance in documenting the emergence of global trade networks, but they also provide a valuable material supplement to the early epigraphy and Hindu and Buddhist temple site evidence as a window on early
Indonesia's international and regional relationships and their local consequences.
Networks
Shipwreck Evidence of Ninth- and Tenth-Century Indonesia's Regional Trade I. The Belitung Wreck, c. 850 CE
A 1,200-year-old shipwreck from thewestern edge of the Java Sea, known as the Belitung wreck (since it sank in Indonesian waters off the coast of Belitung Island), was featured in the June2009 National Geographic magazine.5 The article,which is a popular on is of underwater that based the research synthesis archaeologist Michael Flecker, a participant in the salvage operation,6 highlights the 60,000 pieces of recovered Tang ceramic bowl provides the approximate time of the shipwreck: "the 16thday of the seventh month of the second year of the Baoli reign" (826 CE), which is thought to mark the date that thebowl was fired.The article's author describes thevast number of
distinctive brown and straw-colored after the Changsha Tang "Fiestaware," exclusively The National in China's province to acknowledge their production aristocratic) consumption.7 kilns Geographic article's secondary focus glazed Hunan ceramic "tea bowls"?otherwise were named to where they for broadly based is on produced?as (as opposed Arab Dynasty-era ceramics, in addition to notable gold and silver artifacts. One inscribed
the recovered
dhow
vessel, sixty feet long,with a raked prow and stern likely built of African or Indian wood and fitted with a single square sail. Notably, the ship was not fittedby dowels,
as was the norm among contemporary Chinese and Southeast Asia-built ocean-going 5 Simon Worrall, "Made inChina: A 1,200-year-old Shipwreck Opens aWindow on Ancient Global Trade/'' National Geographic (June2009): 112-23. 6 N. Miksic, Rosanna Brown, and Michael Flecker, The Java Sea Wreck Archaeological Report, ed. John William M. Mathers and Michael Flecker (Annapolis, MD: Pacific Sea Resources, 1997). See Michael Flecker's web-site (accessed March 21, 2010) for www.maritime-explorations.com/balitung.htm and Flecker's from and the analysis of thewreck materials, as salvage operation, description photographs
cited below.
7 Worrall, "Made inChina," p. 114, cites thewidespread remnants of these ceramics throughout the Middle East. Indian Ocean realm fromSoutheast Asia to the
18
Kenneth R. Hall
but instead itsplanks were sewn togetherusing coconut-husk fibercord.8 In sum, craft, Maritime Silk Road to Baghdad the article reports theTang dynasty's promotion of the a means a Ocean as for China to acquire variety of Indian products such as fine textiles, its precious metals (notably silver) in doing so. Thus, the mass "factory-like was an intentional production" of ceramics for the export trade by five differentkilns
state-coordinated Asia Central promoted via the of ceramics overland volumes But transporting enterprise.9 was on rulers not the suitable. camels Instead, (618-907 CE) Tang passage as it better suited To their trade in ceramics. the maritime passageway, pearls, coral, and aromatic woods, while guaranteeing that China was not drained of
insure their successful transport, theChangsha bowls were shipped in large stoneware jars,protected by rice straw ("an organic bubble wrap") padding.10 Michael
Flecker, the archaeologist associated with most of the west Java Sea on the Belitung shipwreck salvage initiatives, provides the additional details are distinctive in their decorations, shipwreck.11He notes that the Changsha bowls which anticipated the variety of their Indian Ocean marketplaces. The decorative motifs include Buddhist lotus symbols, as well as makara fish and Chinese calligraphy forBuddhists; geometric decorations and Quranic inscriptions for the Islamic markets;
and the white ceramicware and
consumers. One bowl is inscribed with five loose vertical lines, which Flecker interpretsas symbolic of Allah. There were 763 inkpots (as theAbbasid-era, 750-1258 CE, was notable for its handwritten rather than printed texts), 915 spice jars (appropriate for the storage of the valuable Indian Ocean spices, including those of Indonesia, thatwould make theirway toMiddle Eastern marketplaces), and 1,635 ewers (spouted ceramic water vessels appropriate for pouring water), also in high
demand in contemporary Middle Eastern marketplaces.12
green-splashed
bowls
popular
among
Persian
China during theTang era.
a thick beard. One side of the cup has figures inmotion?a long, curly hair and and accompanying musicians above her head, is clapping dancer her hands and of Persian music the popularity assortment of instruments?reflecting
A distinctive cup of high-carat gold, one of five known examples of the type (as others were all found in China), was likely an item for diplomatic presentation. The cup includes the depiction of a Central Asian figure?rather than a Chinese?with
Persian an play in dance
8 Pierre-Yves Manguin, "Trading Ships of the South China Sea: Shipping Techniques and theirRole in the History of theDevelopment ofAsian Trade Networks," Journalof theEconomic and Social History of the Orient (JESHO) 36 (1993): 256-65. 9 Miksic. Worrall, "Made inChina," p. 118, citing John
10
11 Michael Flecker, "A Ninth-Century AD Arab or Indian Shipwreck in Indonesia: First Evidence for Direct Trade with China," World Archaeology 32,3 (February 2001): 335-54. 12 JohnS. Guy, Oriental Ceramics inSouth-EastAsia, Ninth toSixteenthCenturies (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 11-12.
Ibid.,
p.
114.
Indonesia's
19
II. Intan Wreck, The c. 940 CE west
c. 940 CE Java Sea Intan wreck is the earliest evidence of an Indian Ocean
ship constructed in Southeast Asia.13 Southeast Asia ships of this era typicallyhad V shaped keeled hulls rather than the flat bottoms found on ships constructed inChina. with dowels, and then lashed This wreck's keel was covered by curved planks, fitted with palm-fiber ropes similar to those found on the Belitung Arab dhow, and ithad three to four sails. Typical of Southeast Asian ships of that age, as these are depicted on the ninth-century central Java Borobudur Buddhist stupa (see figure 1, below), the Intan ship had a large rudder roughly situated three-quarters of theway back on one side. Technically, the light weight of this construction, also characteristic of the Belitung wreck, was practical in that it allowed the ship to flex in the heavy seas. A
navigational known, bowl
navigational sophistication. While

the merchandise
compass
recovered
from
the Intan
it carried was
the Belitung wreck's

