Page 176 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

Chapter 8
The Kraak Porcelains Discovered
from Taiwan and Macao,
and Their Relationship with
the Manila Galleon Trade

Tai-Kang Lu

Taiwan and Macao played the vital roles of the international maritime transit trade
in the cultural and economic interchange between the east and west in the seven-
teenth century. The Chinese Kraak porcelains exported from Taiwan and Macao in
the !rst half of the seventeenth century were transshipped to other regions of the
world in a large number by the Dutch, Spaniard and Portuguese.
The Japanese Kraak style porcelains transshipped from Taiwan, not only were
sold to Southeast Asia, but also exported to Manila and then re-shipped to America
by Spanish galleons. The phenomenon of multi ceramic transit trade reveals the
importance of Chinese and Japanese ceramics in the international maritime trade in
the seventeenth century, and also shows the prosperous material cultural exchanges
between Asia and other places of the world in that period.

8.1 Introduction

The island of Taiwan, also called Formosa or Hermosa, situated in the southeast
offshore of the Asia continent. Taiwan (Formosa), close to Japan and Okinawa in
the north, near Philippines in the south, divided by Bashi channel at a distance of
350 km, approach to Fujian province of mainland China in the west, separated by
Taiwan strait for 200 km and facing the Paci!c Ocean in the east, is a pivotal point
around maritime trade of East Asia (Fig. 8.1).
After late of!fteenth century, Europeans found their ways to the East by maritime
adventures at large-scale, and the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch sequentially set
colonies and trade posts around Asia. First, the Portuguese occupied Goa in

T.-K. Lu (&)
Department of Art History, Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan, China
e-mail: tk.lu@msa.hinet.net
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 147
C. Wu et al. (eds.), Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaports and Early Maritime
Globalization, The Archaeology of Asia-Paci!c Navigation 2,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9248-2_8