All over Southeast Asia is found a particular type of coarse Chinese export porcelain traditionally known as ‘Swatow’ ware but now more accurately identified as originating from Zhangzhou, dating from the late Ming period, from the end of the sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries.  One characteristic type of large Zhangzhou dish had a central circle with eight smaller circles around it, all filled with inscriptions in Arabic script. Such [...]