evidently
shipwreck
demonstrates in western
local
intended
intended sea passage

for sale
is not
Indian
Ocean markets, and the Intan ship is thought to have sunk following a stopover in the contemporary Srivijaya entrepot at Palembang in southeast Sumatra, the dominant
contemporary
that its finaldestination was to be a Javanese port.
regional
port-of-trade
in that era.14 Based
on
its cargo,
one
can conclude
coastal Peninsula Kedah Malay region.15 was more tin the excavations, likely to have eastern end of the Straits of Melaka
That the ship intended tomake stopovers at Java coast ports is documented by its substantial cargo of tin,which Flecker initially proposed was mined in thewestern
But, come based on recent from Bangka archaeological Island, which was departure a
known region of the Srivijaya realm, and would have been a logical stopover on the
passageway prior to a vessel's for Java.16
The ship carried several tons of tin formed into pyramid-shaped ingots that lined the was clearly from melted-down bronze objects. ship's bottom, as well as tin in alloy that A cache of accompanying broken bronze artifacts suggests that the tin and alloyed tin shipments were to be used in local production of a variety of domestic and sacred objects. This is consistentwith Java's total lack of iron or tin deposits, which required the import of these crucial metals thatwere vital to Java's contemporary society, as
13 Michael Flecker, "The Archaeological Excavation of theTenth-Century Intan Shipwreck/' British
Archaeological Reports International Series, 1047 (Oxford: www.maritime-explorations.com/intan.htm (accessed 2002). Archaoepress, March 21, 2010). The See also Flecker's shipwreck web-site, as it is notable,
dates to the Five Dynasties period (907-960 CE) interregnumprior to the early Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), and would thus document regional trade prior to the reopening of China's ports to international
trade when the Song came to power.
14 P.-Y. Manguin, 'The Archaeology of the Early Maritime Polities of Southeast Asia," in SoutheastAsia from Prehistory to History, ed. I.C. Glover and Peter Bellwood (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), pp. 282 313; and O. W. Wolters, "Studying Srivijaya," JMBRAS 52,2 (1979): 1-52. 15 Museums Alastair Lamb, "Kedah and Takuapa: Some Tentative Historical Conclusions," Federated . V. Peacock, "Pillar Base Architecture inAncient Kedah," JMBRAS 47,1 (1974): Journal6 (1961): 69-88; A. 16 which may well Bangka, off the coast from the Srivijaya Palembang emporium, was a source of iron, have contributed to the selection of the adjacent Palembang coastline as the Srivijaya center. See Lucas P. Koestoro, P.-Y Manguin, and Soeroso, "Kota Kapur (Bangka Indonesia): A Pre-Sriwijayan Site Re ascertained," in SoutheastAsian Archaeology 1994 (Hull: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1994), pp. 61 81; and Pierre-Yves Manguin, "The Suma tranCoastline in the Straits of Bangka: New Evidence," SPAFA Digest 3,2 (1982): 24-29.
66-86.
20
Kenneth R. Hall
represented in the substantive remaining bronze and iron artifacts that date to this
era.17
need
The shipwreck contained religious and consumer articles, including silver ingots fromChina, inscribedwith "Sword officehigh grade silver of 52 Hang certifiedby the officer Chen Xun." While thebulk metals were the major segment of the ship cargo, the distribution of the silver ingots at the shipwreck site attests that theywere carried by diverse traders on shipboard as a trade item, as the traderswould have used the silver ingots and Chinese silver and gold coinage in Java's marketplaces.18 The absence of large quantities of coinage among the ship's remains suggests that the traders did not currencieswhere theywere available in Southeast Asia at that time.19 The ship's cargo also included iron ingots cast inChina, and iron cook pots and spear heads, profitable
Java imports, as discussed below.20 coinage to conduct business, but engaged in commodity trade and used local
Among other cargo marketable merchandise were metallic domestic items: door characteristics and the other Chinese, and was perhaps of Chinese origin. The Chinese mirror was 25 percent tin, alloyed with copper and lead. The end product was highly made from reflective, likely Malay tin shipped toChina in ingots, alloyed, and cast in a mirror. All of these items are portrayed in ninth-century Borobudur high-quality hair, and wears
found at the wreck There were temple relief: a woman uses hinges, jewelry, and weapons. There are two completed mirrors. One has Indonesian
jewelry similar to the gold rings and earrings, pendants, and beads
site.21 bronze standing Buddha icons, in a style common in eastern
the Java-design
mirror
to
apply makeup
and
comb
her
small
India at that time.22 Since Bengal, like Java,had no tin, seafarers could have previously transported tin fromKedah to Bengal, where local artisans made the icons, and then shipped these to Java; alternatively, since bronze and terracottaBuddhist miniatures are found at contemporary archaeological sites associated with the early Kedah ports, they could as well have been crafted in Kedah.23 In addition, the shipment included
several molds for local artisans to use to produce bronze and terracotta Buddhist Christie, "Trade and Settlement in Early Java: Integrating the Epigraphic and Archaeological Data," in EarlyMetallurgy, Trade, and Urban Centres inThailand and SoutheastAsia, ed. I. Villiers (Bangkok:White Lotus, 1992), pp. 181-95; also Bennet Bronson, Glover, P. Suchitta, and J. "Patterns in theEarly Southeast Asian Metals Trade," EarlyMetallurgy, Trade, and Urban Centres in Thailand and SoutheastAsia, pp. 71-72. 18 Robert S.Wicks, Money, Markets, and Trade inEarly SoutheastAsia: The Development of Indigenous Monetary AD 1400 (Ithaca,NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1992), pp. 219-81. Systems to 19 Flecker, "Intan Shipwreck," p. 83. There are, however, several notable coinage finds, including a sandalwood flower gold coin (the largest known) that is consistentwith coinage being used in Java at that time (seeWicks, Money, Markets, and Trade), and a Chinese gold coinwith a 918 CE mint date. Flecker proposes that,based on the shipwreck evidence, the sandalwood flower gold coin, like other early was minted in the Srivijaya Sumatra realm,where gold was sandalwood gold coins used in Java, where natural supplies of gold were rare and available, a resource thatdistinguished Sumatra from Java,
limited. 20 "Metals Bronson, Trade," 21 "Intan Shipwreck," Flecker, 22 Ibid., p. 31. pp. 71, 89-90. pp. 54-60.
17 Wisseman Jan
23 Alastair Lamb, Chandi Bukit Batu Pahat: A Report on theExcavations ofan Ancient Temple inKedah Museums Journal, 5, I960]. (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1960) [reprintof Federated
Indonesia's
21
miniature shrines; the icons produced by thesemolds appear in the Borobudur panel
relief. These Java's Buddhist as icons were to consistent with the international movement
of
Buddhist clerics and pilgrims in those times,24as Buddhism had been embraced by
kings a means transcend ethnic as Contemporary Buddhist shrines
monuments traditions
erected over a relic of the Buddha (a tooth, cloth fromhis robe, or another material object attributed to the Buddha), as was done in China and India, but were built as
to dead
in Java,
institutions. and societal loyalties not in Southeast elsewhere Asia, were
occasionally praise the Buddha as the local royal patron(s), consistentwith regional
of ancestor worship.25 artifacts Numerous discovered in the wreck were ritual objects associated with
kings,
or
in celebration
of a monarch/monarchy.
Inscriptions
Vajrayana (Tantric) Buddhism: bells and a spear-shaped scepter, both objects of a kind portrayed on the Borobudur panels.26 This evidence is consistent with the recent
a be ritual complex, as would stupa as Vijrayana to connections Sailendra-era ritual and pilgrimage given the ninth-century appropriate, new a was center in at time of northern which that the Nalanda, India, contemporary Tantric network.27 Other ritual objects included a bronze Asia-wide lion's head finial, a revisionist portrayal of the Borobudur bronze
in Indie rituals. There was a unique set of incised and carved brass hinges and door
decorations, too a large for house, but likely intended for a Javanese religious site.28
lotus bird, and
ceremonial
spears,
vessels,
and
trays of the sort commonly
used
The Intan shipwreck provided 245 similarly styled "eye beads," each with small drops of colored glass dropped on the bead surface to create dots?green, blue, and brown.29 The bead trade was, like the tin trade, widely prominent in that age, as
24 Tansen Sen, Buddhism,Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment ofSino-Indian Relations, 600-1400 (Honolulu, HI: University ofHawai'i Press, 2003). 25 See Ann R. Kinney, Worshipping Siva and Buddha: The TempleArt ofEast Java (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003). See also John Miksic, "Double Meditation Platforms atAuradhapura and the Pendopo of Ratu Boko," Saraswati Esai-Esai ArkeologiKalpataruMajalah Arkeologi 10 (1993-94): 23-31; and Miksic, "The Manjusrigraha Inscription of Candi Sewu, Saka 714/AD 792," in Text and Contexts in John SoutheastAsia (Yangon: Universities Historical Research Centre, 2003), pp. 23-31. 27 Roger Sundberg, "TheWilderness Monks ofAbyayagirivihara and the Jefferey Origins of Sino-Jav?nese de Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde 160,1 (2004): 95-123; Susan L. Huntington Exoteric Buddhism," Bijdragen tot and JohnC. Huntington, Leaves of theBodhi Tree: The Art ofPala India (8th-12thCenturies) (Dayton, OH, and Seattle,WA: Dayton Art Institute and University of Washington Press, 1990). 28 54. See also Stewart "Intan World (Philadelphia, PA: Gordon, When Asia Was the Flecker, Shipwreck," p. a connects in Indian 63ff. the Intanwreck Gordon, Books, 2008), pp. history, correctly DaCapo specialist and portions of its cargo to India. The types of religious artifacts found on the Intanwreck are even more miles (100 kilometers) conspicuous in quantity on anothermajor tenth-centuryshipwreck, recovered sixty off the Java north coast fromCirebon. Known as theCirebon shipwreck, thevessel has been dated to roughly 968 CE, as this is the production date inscribed on a recovered Yue ware ceramic. The Cirebon wreck carried cargo similar to that found on the Intan vessel, with the exception that ithad significantly more bronze religious artifacts, intended for templeworship, and Buddhist votive tablets, for wider public consumption, all ofwhich are thought tohave been produced in an unknown Sumatra production center forexport to Java. The Cirebon shipwas also, like the Intanwreck, a Southeast Asia-produced, lashed vessel, and itcarried considerable numbers of iron ingots, relatively equal to the amount of iron stored in the Intanwreck. See Yvonne Tan, "Cirebon Cargo of Yue Ceramic Vessels," Asian ArtMagazine (accessed March 25, 2010); and (May 2007), posted on www.seaceramics.org.sg/articles_cargo.html Yvonne Tan, "Cirebon Wreck," SoutheastAsia CeramicsMuseum Newsletter 3,7 (2006): 1.
29 Flecker, "Intan Shipwreck," pp. 78-79. 26 Flecker, "Intan Shipwreck," pp. 36-41.
22
Kenneth R. Hall
evidenced by the fact that glass beads from theMiddle East are commonly found in Indian Ocean archaeological sites from the earliest centuries of the Common Era. By the tenthcentury, Java artisanswere making theirown glass beads, initiallyby melting own glass.30 It is thereforeappropriate that a imported glass rather thanmaking their few items of glassware were recovered from the shipwreck, though Flecker argues that thesewere all previously broken and were being shipped to Java as raw material for
local bead manufacture.
Similar to the cargo of the Belitung wreck, the Intan cargo included quantities of Chinese ceramics, but not anywhere near the volume of this item recovered from the a small number of fine Chinese Belitung shipment to theMiddle East. There were
domestic most of the cargo was made up of lesser pots, and bowls?but ceramics?jars, as had been true in the In this wreck. wider ceramics for Belitung consumption, quality as a are were Yue ware, common known ceramics what coarse, domestic case, the more
at product of less quality than that in the Belitung shipment. These Intan ceramics fired China's Zhejiang regional kilns were shipped in bound, multiple stacked bowl Middle East, the Intan ceramic cargo packages. Like theBelitung ceramic exports to the was intended to be exchanged for Southeast Asian commodities, including aromatic below.31 Commodities recovered from the Intan ship include twenty-foursmall pieces of benzoin (tree resin)?at that time an export product of Sumatra rather than Java, in evidently acquired at the previous Srivijaya southeast Sumatra stopover?used Buddhist monastic and home rituals.32In addition, the ship held a small number of
Eastern ceramics with value goods, such as gold, on bases, and high patterns turquoise blue-glaze sources. western Indian Ocean from and ivory, pearls, incised remains are forty-two bones from different skeletons. resins, spices, and woods that were available in Java's marketplaces, as discussed
Middle
Other
notable
Intan wreck
This is inconsistentwith salvage from other early shipwrecks, where skeletal remains are infrequently found. In part, the rarityof human remains in such wrecks is due to the fact that crews and deck passengers were likely to escape a sinking ship. In
addition, dissolve remains skeletal bones would
that these bones organic matter. One historian proposes are textiles remnants, to slaves held below deck.33 Notably missing imported belonged to have been contemporary whether silk or cotton, as these are known imports from and in the stone carvings on the Borobudur and India, and these were portrayed China in addition to other
intactbecause the ship sank into a seabed of heavy silt,which preserved the skeletal
the calcium
carbonate
not normally in the bone.
survive
in oceanic
The
bones
salt water, which will remained of the Intan wreck
other ninth-century central Java temples.34 Such textileswere
likely to have been
worn
30 Present (Honolulu, HI: University of Peter Francis, Jr., Asia's Maritime Bead Trade from ca. 300 BC to the Hawai'i Press, 2002). Francis reports that, in Southeast Asia, beads were used inhealing and currency,
as ritual
31 Wisseman Christie, "Javanese Markets and theAsian Sea Flecker, "Intan Shipwreck," pp. 101-3. See Jan Trade Boom of theTenth to Thirteenth Centuries AD," JESHO 41,3 (1998): 344-81; and Wisseman Christie, "Trade and Settlement in Early Java," pp. 185-92, on the patterns of JavaChinese ceramics distribution in 33 World, p. 68. Gordon, When Asia Was the 34 "Texts and Textiles in Medieval Wisseman Christie, Jan
this era. 32 Flecker, "Intan Shipwreck," p. 96.
objects
and
decoration,
and
recognized
as sources
of
personal
power.
Java," BEFEO 80,1 (1993): 181-211.
Indonesia's
23
have
among the goods carried by shipboard merchants on the Intan, but clothwould not
survived long submersion in the ocean.
HI. The Cirebon/Nan-Han and theKarawang Shipwrecks While we

