Each year, SEACS organises a field & study trip to a site of local interest for its members. In 2023, the group travelled to Thailand to visit the ancient sites of Sukhothai.
In 2024, the Society opted to visit the twice-previously visited sites at Penang and Kedah to update members on the latest archaeological work and finds being led by Professor Dr. Stephen Chia and Dr Nasha Rodziadi Khaw. The group was comprised of members (and in some instances, their family members) from both the Singapore and Kuala Lumpur branches of SEACS and it is our hope to continue to share such programmes and resources going forward. And while the programme had an educational focus, there were also moments of levity, amazing food, shared stories and local hospitality.
For Professor Kwa Chong Guan, the Society’s President, the major take-away from the visit to Bujang Valley “was the briefings from Professor Stephen Chia and Dr Nasha Rodziadi Khaw on the “new narratives” / naratif bahru they are constructing for Bujang Valley. The old narrative was that Bujang Valley was an Indianized colony. This narrative of Bujang Valley as an Indianized colony was developed by the British orientalist H. G. Quaritch-Wales on the basis of his archaeological investigation of Bujang Valley in 1941 and identifying thirty sites which he interpreted to be indicative of Indian colonisation of Kedah and Southeast Asia in four main waves of Indian cultural expansion corresponding to the peak periods of Indian civilization – the Amaravati (2nd to 3rd centuries CE and not apparent at Kedah), the Gupta; the Pallava and the Pala. Such a narrative does not connect Bujang Valley to the national histories of Malaya that Islamic Melaka was the beginning of Malaya’s history. It was therefore exciting to be briefed on the ‘new narratives’ Dr Nasha Rodziadi and his colleagues are developing about Bujang Valley as a strategically located centre of trade and industry at the northern end of the Straits of Melaka where Indian, Arab, Persian and Chinese sailors and traders gathered to trade and wait for the monsoons to change before they could continue their voyages. At Bujang Valley these foreign traders could also engage in trade in valuable forest products collected by the hunter-gathers inhabiting the upland forest of the Sungai Muda and brought by middlemen down the jungle trails for sale to the foreign traders. The Hindu-Buddhist temples whose foundations we see today were built to serve the Buddhist and Hindu traders. Bujang Valley, as Dr Nasha Rodziadi pointed out, was also an “industrial” site making beads and smelting iron, evident in the kilns Dr Nasha Rodziadi guided us to view.
“These new narratives of Bujang Valley fits into a wider and longer history of Kedah Tua that connects to the Melaka Sultanate of the 15th century, which performed similar trading functions to the port settlements of Bujang Valley. In the longer cycles of history, Bujang Valley and Melaka were parts of a series of port-settlements along the Malay peninsula side of the Straits of Melaka which included earlier port settlements of Takupa on the Isthmus and Temasek/Singapura at southern terminal of the Straits. Pulalu Pinang and Singapore are the modern continuation of these ancient port settlements.
“It was also very exciting to be given a preview of the ongoing excavations of Dr Nasha Rodziadi, especially his excavation of three terracotta statues of the Buddha at Bukit Choras, and hear Prof Stephen Chia’s briefings on his excavations into Malaysia’s deep prehistory. All in, an enlightening field trip.”
Another member, coming from the maritime industry, was intrigued to hear “that >1000 years ago, geopolitics and climate changes were already shaping the rise and fall of ancient port cities like Kedah. Kedah had become a main hub port, as Southern Song China leveraged on maritime silk route to serve key markets and empires in Asia (eg Srivijaya), and the West (Persia, Ottomans etc), partly due to loss excess of overland route, occupied by Jin and mongols. As water levels receded around Kedah over time, its role decline by the 14th/15th centuries as other ports gained prominence (eg Malacca). So much we can learn from history!”
