Page 18 - Chinese and Asian Ceramics from an Indonesian Collection

PART 1: THE HISTORY OF CERAMICS FROM THE MUSI RIVER

INTRODUCTION

Figure 1. Three divers operating a typical boat used to extract objects from the mud of the Musi riverbed. This location was in
front of the Boom Baru port site (photo: Rianta 2014).

In 2011, we became aware that interesting and varied downstream of the Bridge. By September 2017, there
ceramics (as well as gold, bronze, stone and wooden was much more activity on the River, with some 70 boats
objects), collected from Palembang, were appearing in regularly searching for artefacts, some packed tightly not
the Jakarta antique markets, and some in the Bali markets. far from the Bridge (Figure 1). From about 2014 to the
Many such antiques were (and still are) being sold through present these boats used large modern suction hoses to
dealers to international and local customers – many of extract artefacts from the river mud.
whom have little interest in their provenance. Aware Up until the end of December 2017, our ceramic
of the potential historical and cultural importance of collection had grown to 1,783 items, which had come
ceramics from The Musi, In July 2013, Heny Kustiarsih from 11 sites along the River. Most of the ceramic items
began to establish a representative, well documented collected were reasonably intact, some were perfect and
and curated collection of ceramics from that River, as a had glaze that was generally little degraded because it
future reference resource for historians, ceramic experts was well protected by the deep River mud. Our intention
and other interested parties. was to develop a collection of both glazed and unglazed
In November of that year we visited Palembang to wares that were representative of their country of origin,
see firsthand the boats recovering ceramics from the covered their production periods and were in the best
River. At that time there were about 17 boats plying this possible condition. Given limited resources, we collected
trade, some close to the Ampera Bridge in front of the just one representative item of each ceramic type. A
Benteng Kuto Besak, in some 17 metres of water. Others second was collected of a certain type only if it was a much
worked some six kilometres upstream and four kilometres better condition than the previous one. Consequently,