Karawang wreck
do not as yet have

both
the full details of the Cirebon/Nan-Han

CE wrecks These discovered off the west sank while Java ceramics
and
the preliminary oral reports by Horst H. Liebner, the archaeologist working on the
remains, perhaps cargoes indicate their from Srivijaya/Palembang, recovered from them importance.35 ships to the north East from sailing most coastline. The and glassware are Middle
shipwrecks,
c. 930-990
Java coast,
Sumatra, significant
words.
bearing Islamic motifs. There are also inscribed tasbhih(Islamic "prayer beads") with sculpted Arabic letters,and small printing plates used to duplicate Arabic letters and
These
Muslim Java's
and theyhelp verify the authenticityof a Muslim tombstone, dated 1082, located in the north Java Gresik seaport, said to mark the grave of a Muslim princess, but of questionable origin; historians debate whether themonument was a local product or an import.36The shipboard volume of such Islamic items suggests that diasporic
merchants, ports-of-trade?as if not
cargo
items provide
the first documentation
of Muslim
residency
in Java,
Muslim trading diaspora in India's ports.37 by the The Shipwreck Remains as Documentation Culture and its Wider Consequences
of the two most
Javanese converts, were practicing was true in the initial contemporary
in their faith?minimally settlements established
of the Evolution of Javanese Material
In sum, the c. 940 CE Intanwreck remains, as sustained by the preliminary reports

later tenth-century west Java Sea recently salvaged shipwrecks, that by the tenth century Java ports-of-trade were destinations rather than of reflects and wider The elite, religious, ports. impressive variety imports
demonstrate stopover
35 There have been several accounts published in Indonesian newspapers based on filed legal documents generated by a legal contest to determine ownership of thewreck. The potential significance of these new wrecks justifies calling attention to these reports. The analytical evidence has been outlined in a series of guest lectures by Horst H. Liebner, "Cargoes forJava: Two Tenth-Century Shipwrecks," one presented at theNational University of Singapore, September 10, 2009, as reported in a series of internetblog summaries of the presentations. Work on these shipwrecks has been delayed by litigation, as there are rival local claims to the recovered artifacts, which promise tobe valuable. Preliminary newspaper reports with have been followed by silence. wrecks the anticipation describing 36 M. C. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1981), p. 3; Elizabeth Lambourn, "Tombstones, Texts and Typologies: Seeing Sources for theEarly History of Islam in Southeast Asia," JESHO 51,2 (2008): 252-86. Historians debate whether the gravestone was originally erected at Gresik or placed there at a later time, as Gresik would become a major port-of-trade by the fifteenth century.Also at issue iswhether the gravestone marks the presence of a single, solitaryMuslim was a residentMuslim community in theport, and potential local converts to inGresik, orwhether there Islam at that time. 37 Aden: Khutba and Muslim Urban Networks inLate Thirteenth Elizabeth Lambourn, "India from in Cities and Urban Networking in theIndianOcean Realm, c. 1400-1800, ed. India," Secondary Century Kenneth R. Hall (Lanham,MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), pp. 55-97. See also C. Guillot, Lukman Nurhakim, and Sonny Wibisono, Bauten avec l'Islam: Etudes archaeologiquede Bautendrang (Java-Indonesie) 932 7-1526 (Paris: l'Ecole Fran?aise d'Extr?me Orient, 1994).
24
Kenneth R. Hall
iron and volume, there are high-end
consumerism, with implications relative towider societal and market hierarchies. By

ceramics are the most ceramics conspicuous in the Intan shipwreck, cargoes of the Intan wreck. While most of the ceramics are notably of
lesser quality than those from the ninth-century Belitung wreck, which were clearly western Indian Ocean and, especially, Middle East consumption. This is destined for
as with the other it shows that, in comparison as a consumer to be still evolving marketplace Java region, tenth-century for imported commodities.
important, seem would
Wisseman Christie's previous study of the remains of imported ceramics confirms Jan wide distribution of these in the Javahinterland,while italso, critically,denotes the the numerically significantevidence of the corresponding preferential use of local ware? in otherwords, the imported ceramics were a popular prestige commodity.38 Whether but thiswould certainly have been the case in reference to the imported glass beads from the Intan wreck, which were supplemented by a documented nascent tenth century Java glass bead industry to supply wider local consumption.39 The fact that imported jewelry and mirrors are pictured in the Borobudur relief suggests that these, as well as other imported consumer goods, were in such wide use that thosewho visited the Borobudur monument would not have found them out-of place in the depictions of Indie literature in a Java setting.As reported above, the Borobudur relief also confirms the distribution of the small bronze Buddhist icons found on the Intan shipwreck, and the wider distribution of local metallic and terracotta replicas produced by local artisans using the importedmolds. The importof Sumatra benzoin (tree resin) foruse in Buddhist rituals in temples and homes is also
as Java ports were evolving evidently significant, of all variety of imports the commercial exchange into international for Indonesian clearinghouses spices. for archipelago the imported ceramics set in motion a productive local-ware "industry" is not clear,
of types?e.g., to the west
This brings us to consideration of the high-volume trade in iron and other importedmetals documented in the Intan shipwreck remains. The quantity and variety
of sources tin ingots from Southeast Asian located iron ingots from China, used bronze for local and melted-down, Java, previously objects and active trade that goes beyond the more evidence for broad
higher
to Java's evolving societal foundational and productivity were to iron tools transition Not Java's necessary support integrations. only political to eastern into a major wet-rice and exporter (rice was exported, especially producer as in the in exchange documented Indonesian islands for that region's spices), but, levels of economic
limited trade forgoods that would be consumed locally,which resulted in the variety of locally fabricated products discussed above. In fact, Java did not have metallic deposits that could supply the local need for iron and secondary metals to sustain
castings?provide
shipwreck remains of iron spearheads and a high-quality silver sword (which was likely a diplomatic gift; iron importswere the basis of the subsequent local production was necessary for of the iron-based kris as the Javaneseweapon of choice), iron military
38 Wisseman Christie, "Trade and Settlement inEarly Java." During my early 1970s archaeological fieldwork inPalembang, Sumatra, ritualized visits to local households would include thehonored privilege of seeing the families' Chinese porcelain heirloom.
39 Francis, Asia's Maritime Bead Trade.
Indonesia's
25
initiatives international
in support of political commercial stature.40
consolidations
that were
essential
to Java's
new
Java smiths developed a tradition of working with metals thatwere imported in semi-finished condition. Ninth-century gift lists in inscriptions that record land
transfers reference not
reassignments to sustain temples activities, but also iron bars, presented either in bundles (wsi ika?)or singly (wsi ura), consistentwith the tons of iron bars recovered from the shipwrecks in the Java sea and bundles of iron bars found at Java archaeological sites. Similar bundles of bronze bars have been found widely distributed throughout Southeast Asia, as in this form metals were carried by mobile traders who readily supplied local needs for iron tools.41 who supplied local smiths, Evidence of the use ofminted coinage in Java begins in the eighth century.At that time, imported gold and silver,whether in coinage or in bars, was primarily used in redistributions by wealthy donors and members of the political elite; these imported
assumed only a secondary role in commercial transactions.42 and were There is no large-scale transactions for land purchases, temple endowments, or ceremonial
only
several
types
of iron tools
that are
included
in material
metals based
evidence thatprecious metals were used in everyday village transactions,which were

in commodities rather rather than based than commodity exchanges, on standardized values.43 recent carried out by
barter
In their reflections along coinage the Straits or bullion
on
precious
imports via diplomatic exchanges, or used higher-value gold and silver

in their "administered" transactions with commercial outsiders.
of Melaka,
recoveries archaeological reason scholars that members
in Java and of the court
its neighbors elite received
were annually collected fromvillages inkind rather than in cash, and Tribute and fines local officials were paid in kind rather than in cash?military commanders were,
however,
minted
courts had little initial need for coinage?the court did not need to create coinage Nor did Java's kings use coins to promote theirown image. Java simply to re-collect it.
coins did not
paid
in precious
metal
bars,
as
the bars were
more
mobile.
Thus,
the early
In sum, Java's courts did not of legitimacy. use kings impose coinage came into use as a consequence from the top down. Coins of the profusion of new local to the importation of a variety of consumer related consequent marketplaces goods,
contemporaneous currency in South Asia

as a statement
incorporate
king's
that prominently displayed the images of
portrait
or
name,
in
contrast
to
40 Wisseman Christie provides the translation of the informative Jurungan 876 sima charter inscription Jan fromcentral Java,which itemizes the cloth (800 pieces), gold (1.75 kilograms), silver (.25 kilogram), and iron transfers in compensation for thedelegated land income transfersto the recipient local temple by the regional ruler, theRakrayan of Sirikan. Notable among thesewere numbers of iron tools (foragriculture?) and iron kris military weapons, and a generalized distribution of ironbars (100 bundles). See Jan Uses in the Javanese States of theNinth to FifteenthCenturies A.D.," Wisseman Christie, "Money and its 3 275-78. Old The Machi Suhadi and M. M. Soekarto, 39, (1996): Javanese language text is in JESHO, Laporan penelitian Epigrafi JawaTengah (Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, 1986), pp. 72-77. 42 Wisseman Christie, "Money and itsUses," pp. 243-86. See alsoWisseman Christie, "Trade and Value in Uses," p. 279, inwhich she provides an illustration inher Pre-Majapahit Java," and "Money and its translation of the "sima grant ofHring (937). 43 Antoinette M. Barrett Jones,Early TenthCentury Java A Study ofEconomic, Social, and from theInscriptions: AdministrativeConditions in the FirstQuarter of the Century (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1984), pp. 59-90.
41 Wisseman Christie, "Javanese Markets and the Asian Sea Trade Boom," pp. 227-29.
26
Kenneth R. Hall
processes set inmotion by the availability of imports in volume, including Chinese

ceramics, and the eventual need
the acquisition of items thatwere not locally produced, a differentsort of transaction from typical local trade exchanges, which necessitated a differenttype of exchange.
for coinage
in
marketplace
transactions
that involved
Java inscriptions from the eighth until the thirteenthcentury consistently include monetary terms such as atak (?), pirak (a general term for silver), and mas (a general term forgold). References toboth silver and gold coins includemonetary units such as the kupang (0.60 grams), themasa (equal to 4 kupang,or 2.40 grams), the suvarna (equal to 16 masa or 64 kupang), the karsapana (equal to one suvarna), and the kalkati (equal to on a standardized weight system supportive of barter exchange, and not on marketplace exchanges that relied on price indexes inwhich metal coinage had an
intrinsic partners.45 carried limited value, The as was the case in South are Asia shipwreck cargoes consistent and China, trade Java's contemporary as the vessels with this conclusion, on volumes of precious metal bars, some transfers of a local 16 suvarna)}4' These equitable value standards document that coinage value was based
market. Epigraphic references thus distinguished between hanyaga (port-based traders)

who dealt in larger volume coinage
coinage, stocking up instead to the of which had inscribed precertified value, as appropriate larger-volume in a port-of-trade take place that would rather than the small-scale exchanges exchanges in ports-of-trade, and in contrast
to smaller-scale
merchants?peddlers
century, smaller
and "delta traders,"who did not (see below).

