Page 81 - Chinese and Asian Ceramics from an Indonesian Collection

Ceramics from the Musi River

visible on the unglazed bottom half of the vessel. She
describes their brown glaze as generally having a “runny
golden brown glaze often marred by air bubbles that rarely
reached the base of the vessel”. Many of these forms appear
to have been recovered from the Musi, including large
Dragon storage jars (see Chapter on Storage Vessels on page
321); smaller jars (Figure 89) including also K708, K981
and K992; a lime pot (K2985); cups (Figure 90); flat bottom
basins with heavy rounded mouth rims (Figure 91); a small
ewer (Figure 92). A mortar with a much degraded golden
brown glaze (K2639) may also be Cham. Brown further
adds to this third group jars which are decorated with dark
red enamel on an unglazed body (Brown 199, Plate 23d).
A bottle from the Musi (Figure 93) fits this description in
part and is very similar in decoration to a Cham kendi in
Khoo (1991, Figure 69).
Three basins from the Musi (K1621, K1885, K2187) are
examples of a ware, which according to Cort (1993) were
brown glazed or unglazed stoneware exported to Japan
from the ‘southern barbarian’ or Namban (Figure 94).
This ware was used in Japan in the preparation of powdered
green tea. Namban ware was produced in Thailand,
Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma or coastal southern China.
More specifically, the Musi Namban was referred to by the
Japanese as sudare (or reed blind vessels). This was because
of its distinctive texture (Cort 1993, Figure 32) of closely
spaced vertical ribbings which cover the nearly cylindrical
vessels and terminate like the frayed ends of a hanging rope
curtain. The origins of sudare basins were allocated by Cort to
possibly Vietnam or Thailand, and made in the 16th century
or earlier. We tentatively attribute the Musi Namban ware to
Figure 93. Bottle, decorated on biscuit in reddish brown, Cham kilns because of the reddish-brown clays and position
neck with upright plantain leaves on upper half
and these inverted on lower half, body with broad of the Cham in earlier trade with Japan. But if they were
leafy scroll, height 16 cm, Central Vietnam (Cham), made by the Cham they probably predate the break-up of
Vijaya Kingdom, C14–C16, from the Musi , Pusri site. that nation towards the end of the 15th century.
Catalogue No. K1963. Several other vessels from the Musi may be Cham.
These included jarlets with a bluish tinged glaze over a
grey body (K2090, K2128, K2470); wide mouth jars with
flat bases, everted upper rims, a reddish chocolate or pale
orange fabric and thin glaze on the upper half of the body,
one with a blue-grey glaze (K1544), another a purple glaze
(K1967), the other a very degraded yellowish brown glaze
over a white slip (K1842).
Cham glazed ceramics from the Musi were predominately
found at the Pusri site. A total of 45 per cent of the 22 items
with recorded site information were from Pusri. Then, in
order of abundance, Sungai Rebo (18%), Batu Ampar
(14%), Boom Baru (9%) and Sungai Guci (9%), and
Lawang Kidul (5%).
CENTRAL THAILAND
As glazed ceramic production disappeared from the
diminishing Khmer empire it was appearing in north-central
Thai towns of Sukhothai, Si Satchanalai and Phitsanulok. All
Figure 94. Basin, purple fly-ash glaze or slip, decorated with of which became at different times the capital of the Thai
numerous thin vertical striations, height 9 cm,
probably southern Vietnam, called Nambam Ware state in the Sukhothai and Ayutthaya periods of the 13th
by the Japanese, C16 or earlier, from the Musi River, to 15th centuries. Sukhothai was a major Khmer provincial
Sungai Rebo site. Catalogue No. K2187. admin centre in the 12th century and its independence from
the Khmer marks an important point in the development of

64