Ceramic Shards Handling Session at the NUS Museum
3pm, Saturday, 31 October 2015
50 Kent Ridge Crescent
Singapore
SEACS members were invited to study Prof John Miksic’s collection of shards at the NUS Museum and SEACS Vice President Lim Yah Chiew brought additional shards to complement the collection.
Trowulan, former capital city of Majapahit, is located 60 km from Surabaya, East Java. The site houses a wealth of heritage in the form of temples, gateways, water structures, reservoirs, canal system, construction elements, thousands of terracotta and ceramic tools used for domestic purposes. And a huge quantity of Yuan blue and white shards, Longquan celadon and Cizhou wares have been recovered.
The Majapahit Empire claimed relationships with Champa, Khmer Kingdom, Siam, southern Burma, and Vietnam, and even sent missions to China.
Studies on Vietnam blue and white wares reflect a great influence by the Chinese Yuan and Ming migrants. The trade between Majapahit with Vietnam and Champa with the support of Ming emperor saw a big influx of Vietnam stoneware blue and white of the 15th C to Trowulan.
This handling session was a chance for comparison and identification to understand Chinese Yuan blue and white and Vietnamese blue and white ceramics. They also compared Longquan celadon from China with that of Vietnamese celadon.
This was a private event open to SEACS members only.