units were that introduced adopted
In the eleventh
greater involvement in the Indian Ocean

marketplace produced, between transactions called involved which
trade and subsequent upstream increases in

consumer products that were not locally coinage.46 east Java: central Java's Kedu
as a result of the region's
for the use of small-denomination
The distribution of recovered coinage hoards

the two core population centers in central
and
indicates preferential differences
source of silver ingots and silver sandalwood major regional gold.47 Irregular, stamped in the Kedu flower coins are concentrated of central Java, and gold plain ingots and east in Java.48 coinage predominate
plain had an affinity for silver, while in east and west Java, gold predominated, arguably because of this region's contacts with the Srivijaya realm, which was the
were
The gold sandalwood flower currency found in the Intan shipwreck, which was issued roughly from 800 to 1300 CE, came from production sites on the coast of Sumatra or the peninsular Thailand area of Nakhon Sri Tammarat/Suratthani that
known to be networked with the southeastern Sumatra-based Srivijayan realm.
44 Robert S.Wicks, "Monetary Developments in Java between theNinth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Numismatic Perspective," Indonesia 42 (October 1986): 42-77. 45 Kenneth R. Hall, "Coinage, Trade, and Economy in South India and itsBay of Bengal Neighbors," Economic and Social History Review 36,4 (1999): 431-59.
46 Wicks, "Monetary Developments," p. 47.
Indian
47 Wicks, Money, Markets, and Trade, pp. 219-99. 48 This would potentially indicate that theport destination of the Intan vessel was in central rather than in east Java. This route contrastswith thatof the cited later tenth-century Cirebon wreck, which had more gold artifacts,suggesting ithad an east Java destination. See also Michael Flecker, "Maritime Archaeology in Southeast Asia," in SoutheastAsian Ceramics:New Light on Old Pottery,ed. John Miksic (Singapore: Southeast Asian Ceramics Society, 2009), p. 38.
Indonesia's
27
Slightly smaller and less finely engraved versions of the gold sandalwood flower duplicated the gold currency, although the obverse of the silver four-petal Javanese
sandalwood flower coin contains the letter ma currency were also being issued in Java by the ninth century.49 Javanese silver coinage to the reverse
Java's early gold coins,which is blank.
{masa),
in contrast
of
As I have argued in comparative detail elsewhere, an early Southeast Asian state too dependent on income derived exclusively from its wet-rice production in theplains was limited in its development potential.50 In the case of Java, the elites of pre-tenth plain-based elite's ability to exercise political sovereignty, providing the would-be rulers with material as well as "symbolic" capital with which to construct alliance
networks, greater among a successful economic other state shared land control with rival landed elites century central Java's rice-plain-based source of a rice income derived from the land was and institutions. Since the major
concentrate wealth at the center. By becoming more actively involved in external

commercial affairs, those claiming sovereignty in a rice-plain state could secure their
or to have had either immense prowess sovereign personal resources at his did than personal sovereigns disposal potential an alternative means to elite groups within the realm. Trade provided
and theircourt's authority relative to the authority of competing regionally based elites
and of in the commercial sector provided Economic leadership in for wet-rice-plain monarchs turn, enhanced and, an of international trade sector also Development accomplishments. institutions. income further prosperity of the wet-rice sector, providing new markets a new source their for political the promoted local rice
production and facilitating the expansion of wet-rice agriculture, which stimulated the development of a more integratedpolity.
then
and weights approved tenth century, according
From the tenth century to the early sixteenth century, Javanese kings based in east Java courts played a key role in facilitatingthis trade.At issuewas the legitimization of the incursions of hanyaga into the Javanese hinterland, as this is a repeated topic in inscriptions dating from the tenth century that (as explained below) elaborate royal instructions on the conduct of trade, quality control, and the use of standards and
measures at warehouses and commercial to the Dhimanasrama
ruler exempted twenty vessels and the shippers of goods of twelve different classes
inscription
In the rice granaries. a discussed below, Javanese
merchants
from paying that a total of 135 vessels were operating royal taxes; the record shows a sizeable coast port, reflecting from this north trade. The Kaladi tenth-century records a royal grant to encourage settlement the river and roads along inscription a threat to to discourage to an east Java port, a measure intended banditry, leading and coastal case, residents. In another a ruler offered his to a in east Java, as
evidenced by a subsequent early eleventh-century royal project that dammed the Brantas River to "reduce the threat of flooding to benefit shiphandlers, pilots, and including ships' captains, and merchants [banyaga]originating gatherers of goods
50 Kenneth R. Hall, Maritime Trade and Societal Development inEarly SoutheastAsia (Landam, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010).
49 Wicks, "Monetary Developments," p. 51.
patronage
develop
port
28
Kenneth R. Hall
from other and as
islands
and
countries/751 Port-based Javanese hegemony, in areas near their
merchants
were
in the era of east royal tax collectors
port-based
merchants
granted royal were even
charters,
means of facilitating themovement of goods This was a further of political authority.52 was an also from the hinterland, as it attempt by the Javanese monarch to penetrate local political autonomy in theperipheries of his realm.53
convenience
port-of-residence,
and might
employed rise to positions
It is important to remember that the centralization of trade constituted not only a

for all participants, but also served as a mechanism for minimizing the
penetration of the hinterland by outsiders. Control of the activities of higher order merchants strengthened the social cohesion of the local village cluster communities of a exchange by protecting the interests of indigenous merchants and producers. For But therewas always the potential for a port community to initiate a successful challenge to the state's leadership. The port could do thisby establishing its autonomy from royal control or by undermining royal authority by supporting one royal faction
successful another. Further, against and merchants attack. Thus, foreign could also destroy his state.54 In response to these concerns, trade made who the coastline vulnerable to naval seamen were integral to a ruler's ambitions to participate in international state desiring commercial networks, river-plain was a necessary source of extended economic and seafarers merchants foreign the aid of contacts.
as discussed
foreign origin were largely confined to Java's coastal ports, where the potential dangers posed by their commercial activities could be isolated. Local marketing networks and merchants provided the intermediary links to supply the sojourners' needs and demands for goods, as well as to act as the agents for the transferof the typesof goods found in the shipwrecks to Java's diverse consumers.
below,
merchants
and
seafarers
of
51 Wisseman, "Markets and Trade inPre Kamalagyan inscription (AD 1037), as translated in Jan Majapahit Java," in Economic Exchange and Social Interactionin SoutheastAsia: Perspectivesfrom re-history, History, and Ethnography,ed. Karl L. Hutterer (AnnArbor, MI: Center forSouth and Southeast Asian Studies, 1977), p. 206. 52 Wisseman Christie, "Javanese Markets and theAsian Sea Trade Boom," pp. 363ff; and Wisseman Christie, "Trade and Settlement inEarly Java," pp. 190-95. See specificallyWisseman Christie's translations of the eleventh-centuryMananjung Charter's discussion of port-based trade and traders (pp. which is aMajapahit-era copy and reaffirmationof a 373-74). See also the Sima Anglayang inscription, sima charterdated 1046 (pp. 374-78). The latterspecifically elaborates on amonarch's administration of foreign trade, in stipulations and restrictions relative towhat port-based merchants can and cannot do. 53 pierre-Yves Manguin, "Merchant and theKing: Political Myths of Southeast Asian Coastal Politics," Indonesia 52 (October 1991): 41-54. 54 The dualistic potentials of theport as both a threatand a rich source of benefits are acknowledged in Old Javanese agarakert the fourteenth-century agama epic poem, which recounts the role of aMongol naval expedition in the late thirteenth-centurytransition from theprevious line of kings. The poem also Majapahit acknowledges the source of thewealth that is represented in the lavish tribute-mission gifts the
monarchy Taal-, received
Robson, trans.,Desawarnana: (Nagarakrtagama) (Leiden: Verhandelingen Van Het Koninklijk InstituutVoor

LandEn Volkenkunde, 1995).
from the many
countries
whose
merchants
were
trading
in east
Java's
ports.
Stuart
O.
Indonesia's Evolving International Relationships
29
Maritime The travelers gallery

