Page 50 - Export Porcelain and Globakization- GOOD READ

today. Celadon continues to be produced in Si Satchanalai, and other places, and is
used as common tableware in many restaurants and private households. This tradition
almost got lost in China, the motherland of celadon ware.
Thailand was not only an important exporter of ceramics but it also imported
Chinese, Burmese and Vietnamese ware. In September 1984, thousands of ceramics
appeared in the antique shops of Bangkok, Sukhothai and Chiang Mai. There were
beautiful large 14th century Chinese celadons, Ming blue and white ware (see plate
33), spectacular underglaze black decorated dishes and bowls from Sukhothai-town
and Si Satchanalai, Thai celadons, Hariphunchai water bottles and an extraordinary
and quite unknown group of white ware, some with vivid under glaze green
decoration which many now believe to have been made in the area of Pegu in Burma
(plate 204). All these ceramics came from a hilltop burial site with thousands of
graves in the Tak province of Thailand. The province of Tak lies on a trading route
between Sukhothai and the harbor city Martaban in present day Burma. A prosperous
group of people must have lived in the mountainous area dividing the Kingdoms of
Thailand and Burma in the 14th - 16th centuries. Burmese ceramics with green
decoration under white or opaque glaze have been found in kiln sites in the Twante
district southwest of Yangon. Applying a tin and lead glaze and the design patterns
could have been influenced by Islamic ceramics. The trading routes from the city of
Martaban to India and Indonesia were in the hands of Muslim merchants which may
have also influenced the taste of Burmese potters.
In the 18th and 19th centuries Chinese five colored enamel overglaze ceramics,
called Bencharong, became popular in Thailand and were imported from China, but
also locally produced.
4.4 Khmer and Champa Ceramics
Most probably, Chinese potters brought the glazing technology and decoration
styles to Cambodia in the late 9th century – during the beginning of the Angkorean
period (802-1431). Angkor is known for its beautiful and impressive temple
architecture, its reliefs and stone sculptures. Most of these monuments and pieces of
art reflect Hinduism, as the state religion – specially the Shivaism practiced almost
exclusively from the 5th to 11th century. Under the reign of Jayavarman VII
(1181-1220), Mahayana Buddhism was promoted and it is assumed that the famous
monumental faces of Angkor Thom depict the Bodhisattva Lokeshvara. However
most of the Buddhist reliefs have been destroyed. The Angkorean period is famous for
stone carving rather than for its pottery art. The grey stoneware and the dark brown
glaze looks, on first sight, rather coarsely lacking of the finesse of Chinese ceramics.
However, similar to domestic Japanese ware, beauty becomes visible by getting
familiar with them. Khmer ceramics were discovered rather late. The most important
kilns have been discovered on the mountain of Phnom Kulen located in the east of the
old capital Angkor. Greenish and yellowish glazed ceramics were produced at the
Kulen kilns starting from 1050. These products rarely have the thickness and strong
green colour normally associated with celadon although the glaze derives also from
wood ash and iron (plate 205). The second important production site for Khmer
ceramics is in the north east of Thailand at the city of Buri Ram. Buri Ram ceramics
are brown glazed, sometimes yellowish brown. Jars, pots and bottles with zoomorphic
features (such as bird tails or elephant heads) are quite common (plate 206). The kilns
of Buri Ram operated from at least the mid-11th century into the 12th. Because they
were not used as articles of long distance trade, Khmer wares today are rarely found
outside the present or former Khmer dominions.
The South of Vietnam has historically not been part of China or the Kingdoms of
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