shores.
Trade
Relationships
Documented
in Contemporary
Java Inscriptions and seagoing populations a notable in upper stupa a Buddhist
initial positive interactions between Java's native are at Borobudur the ninth-century portrayed a scene inwhich in Java setting welcome populations
saint on Java's
Figure 1. Panel at Borobudur the Buddhist saint Hinu This characterization (clerical
depicting the Buddhist Adavana story of landing at Hiruku (photo by author)
in the surviving is reinforced ninth- to early eleventh-century document international that charters domains) Java's transitional grant Kawi and Old trade relationships. confirm the Local Sanskrit Javanese inscriptions in the Java-destined existence for the commodities carried of local marketplaces sima but, shipwrecks, the international trade communities terms of local and as noted, also raise issues related to the eventual local need studies of the initial presence trade and its traders. Previous to regulate of foreign
assert that they were beneficial in in these Javanese ports-of-trade a source of trade itself that the provided royal revenue; consumption; as alien tax collectors.55 The cited that rulers benefited merchants by employing
55 Wisseman Christie, "Javanese Markets and theAsian Sea Trade Boom," pp. 344-81; and Jan Jan Wisseman Christie, "Asian Sea Trade between theTenth and theThirteenth Centuries and Its Impact on Ancient Period, ed. the States of Java and Bali," inArchaeology ofSeafaring,The IndianOcean in the Himanshu Prabha Ray (Delhi: Praga tiPublications, 1999), pp. 221-70; and Wisseman Christie, "The Medieval Tamil-Language Inscriptions inSoutheast Asia and China," Journal ofSoutheastAsian Studies 29, 2 (1998). The latterarticle highlights the role of foreign merchants as potential "alien" tax collectors who
served on behalf The exchange.
Brahmin
represents thepotential importance of foreigners in itsaccounting of the rise of the Singhasari kingdom (1222-92 CE) consequent to a meeting between the futureking, Ken Arok (Angrok),with Lohgawe, a
who had arrived from India on a divine Asia mission to counsel the king-to-be. Kenneth R. Hall, Texts and Contexts in Southeast Part II (Yangon, Universities Historical
fifteenth-century
of Java's monarchs, Kawi
and
explains
the merchants'
Javanese-language
Pararaton
as a source of importance profitable "book of kings" symbolically
"The
Early Historical Texts, Breaking intoThem and Breaking out of Them: A Case Study of theOld Javanese Research Centre, 2003), pp. 1-18. See also J.J. Ras, "Sacral Kingship in Java," in Fruits of Inspiration:Studies in Honour ofProf. J. G. de Casparis, ed. Marijke J. Klokke and Karel R. van Kooij (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2001), pp. 373-88.
Pararaton," Myanmar:
30
Kenneth R. Hall
shipwreck trade. We among
artifacts can now
other
especially for the rulers. The importation ofmetals for local artisans would have been
routed through the delta areas. Hence it made sense to set up the manufacturing
our to expand and theories about these ports-of questions of imported metals, notably ask about the role and importance iron, in of trade societal the trade goods, and the wider metals, consequences allow us
area itself, initially. In this way, with the trade ("production center") in the delta east deltas Java developed as both agricultural and industrial moving through them, areas under royal authority, rather than being subject to a variety ofwell-entrenched monarch competitive elites situated upstream. Command of thedeltas also allowed the to limit his competitors' access to criticalmetal weapons in this transitional era of was foundational to endemic warfare among regional authorities (rakrayan, chiefs) that
a more centralized over sources Javanese monarchy. iron imports; of wealth the manufacturing of iron into weapons, The luxury goods, interests Control were new
agricultural tools, and ritual objects; and the subsequent distribution of these items
and were potentially empowering. state's in
controlling iron is evident in the early inscriptions discussed below, which document the newly established downstream and port communities where Java's monarchs asserted theircontrol over those engaged in trade, and especially those trained towork with iron and other metals. These inscriptions are notable in theirdocumentation of the implementation of regulations governing iron,metalworkers, and other specified
craftsmen associated monopolistic
distinct group, designated as blacksmiths, goldsmiths, and so forth,subject to royal mandates regarding their residency, storage (warehousing), and the disbursement of theirmetallic creations, which were of great material and symbolic value. In their attempts to guarantee the steady flow of newly imported and manufactured metallic products, tenth-century kings in effect denied metal craftsmen an alternative
livelihood. But
royal
to intense, the import and export trade, who were subjected were as a and control. supervision They acknowledged socially with
rewarded with the right of religious affiliation,as the chartered patrons of their own
Indie temple.
in return,
as
elaborated
in one
inscription,
the
iron craftsmen
were
This was highly appropriate, since in subsequent Javanese traditionmetalsmiths were said to hold godlike powers associated with their mastery ofmetals and fire,as in of Candi Sukuh mountain the the fifteenth-century explicitly presented iconography forge an empowered kris from the fires of Hell, which
practice of metallurgy to human fate. The metalsmith's temple in north-central Java (near modern Solo).56 In the Candi Sukuh
thematically connects the

transformative art was a
relief, two men
deliberate metaphor for spiritual transfigurationand the release of the soul afterdeath. In this popular wayang-style relief, theHindu warrior divine Bima was the smithwho made themagical kris, the most prized personal weapon, and here the symbol of eternity,using his fistsas hammers and his thigh as an anvil and drawing fire from the palms of his hands.
56 O'Connor, Stanley J. "Metallurgy and Immortality at Candi Sukuh," Indonesia 39 (April 1985): 67.
Indonesia's
31
Figure 2. Panel
from Candi
Sukuh
as ironsmith (photo by author) showing Bima
his court details
from central to east Java. Collectively, the first Balitung's inscriptions provide in of Java's interactions with the Brantas merchants delta foreign operating east follows of Kaladi model of earlier The the Java.57 region inscription royal sima in central Java, in which certain found monarchs previous inscriptions designated lands as tax-free and used income from such land to fund local temples. Sima
The Kaladi sima charter inscriptiondated 909 CE is the earliest in a series of royal trade inscriptionsdating to the reign of King Balitung (898-910 CE), who had relocated
monarch, ultimately proclaimed the ritual credit and supreme political authorityof the
to support The his political sima interests over asserts those of pre-existing that it was issued and local and regional elites.58 Kaladi charter to encourage thereby reduce settlement and of the
cultivation downriver economic
region, the combined that might threaten waterway is specific interests of the king. The inscription
of the borderlands
in the delta
dangers and political, religious, in its distinction between
Wisseman
57 Text and translation inBarrett Jones,Early Tenth Century Java pp. 178-94. See also from theInscriptions,
Christie, "Javanese Markets and the Asian Sea Trade Boom," pp. 360-71.
58 See the collection of the earlier Sanskrit-language inscriptions fromcentral Java inH. B. Sarkar, Corpus of theInscriptions ofJava (up to928 AD). In a notable 850 CE reference to a merchant temple inTulang Air near Temanggung, on the road south from the coast to the central Java interior (p. xvi),merchants are one among the several locally resident communities cited as having relinquished their interests in lands would insure the temple's futuresupport. designated to supplement a new sima temple endowment that On the politics of the variety of these sima charter grants, see Barrett-Jones,Early TenthCentury Java from
the Inscriptions, pp. 59-90.
32
Kenneth R. Hall
banyaga and a variety of lesser delta traders (hiliran). In an undated inscription from Balitung's reign, the banyaga are referenced in their association with a collective banigrama group operating in another Brantas River delta port thatwas the personal appanage held by the king. The inscription demonstrates Balitung's direct interest in
commerce, which was a source of his and his realm's wealth of and evidences his need
merchants were collectively characterized as those "who specialists. Here the banigrama encircle the sea, who [sail] the length of the sea," who were freedof specific royal taxes
and placed under royal protection.59
to impose
control
over
the actions
these
and also goods, alien commercial
The Kaladi inscriptionbegins by citing the problem of uncultivated lands that are prone to a variety of acts of banditry (mariwung),acts later characterized as typical of individuals whose behavior is unacceptable (those who run amuk/angluputaknamuk), which thereby:
...
[hiliran] by day and night. And there was an agreement for the use of the uncultivated ground for it to become a productive wet-riceland [sawah], to stop being a fearsome place and to stop being under the administration of Bawang with [the then regional unit of government], tobe a freeplace, not tobe interfered ... ... [a series of ... inferior of all kinds persons political authorities] [including] by
overseers of traders [tuhadagan],... sellers of [paranakan], goldsmiths,... foreigners of of wood and of and axes, lime, (rumban),... spices buyers buyers drugs buyers ... ... not cart enter All these of and the freehold drivers, coal, [sima] may Gayam ... [and thereby threaten local productivity].60 Pyapya
endangered
seagoing
traders
[banyaga]
and other
traders
from the downstream
As in other sima grant initiativesof thatera, there follows a listof thosewhose remitted interests in the delegated property were ritually acknowledged by material and spiritual gifts, in this case represented in thematerial award of symbolic clothing of
honor: "men's colored
wife], and one suwarna and four masa of gold."61 The transactionwas
of the regional agreement authority, and transferred management interests, the Rakrayan authority
clothing,
women's
cloth
[a kain of cloth wrap
for the male's
representatives of the temple (Sang Mula Dharmma), with the approval of the local landholding elders {rama), as well as others fromneighboring villages, as specifically
recorded
rama.
in favor of the king's of Bawang, over the sima lands to the religious
sealed by the
to have
been
represented
at the sima
invocation
ceremony
by
their village
were noted among those barred fromhaving power in the sima, and furtherrestrictions against "the wargga kilalan fromKalingga [the northern Bay of Bengal region at the southwestmouth of theGanges River], Aryya [arja, Indian merchants], the Singhalese
59 Wisseman Christie, "Javanese Markets," p. 363; theKawi text is in F. H. van Naerssen, Th. G. Th. Pigeaud, and P. Voorhoeve, Catalogue ofIndonesian Manuscripts, part 2 (Copenhagen: Royal Library, 1977),
Henceforth,
the "head
of traders"
(tuha dagang)
and
"inspector
of ferries" were
60 Translation of theKaladi inscription,numbered E 71 in the Jakarta Museum, estampage no. 2840 in the Dinas Purbakala, plate lb 3-plate 2, adapted from the textand translation inBarrett-Jones,Early Tenth pp. 180-83. Century Java from theInscriptions, 61 Plate 4a, line 2ff, in ibid., pp. 183-85.
p. 63.
Indonesia's
33
[Singhala, merchants
merchants], Vietnam], and
from Sri Lanka],
the Dravidians
[Drawida, south
[hanyaga],
Indian
from
Pandikir [the Pandya

traders
four specified from
lands of southeast India], Chams

southern workers Burma in brass,
types of 'accursed'
foreign merchants
[campa, from south-central

and Cambodians
Others forbidden to occupy these sima properties were goldsmiths, [kismmira/kmir]."62

blacksmiths, and "whosoever are foreigners by
[ramman/rmen],
a Appropriately, the inscription concludes with curse that threatensoffenders origin."63 with divine retribution: "death by drowning, death from snake bite, death frombeing At the ritual's conclusion, the threatsactivated by the invocation of the temple priests.64 rewards of ritual clothing and received themselves symbolic officiating priests by their faithful administration of the endowed
temple's ritual activities.65 payments in gold, in return for their sworn commitment to honor eaten by a crocodile, death from being eaten by a shark, death from a sea monster," all
coppersmiths,
sima grant lands in support of the
the king-benefactor
The Charter of Sangguran, dated 928 CE (in the reign of Balitung's successor, Sindok), provides further documentation of foreign merchant communities in its record of the creation of a sima endowment free of royal taxes that consisted of the village of Sangguran, which was tasked to "serve [i.e., to finance] Siva, the god of the
was
river delta. Not only was

also reported lacquer,
temple
of the smiths
at Mananjung,"
another
downriver
bed-covers, pillows, sheaths, linen umbrellas of differentcolors, craftingof shuttles for the spinning wheel, all sorts of wicker works."66 The royal dues normally payable on these diverse commercial activitieswere henceforth to be deferred from the royal tax collectors to the deity, the administrator of the freehold, and to the "collector of the royal taxes" on the freehold's behalf. In this case, thisdownstream trading community retained a significantdegree of autonomy, in contrast to the situation of the upstream with specific focus on the importance of community detailed in theKaladi inscription,
the foundational local iron
paints,
center for the "making of black to be a production red paints, fish, making roofs, spinning, catching
but it the Sangguran village said to be agriculturally fertile,

paints, sugar, purple-red pots, lime,
port-of-trade
in the Brantas
"chiefs of smiths" (kujuru gusalyan).67A follow-up undated Mananjung inscription marketplace: provides an overview of theby-then diversified early eleventh-century
62 Plate 63 Plate 64 Plate 65 Plate 7a, line 5-7b, line 2, in ibid,pp. 186-87.
industry,
as
ironmongers
were
only
accountable
to their
7b, lines 3-5, in ibid., pp. 186-89. 8a, lines 3-6, in ibid., pp. 188-89. 8b, line 6-10a, line 3, in ibid., pp. 189-93. Consistent with the commodities carried by the were a shipwrecks, the items that are detailed in the epigraphic accounts of the inauguration of sima iron for for iron tools of iron of bundles (and processing money, agriculture, money); strings clothing, foods, cutting stone, and ceremonial weapons; bronze and copper items such as cooking pans, dishes, 66 Sarkar, Corpus of InscriptionsofJava (up to928 AD), Inscription XCVI, lines 21-22, pp. 229,236-37. 67 The inscription records that the sima command came fromKing Sindok and was directed tohis mapatih ofHino. This vital port-of-tradewas of special interest to prominent regional lord, the rakrayan both. See Boechari, "Rakryan Mahamantri IHino: A Study of the Highest Court Dignitary ofAncient Java Historical Society,University ofSingapore 4 (1967-68): 7-20. up to theThirteenth Century AD," Journalof the The Charter of Sangguran, dated 928 CE, originally came from the lower Brantas riverbasin, near Minto House in Scotland. The textand translation of the initial Sanskrit Surabaya, but now stands at the is of the inscription published in Sarkar, Corpus of InscriptionsofJava (up to928 AD), Inscription portion
utensils, and lamps, and perfumes and incense. Ibid., p. 37.
34
Kenneth R. Hall
... all strive to sell all manner of desirable goods under the regulation of the great traders swakarmma dagang]. [All members of the independent [gonggong to community]must deliver up iron His Majesty, and also to theHoly Kuwera [the focal temple deity, theHindu god of wealth]. They must as well establish there their warehouse organizations [?] [para panenggek] at Rempah and Mananjung, so that theywill not claim as theirown the goods of other traders, except as andi [penalty?] or in the salvage of a sunken vessel?but, in this case, only thatwhich is rightfullytheirs.Also, they shall have as their foundation [of activity] the already established banigrama parawulu [the foreign merchant association] inKamuruhan, especially those groups in Mananjung. They must all be regulated by the [heads of their]warehouse organizations, whence samanglas [?] must all be distributed, particularly by their warehouse associations at Rempah to the wulu [i.e., the banigrama parawulu]. All of their assistants in the communities inKamuruhan must be mindful that they are obligated at all times to protect [the quality of their produce]. They must not allow black pepper to
become damp, nor coriander, wungkudu beans/gram, dye, and above safflower fennel, all, rice.68 dye, medicinal jamuju,
black pepper, fennel, coriander, jamuju seeds (a spice and valued medicinal compound), safflower,and wungkudu (red) dyes, all ofwhich were in demand in Song
era China. In response to the increased of trade, as the eleventh-century volume was a new of weights and measures universal standard reports, inscription consumers in part, itwould seem, to protect the interests of hinterland implemented,
rice in exchange for the eastern Indonesian Java's were and forest other which sandalwood, exported products, trade of
By the early eleventh century, Java's ports had become the intermediaries in the
archipelago's overseas with spices, Java's
by standardizing regional market trade. The last line of the inscription segment cited below substantiates the intermediary role of the port marketplace, as it dictates that
port-based bulk deal wholesalers had to transact business above as a certain
who received their warehoused implication that the small-scale traders

could then subdivide these into smaller units in the lesser upstream appropriate, marketplaces:
volume,
with
the
commodities in
their sales, to
given
measures used by themwill now be forbidden. In the case of black All former pepper, one kulak volume measure must henceforthweigh one kati [about 760 manner. As for grams]. One kulakof black pepper will always be measured in this
fennel, one kulak must dye, beans/gram, one also weigh and salt cakes?for kati. As each for coriander, jamuju, of these, as formerly, wungkudu one kulak
XCVI, pp. 227-48. By the late tenth century, Java's early coastal metalworks were exporting their iron China (seeWisseman Christie, "Asian Sea Trade between theTenth and theThirteenth goods to Song-era " Centuries, pp. 227-29). See also Anthony Reid, SoutheastAsia in the Age ofCommerce,vol. I (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 96-100,106-19, fora discussion ofmetals production in the post-1500
era.
68 The Kawi text is taken froma charter inscribed on bronze plates, ofwhich only a partial set has been W. F. Stutterheim, "Transcriptie van een Defecte Ooorkonde op Bronzen Platen found, and is published in was collected uit hetMalangsche," Oudheidkundig Verslag 67 (1913): 172-215. Like the 928 CE inscription, it a isprovided from the Brantas river translation but had lower The area, Malang origin. adapted English byWisseman Christie, "Javanese Markets and theAsian Sea Trade Boom," pp. 373-74, who situates the text in the context of the wider Java and Indonesian archipelago marketplace (pp. 352ff).
Indonesia's
35
may not merchants] must attend to the setting of the prices of all these, but they in kulak-kati the sell upstream Javanese markets] transport [by road] [i.e., measures of this produce [tax free]. Thus those at the rice granary must be measures of warehouse organization. They are not touse kulak regulated by their measures of less than one less than one kati inweight, nor may they accept kulak in kati weight.69 Another useful late tenth- or early eleventh-century epigraphic text from the Brantas river delta port of Sikunit records a sima grant for the benefit of a Buddhist
monastery
equivalent
to one
sakat will
be used
...
[as] also
for garlic
...
[The port-based
taxes were
intervened to limit the number ofmembers of the local trade communitywhose royal
remitted to the monastery. In addition to providing an overview of the
at nearby
Dhimanasrama.70
In this case,
the
text reports
that
the king
makes a notable accounting of diversity of the local trade community, the inscription as as distinguishing between in well of vessels based the local the types merchant port,
commercial the port-based specialists connected the port to the upstream:71 and local market itinerant peddlers, who
... of all those engaging in commerce, who reside in the holy sima, the number are to not be subject to royal tax collectors are as follows: to be limited to who
three masters
blacksmiths to 3 pairs of piston bellows, netmakers to 3masters, carpenters to 3

masters, cart drivers
per
trade
are
...
goldsmiths
to 3 anvils,
coppersmiths
to 3 anvils;
... those [boats] equipped with paddles or poles, theremay be 6, along with 5 with decks; 5 hanawa praus [a specific boat type]with decks; 5 panggaran praus, 5 pawalijan traders7praus; [and] panggayan praus, which may also trade [freefrom
royal taxes].
professional
to 3 span; transporters with pack animals to 3 looms, decorative kris sheath makers cloth weavers
to 3 animals; to 3 masters,
Also, if those bhatara traders?buyers of goods, trading in all districts?should be reduced by being struckby misfortune, they are not to be subject to the royal tax collectors.As forpeddlers carrying theirgoods by shoulder pole, such as dealers
carriers betel... in clothing, jewelry, decorative metal cast-work, metal cauldrons, of silk of cotton, wungkudu tin, salt, salt-fish, thread, copper, bronze, dye, skeins sorts of who cotton safflower betel nut, carry yarn, sugar, peddlers dye?all
69
70 . J. was collectively published in J. Krom (The L. A. Brandes, Oud-JavaanscheOorkonden, ed. The text en P. V. van van K?nsten het Bataviaasch Verhandelinen 60,1913); Genootschap Wetenschappen Hague: Stein Callenfels, "Stukken Betrekking Hebbend op Oud Javaansche Opschriften in de Biblioth?que Nationale to Paris/' Oudheidkundig Verslag (1924): 23-27; and F. H. van Naerssen, "Inscripties van het an adapted translation of plate 8 Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde te Leiden," BKI97 (1937): 507-8. This is based onWisseman Christie, "Javanese Markets and theAsian Sea Trade Boom," p. 372. 71 See the seminal address to hulu/hilir(upstream/downstream) exchange inBennet Bronson, "Exchange at theUpstream and Downstream Ends: Notes towards a Functional Model of theCoastal State in Southeast Asia," in Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in SoutheastAsia, ed. Hutterer (Ann Arbor, MI: Center forSouth and Southeast Asian Studies, 1977), pp. 39-52. See also its application in JaneDrakard, A Malay Frontier:Unity and Duality in a Sumatran Kingdom (Ithaca,NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 1990).
Ibid., p. 374.
36
Kenneth R. Hall
goods by shoulder pole72?they shall be allowed 5 bantalweight of goods per person without being subject to the royal tax collectors.73
Commercial Networking inTenth- and Early Eleventh-Century Java

The
members
among multiple networked societies?those represented by the maritime diaspora populating the ships and seaports, as well as those local and global societies whose
were the intended recipients of their cargoes. The cited inscriptions more
shipwreck
cargoes
may
be
seen
as
consequent
to collaborative
agreements
are
specific to the contemporary societal need to reconsider the relationships between

Javanese space and commercial and "outsiders"
system. These sima charters commonly define the appropriate behavior and use of
by traders artisans engaged in various commercial activities.The evidence of
in the increasingly
complex
Java marketing
regional networking in the ninth- to early eleventh-century Java coastline cited in this study suggests that agents in themaritime diaspora were responsive to local societies, and negotiated relationships with their neighboring communities, as these early
commercial interactions were the source
would follow. that contributed to the Indian Ocean tradeboom that

need not be exclusively commercial. the networks examined
of subsequently
stable pluralistic
communities
The cited epigraphic data demonstrates thatnetworks based inmaritime diaspora

Though were at their base
commercial, and this clearlywas their chief purpose, themultifaceted interestsof the networked participants can be meaningfully understood in the context of the intersections of different types of community interests.74In the documented coastal were overlapping commercial, societal, religious, and political affiliations ports, there thatwere vital to the coexistence of the groups involved and thatwere necessary for
the support of common trading interests.
Collectively, the three inscriptions considered here allow us to reconstruct networked relationships prominent in the Brantas River basin during the time of the
successors. and his tenth- and early eleventh-century Java monarch Balitung During their business from independent traders transacting this era, the hanyaga transitioned to Java's hinterlands, in isolated ports that lay adjacent into corporate organizations
72 A pikul is a pole stick resting on and extending over the peddler's shoulders, as a yoke, usually with two containers, one suspended from each end of the stick, containing foodstuffs (rice, sugar, oil),materials for dyeing (safflower,black dye), metal objects, or clothing/cloth. 73 Wisseman Christie, "Javanese Markets and theAsian Sea Trade Boom," p. 373.Wisseman Christie makes the importantpoint that, while in the earliest sima charter inscriptions financial privileges (tax mid-eleventh century these financial rewards were replaced by status remissions) are prominent, by the wear certain which privileges (wnang), royaltyhad the prerogatives to grant. These included the right to restrictedpatterns of cloth, the right to use certain types of cloth in colors appropriate to ritual contexts, the right to eat certain types of food, and a variety of privileges of display, such as the rightof parading into a communitywith one's retainers. Wisseman Christie, "Asian Sea Trade between theTenth and the Thirteenth Centuries," pp. 225-26. 74 Stephen Morillo, "Autonomy and Subordination: The Cultural Dynamics of Small Cities," in Secondary Cities and Urban Networking,pp. 17-38, provides a graphic representation of the multi-dimensional urban Networks of Trade and Cultural Integration in theBay of Bengal Region of the Indian Ocean, c. 1000 World-Historical Space and Time, ed. JosGommans (Leiden: E. J. 1500," in Empires and Emporta:The Orient in Brill, 2010), pp. 109-45.
networking discussed in this study; see also Kenneth R. Hall, "Ports-of-Trade, Maritime Diasporas, and
Indonesia's
37
assume of for the effective management royal charter to accountability as as over well borderlands their social space, that lay sharing responsibility, initially, take on between their port-of-trade and the upstream hinterland. Later, they would under other as the basis for their upstream as when interactions, types of accountability they to of and networked artisans the actions responsibility supervise port-based accepted traders took place hiliran. Initially, the restricted commercial activities of international and these traders relied on the cart drivers and pikul peddlers in their ports-of-trade, connected were their port to upstream markets. the task of standardizing assigned of and their merchandise the quality directly to equitable involved in upstream Eventually, regional the equity trade. The
that were
who
ports,
in the the hanyaga, based measures to and weights of their business interconnected practices, settlements exchanges
guarantee and thus became were
foundational
thatwould
the king, and his upstream merchants, is represented and networked hierarchy
enhance the port's appeal and productivity to themutual benefit of the

subjects. This in figure 3: resulting dialogue-empowered
upstream-downstream
trade and port-based
Figure 3
Dialogue Empowered Hierarchy

International Merchant Diaspora
(Banyaga)
Upstream
Peddlers
(Pikul)
(Tuhadagan)
38
R. Hall Kenneth
As was
widespread
sima charters
appropriate to the local tradition of that time, demonstrated

of that era, the contracted accountabilities documented
in the
in the
cited inscriptionswere consecrated in religious rituals that endowed subsequent funds to support a local Hindu temple or Buddhist monastery, which would in turn serve its merchant benefactors by staging the needed rituals. Herein the agents of the marketplace, the clerics of the ritual institution, and a variety of political agents inclusively participated in the ritual consecrating the sima grant and the subsequent
interactions themselves, copper and results
procedure, in that the texts of these grants represented the resolution of negotiations among the multiple networked communities (political, social, and economic) that place and foreign residencies were established at the edge of the regional agrarian hinterland.75These relationships are represented in the following graphic (see figure4, below), which depicts the hanyaga ?t the port's functional urban core, for the hanyaga linked thedelta traders and peddlers with the local artisans in a networked community
of exchange. In sum, the Brantas River variety of interests in the Brantas River basin. were communities linked "urban colonies," where transactions legal marketplace shared a basin took
"permanent"
plate
or stone
acknowledged inscriptions.
by those involved The texts encoded
were
recorded
in
an entire
societal
In each of the reported grant transactions, the Java rulerwas represented by his royal agents and the religious clerics, who supervised and transacted the sacred ceremony that confirmed the delineation of the delegated land's boundaries and the future income fromwhich funds would be assigned to maintain the church. The boundaries were ritually determined by the local authorities, royalty, local deferring their income rights to the property. The prominence of the local elders in these linked transfersof the king's taxation rights on the land (as well as transfersof local income and taxation rights to the property,which were sacrificed in return for ritual merit), implied that local jurisdiction inmatters concerning land took precedence over royal power. In the inscriptions describing each transaction, there is a useful at the apex of a societal pyramid, followed by the rakrayan, with assorted civil and
clerical administrators at the next trade / merchant epigraphic associations, These hierarchy. variously, associations and level, are act and the rama at the bottom. The at as the third and or fourth levels as well, in this for the for the accounting of the local political hierarchy. In the lists of participants, the king is clearly administrators, regional chiefs (rakrayan), and, above all, the local rama, who were all
administrators
accountable
stability of the port-of-trade
itsmerchant
groups,
accountable,
75 See John Miksic, "Heterogenetic Cities inPremodern Southeast Asia/7 World Archaeology 32,1 (2000): 106-20, forhis significant challenge to the appropriateness of this "isolated urban" characterization. Miksic argues that "city formation" in itsearly Southeast Asian contextmust be based on multi-linear, innon-Western polythetic criteria, in order to accommodate criteria unique to early Southeast Asia?as areas of theworld, the application ofmonothetic, unilinear definitions of "urbanization" are, inhis view, inappropriate. According to this analysis, in contrast to the characterization of temple centers as isolated were extensions of local culture, early ports-of-tradewere clearly "heterogenetic" "orthogenetic" sites that sites characterized by a variety of interactive societal transactions. Critical to Miksic's view are the type of productive relationships that take place within an urban core.Miksic's view contrastswith Paul Wisseman Christie's assertion thatSoutheast Asia Wheatley's 1980's analysis, which is foundational to Jan
had no known
"Trade and Settlement inEarly Java," p. 171.
quasi-urban
sites of its own
in the first or early
second
millennium.
See Wisseman
Christie,
Indonesia's
39
propriety
in figure5:
of their upstream
relationships.
This
pyramid
of relationships
is represented
Figure 4
40
Kenneth R. Hall
In the ninth- to early eleventh-century inscriptions cited in this study, the

associations." The incorporated "free" marketplaces, but were "administered" markets. in this era assured administered "fair exchanges" marketplaces contemporary were ports-of-trade into local "warehouse accountable to the who eventually were not open ports-of-trade in that This fact is significant hanyaga, of goods and services,
notably in the portmarketplaces and in theirnetworked relationships with subsidiary

market visitors and multi-ethnic residential The upstream outposts. "foreign" to communities of the ports were in reality, if did have?even not, perceived they to be held in check.76 Thus, in the inscriptions, that needed have?self-interests the were assessment associations for for the hanyaga accountability delegated equitability, market business and business assisting were thus the civil authority's agents practices. They to make in or delegated assessments and collections,
of the value of commodities coming into themarket, and for the equity of all other
in
represented infigure 6:
the marketplace,
as
Figure 6
Administered Marketplace Transactions
articles Incoming/Outgoing LongDistance vs. LocalTrade Bondsmen Vehicles Services Fees Social/Ritual/Residential Rights _LegalJurisdiction_
After that would
to of the grants institutions connection follow, the concluding religious were to and interests of the "church the representative who (temples), people," as a separate the inscriptions back to their focal intention: distinguished entity, draws
the stability of the local and wider communities as a precondition for developments
attending
to all these secular management
issues, which
were
foundational
to
the endowment of Hindu
"regrouping"
of the alien merchant
temples or Buddhist monasteries

diaspora. In essence,
as the center for the

provided a source
the church
76 Karl Polanyi, "The Economy as InstitutedProcess" (1957), in The Sociology ofEconomic Life,ed. Mark Granovetter and Richard Swedsberg (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), chapter 1;Clifford Geertz, "The Bazaar Economy: Information and Search inPeasant Markets," (1978), in ibid., chap. 6; and Marshall Sahlins, StoneAge Economics (Chicago, IL: Aldine, 1972).
41
ofmeaning to those seeking an identity in a foreign land, as well as offeringpersonal

security, individual social meaning. and collective, and ascribed or constructed identities as the basis
of
Figure 7
The
church
were a multiple threat to local stability, whether than as aliens.77 Foreign merchants in a heightened or as a source of a new marketplace based community physically or as a self-interested individuals material social and culture consequent hierarchy, in the pursuit based of profit over transactions who would induce marketplace to make the traditional merchants thus threatened communal welfare. Foreign to autonomous and the resolution?the vulnerable innovation, upstream community establishment hanyaga?was the inclusive
provided
an historical
rootedness
for the merchants
as members,
rather
and exclusionary
of the coincident with the institutionalization of a temple or monastery a means In to protect local authority and power. the various inscriptions, connections local society was defined by its productive roles, with nodal potentials. The church was thus the institutional center of a series of
77 In this same light, the initial Muslim artifacts from the two late tenth-centuryshipwrecks document a Muslim diaspora, members ofwhich most likely resided in the ports and commonly practiced their faith as a statement of their communal religious bonds in a strange land. This same practice was typical of diasporic Muslims in their initialport residencies in contemporary India. See Lambourn, "India from
Aden."
42
Kenneth R. Hall
networked relationships that symbolically depended on the clergy's critical transformationofmaterial into spiritual capital, as represented in figure7 (above).78
Concluding Commentary
as it set in motion
maritime trade, This study began by reviewing the importance of the international
societal transitions in ninthand tenth-century Java. The physical
remains of shipwrecks pair with contemporaneous temple reliefs to substantiate the theory that international shipping, and local consumption of imported commodities derived from it,were commonplace by the ninth century. Tenth-century epigraphy
records the acculturation of maritime
downstream acted
facilitated by negotiated relationships with Javanese monarchs, with multiple the development of the consequences. The first significant consequence was
deltas of east as a buffer between Java as transitional plain-based rice-producing the coastal ports and the upstream wet-ricelands. regions that The second
diasporas
into
local
societies,
acculturation
of the merchant among members diaspora, and and metalworkers, Javanese monarchs, in their own the commercial "foreigners"
was the assertion ofmonarchical authority over these newly developed delta regions, as well as the coastal ports-of-trade. A third was that the negotiated settlements documented in the tenth-century inscriptions established networked relationships
concentrated "urban" these contracts served production to contain domain. center legally The
administered
downstream
based
hanyagawere collectively linked to the upstream by a variety of "delta traders" and "peddlers" who were ultimately accountable to themerchant elite residing in the port
community. These early transactions were the source
pluralistic communities that contributed to the Indian Ocean follow in the eleventh century.
As noted considered above, networks based in the maritime exclusively Though it was and their core, commercial, their clearly interests of the networked multifaceted participants commercial. diaspora these networks
trade boom thatwould

communities examined need not be at
of subsequently
stable
above
were,
in the context of the intersectionof different types of community interests.This study has specifically highlighted the overlapping of commercial, societal, religious, and political affiliations thatwere vital to the coexistence of these groups and thatwere
necessary they to support their common interests. artisans eleventh-century marketplace-based to resolve potential available maritime complexities and merchants, demonstrate conflicts, of participants raised The and as faced by the ninth- to the strategies that the creative societal major Java became a
to facilitate the trade, purpose can be understood meaningfully
developed that were potentials center In conclusion, concerns
in international
to the variety trade. to return are
Java Purnavarman inscriptions thatwere introduced at thebeginning of this study, as

similar and their resolutions
it is necessary
to the issues
in the west fifth-century tenth-century
Java inscriptions. Though separated by five centuries, Java's monarchs mutually recognized theirneed to mitigate the isolation of theirports-of-trade,and thevariety of
consequences resulting from that isolation, by creating zones of connection between 78 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline ofa Theory ofPractice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).
represented
in the cited
east
Indonesia's
43
their
downstream First
hinterlands.
and settlement, controlled the seasonal swamplands, thus reasons
and their productive ports-of-trade upstream agricultural was to facilitate their the need downstream among priorities case in each this involved dam construction initiatives. Dams monsoon floodwaters wet-rice the success and sustaining (sawah) the drainage as well cultivation, wet-rice allowed of downstream as providing a
had
protected anchorage for ships engaged in international trade. Java's rulerswould have
ample all, wet-rice cultivation to support could of downstream large cultivation. Above
needs
these people would,

of a court.
in turn,produce a sufficientagricultural surplus to sustain the
support
relatively
concentrated
populations,
and
The Purnavarman inscriptions secondly cite the king's military victories, as testament that political stabilitywas the foundation for local productivity. Similarly, east Java inscriptions celebrate theunifying political initiativesof the the tenth-century
monarch, and substantiate the fact that east
economic and administrative affairs than had been true of their central Javanese predecessors. The active role adopted by the east Java rulers is especially notable in the commercial specialists who sought to become more involved in the upstream markets, substantially confining them to the coast in favor of Javanese traderswho acted as the
intermediaries inscriptions that describe monarchs restricting the movements of port-based "foreign"
Java monarchs
took a more
direct
role
in
were motivated by equitable trade, but it also induced locals to be productive, as they
the reasonable
in upstream-downstream that
exchange.
In part,
this
strategy
insured
such goods by the indigenous population is substantiated in the widespread archaeological distributions of imported ceramics and other consumables in the Java
upstream areas. Even more
consumables,
expectation such as those
access to newly have available they would foreign in the The of cargoes. represented shipwreck consumption
artisan mobility represented the tenth-centuryeast Javanese kings' responses to the instability of the local political landscape, in which the assertive monarchs were consolidating theirpolitical authority against their regional rivals. Royal control over iron imports and ironproduction are especially notable topics in the cited inscriptions,
as tenth-century opponents' monarchs restricted capacity to manufacture to the coast iron production iron weaponry to oppose to negate their the monarch's
significantly,
these
initial
restrictions
on merchant
and
political
troops.
international
A stable, productive delta insured that the agricultural goods required by the
traders would agricultural be supplied. Coastal-based traders and artisans returned entered
goods of foreign origin or specialized services (e.g., high quality craftproduction) to

the hinterland
the upstream
producers century and
consumers,
trading networks either laterally, through direct barter between

or vertically, through political or religious institutions was means
producers.
Agricultural
and
imported
commodities
or
through the developing hierarchical commercial networks documented though by the tenth centurymonetized
imported gold and silver coinage exchanges larger-volume marketplace inscriptions. Barter the primary of exchange
in the tenth
times,
in earlier
and metallic
commercial transactions using a variety of

bars became alternative trade, as described based on in options in the cited value.
documents). In both types of exchanges, tenth-century trade depended on units of

standardized weights rather than commodity price indexes monetary
(e.g., wholesale
44
Kenneth R. Hall
The
armies
and administrative
were not large enough to induce sawah producers to remit contributions of food or labor purely through the threat of force. Instead, would-be elites had to offer evidence that monarchs dominated the countryside and monopolized
of tax assessments, and while monarchs might assume a role inducements, such as protection or material or ideological rewards. There is no
corps of the new
tenth-century
east Java monarchies
means
in the initiation
the rice trade by

of
east Java irrigation networks, these irrigation systems were built and maintained were also thebeneficiaries of mostly by the locals, often in service to local temples that the increased productivity, rather than the state. There was thus local incentive to invest in agrarian development to produce the surpluses that could bring traded luxuries to the local producers, and itwas the locals who continued to control the
irrigation networks.79 initiatives
secular
Thirdly, the Purnavarman inscriptionshonor him as a beneficentmonarch, whose

were all intended to improve societal material welfare, but, even
more critically,the inscriptionsnote thathis patronage and his personal bond with the Indie divine Visnu secured his society's spiritualwell-being. Similarly, the cited tenth century inscriptions, whether Hindu or Buddhist, all end with a religious ritual covenant: those who honor the terms of the epigraphic charter are promised
prosperity, threatened and those who variety do not, as well as all their families and associates, are with a of horrific
century political elites secured food and labor from subordinate cultivators by means of material rewards, such as foreign luxury goods, or through ideological rewards, such as titles, temples, and sacred rituals, rather than by threatening military was demonstrated, for intervention.The mediating function of religious institutions to consecrate endowments. decisions Thus, the Indie religious example, by royal religious tradition was the cultural "umbrella" under which Javanese shared a common Hindu or Buddhist bond with most of the commercial diaspora in Java's Hindu temple patronized by port-associated metalsmiths can be taken as evidence that
religion's conciliatory function was appreciated by the elites. tenth-century ports. A royal decision to consecrate an endowment in support of a
consequences.
As
in Purnavarman's
time, tenth
This situation would

major participants
a common longer neutralize other marginalized reconsidered and
followers of the Hindu or Buddhist traditions; the Islamic artifacts from late tenth When therewas no century shipwrecks document the early stages of this transition.
and between the hinterland networking had differences, greater potential ports-of-trade as alien urban spaces on Java's coastal periphery.80 basis for cultural societal the coast to become
in Java's
significantly change in the following centuries, when

ports-of-trade were increasingly Muslim rather
the
than
to
By pairing
shipwreck artifacts with

known primary
archaeological evidence. At this point, admittedly, researchers are still at the critical
stage sites are in need that were at early Java coast port excavations of confirming archaeological to Java's networked coast-hinterland foundational subsequent
previously
source
Javanese inscriptions, this study has

materials in light of the new
79 Peter Boomgaard, SoutheastAsia, An Environmental History (Oxford:ABC-CLIO, 2007), pp. 57-85. 80 A History ofIslamizationfrom the M. C. Ricklefs,Mystic Synthesis in Java: Fourteenth to the EarlyNineteenth Centuries (Norwalk, CT: Eastbridge, 2006).
45
of overlapping This exploration local and wider economic, political, relationships. new as a to and societal Java's consequent importance settings major religious, in in final summarized the international maritime trade is the emporium graphic, figure 8, which is intended to encourage further dialogue.
Figure 8
NETWORKING CONSEQUENCES OF EARLY INDONESIAN INTERNATIONAL

increasing Returns
Regional
1 Open Integration
Trans-Regional
Sub-Regional/Regional
Maritime/Overland
Commerce
Religious/Cultural Networking Commercial Networking Institutional Development Political Evolution/Stability Towards Inclusive Ethnicities Extensions of Settled Agriculture/ Cultivation
Pilgrimage Networks Diplomatic/Tributary Exchanges Migrations Cultural Exchanges
Dialogue Technical Exchanges Shared Ethics - Common Community Common Marketplaces/Open Trade
Protectionist/Isolationist Plunder Raids on Neighbors Hinterland-Court Centered Exchanges Labor Intensive/Limited Productivity Labor Derived Growth Limited Evolution/Capital Growth Ideological/Technical/Civilization Status-Quo I
Isolationist Plunder Raids/"Piracy" Closure of Ports/Outlaw Foreign Trade Restrict Visiting "Foreigners" RestrictMigrations Restricted/Managed Marketplaces Representative Negotiated Trade
Decreasing
Returns

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Indonesia's Evolving International Relationships in the Ninth to Early Eleventh Centuries: Evidence from Contemporary Shipwrecks and Epigraphy

Indonesia's International the Ninth Centuries: Contemporary to

Relationships Early Evidence Shipwrecks Eleventh from and

Epigraphy1 Kenneth r. Hall

This study juxtaposes two sources of information: shipwrecks and epigraphic

historiography of Java has been heavily biased

toward the inland kingdoms of the

At present the only excavations

of a purported port site associated with

for their record

Evolving International Relationships

China during theTang era.

Evolving International Relationships

II. Intan Wreck, The c. 940 CE west

navigational sophistication. While

the Belitung wreck's

intended sea passage

that its finaldestination was to be a Javanese port.

in that era.14 Based

Evolving International Relationships

institutions. and societal loyalties not in Southeast elsewhere Asia, were

lotus bird, and

trays of the sort commonly

not normally in the bone.

salt water, which will remained of the Intan wreck

other ninth-century central Java temples.34 Such textileswere

likely to have been

Java," BEFEO 80,1 (1993): 181-211.

Evolving International Relationships

HI. The Cirebon/Nan-Han and theKarawang Shipwrecks While we

do not as yet have

the full details of the Cirebon/Nan-Han

the first documentation

Javanese converts, were practicing was true in the initial contemporary

in their faith?minimally settlements established

of the Evolution of Javanese Material

In sum, the c. 940 CE Intanwreck remains, as sustained by the preliminary reports

iron and volume, there are high-end

consumerism, with implications relative towider societal and market hierarchies. By

important, seem would

of types?e.g., to the west

Evolving International Relationships

in support of political commercial stature.40

evidence thatprecious metals were used in everyday village transactions,which were

In their reflections along coinage the Straits or bullion

imports via diplomatic exchanges, or used higher-value gold and silver

recoveries archaeological reason scholars that members

in Java and of the court

its neighbors elite received

the bars were

contemporaneous currency in South Asia

that prominently displayed the images of

processes set inmotion by the availability of imports in volume, including Chinese

market. Epigraphic references thus distinguished between hanyaga (port-based traders)

and "delta traders,"who did not (see below).

greater involvement in the Indian Ocean

trade and subsequent upstream increases in

as a result of the region's

for the use of small-denomination

The distribution of recovered coinage hoards

indicates preferential differences

Evolving International Relationships

Java's early gold coins,which is blank.

concentrate wealth at the center. By becoming more actively involved in external