A Guide to Thai Ceramics

Thai ceramics were among the first Southeast Asian wares to be seriously studied, starting with WA Graham’s 1922 article “Pottery in Siam” in the Journal of the Siam Society. The field only gained momentum in the 1960s following Charles Nelson Spinks’ important contributions on Thai pottery and in the 1970s from the discovery of the Prasat Ban Phluang temple site.

Known kiln sites are listed below in alphabetical order and articles will be updated as new evidence comes to light. An extensive recommended reading list and Bibliography can be found at the end of this page.

All references are to works named in the Bibliography at the end of this article.

Haripunjaya

Although physically situated in Northern Thailand, the kilns of Haripunjaya are distinctly different. This is due to the fact that the kingdom of Lamphun in which they are located is older than others in the region and originates from the Mon-Khmers of the South.

The text known as the Camadevivangsa puts the founding of the kingdom at around 750 CE and says that “because the site where the Khmers dug was used to obtain clay for making pots, it became a great pond named Ukkhalirahada [Pot Pond].” (Swearer & Premchit 1998: 113)

Haripunjaya wares are red, unglazed earthenware, consisting generally of long-necked urns and vases rather than plates or bowls, such as the example shown. Miksic tells us they “seem to have been intended for ceremonial use, possibly as containers for cremation ashes. They are decorated with red paint or slip and incised decorations” [Shaw 1989: 103–104, 238].

No chronology currently exists, but similar examples found at the Tak Om Koi burial sites suggest that they date between the late 14th to mid-16th centuries.

Kalong

The Kalong kilns were discovered in 1933, but were still unstudied in 1977 when Roxanna Brown wrote her Master of Arts thesis on the ceramics of Southeast Asia. Since then, however, she reported that a villager had a dream and was led to the kiln in his yard. It has since been excavated and is now open to visitors.

Over a hundred kilns have now been reported, but only one mound has been systematically excavated. These are cross-draft kilns, built by plastering clay over a bamboo framework, of the same type as in Haripunjaya, and all the northern Thai kilns. This is opposed to the brick kiln type used at Sukhothai and Sawankhalok/Si Satchanalai. Brown believes they operated from around 1300 to 1550.

A common characteristic of Kalong ceramics is their “fine-grained whitish body, the clay source of which may have been one reason for the location of the kilns” and the reason for the high quality of the Kalong ware, which is considered by many to be the finest of all Thai ceramics.

The wares are finely potted throughout and generally have wide bases. [Brown 1988: 84-86]

From the photo of kiln wasters (left), we can see that within a kiln, different types of monochromes were fired at the same time, ranging from the rain-grey to celadons. This implies that the glazes used were of a similar type.

Lampang

The first kilns were discovered in 1950 by locals who were widening the old canal near Wat Chedi Sao. There are now known to be several clusters of brick kilns in the rice fields surrounding the wat.

They produced rough-manufactured, dark-bodied bottles and jars, such as the examples shown below, with thick, dribbly black or more thinly applied brown glazes. Figurines of humped bulls were also found, but it is not known what they were used for. The clay body is rough-grained and dark, mottled brownish or reddish brown. [Brown 1988: 90)]

Nakorn Thai and Nan

Located east of Sukhothai, Nakorn Thai is a small kiln site with six kilns visited by the Thai-Adelaide project in 1984, although its actual date of discovery is unknown. Its primary product was unglazed stoneware, and the site probably ran from the late 13th to the 14th centuries.

The kiln sites of Nan are among the most recently discovered by Bangkok University’s Fine Arts Department. Four in-ground kilns were excavated in 1984.

The sites had been severely disturbed by agriculture, but finds included “ceramics of three main types: dish-related shapes, jars and mortars; and kiln furniture,” mainly saggers with lids. Roxanna Brown tells us that “most of the wares were monochrome olive, brown and black, with some celadon and two-colour jars with a single glaze, the lighter colour produced by applying a whitish slip under the glaze.

The dish-related shapes consisted mainly of scoop-mouth plates with a clear glaze over a whitish slip…. The clay of these wares is their most distinctive feature: it is very dark grey, almost black, with tiny whitish speckles, although the surface often fires to orange, and sometimes brown. ” [Brown 1988: 93]

The underglaze iron decoration appearing on two bowls found during the excavation felt to her “quite similar in style” to the image shown here bottom right.

Pa-O (Southern Thailand)

The two very distinctive earthenware pots shown here are known as ‘Fine Paste Ware’. They are characterised by their clay, which is very fine and smooth to the touch, often with a chalky feel, allowing the production of very fine, thin-bodied and hard ceramic vessels. When fired, the clay body turns either white or a light buff colour on the surface, but has a grey core.

Forms include bowls and covers and lids, but the majority of the excavated Fine Paste Wares are kendis, such as the two specimens shown. Kendis are water containers, often associated with religious rites and rituals.

However, we cannot know for certain where these two samples are from until a chemical analysis of their composition is done. The clay used in Fine Paste Ware is an almost pure kaolin, extracted from weathered feldspar, and is only found in two locations in Southeast Asia—on the isthmus of the Thai peninsula and in East Java. Because the source of Fine Paste Ware is limited to these two locales, it is fascinating to find them all over the region.

Unfortunately, no kiln production sites have been found in East Java, but at Pa-O, in southern Thailand, six updraft kilns have been excavated and sherds from there have been analysed. Pa-O clay contains a high amount of iron oxide, perhaps accounting for the reddish colour seen in the second sample above.

Hundreds of these Fine Paste Wares (mostly kendis) have been found in the Intan and Java Sea shipwrecks dating from the 10th to the 13th centuries respectively, as well as sherds in the Philippines, in East Java, in north Sumatra and in Singapore, with dates ranging from the 9th to 14th centuries. This leads us to question the nature of intra-regional trade, especially for earthenware kendis.

Phan

The Phan kilns are the third largest of the Northern Thai kilns after Kalong and Sankampaeng. “Approximately 40 kilns have been located in two clusters, and 15 kiln sites have been excavated. The kilns, some of the most highly specialised and accomplished in northern Thailand, may have only been in service for a few decades in the 15th century.” [Miksic 2009: 65]

“They produced almost exclusively celadons, with only a sprinkling of olive-glazed pieces, and the average quality of the celadons far exceeds that of most Sawankhalok products. The glaze is evenly applied and lustrous, without the heavy glassy pooling and trickling so typical of Sawankhalok. It is also translucent and finely crazed.

The colour is extremely pale green, with yellow or greyish casts, which are almost impossible to reproduce correctly in photographs. The potting is skillful and the shapes neat and well-balanced…. The clay is light-coloured and distinctive for its strange iridescent-like quality—without any actual specks of impurities being plainly defined, such as the white and black speckled clays of Sukhothai and Sawankhalok, yet the clay colour is minutely mottled, usually with beige on a grey ground.” [Brown 1988:89]

Common shapes of Phan wares include bowls, plates and dishes, but also some rarer forms such as jarlets, kendis in bird form and elephants [Miksic 1977]. The decorations are made by fine-pointed incisions under the glaze with a three- and sometimes four-pronged tool.

Phayao

The Phayao kilns were, according to legend, likely to have been established after the governor of Sawankhalok fled in 1447, taking with him potters from central Thailand. He was later appointed governor of Phayao by the king of Chiangmai. The kilns were reported in the 1950s but have not been excavated.

The product of these kilns were Sankampaeng-like brown monochromes, as can be seen from the sherds. These mostly have a grey-black body, and some have a whitish slip painted onto them to produce a lighter-coloured glaze, much like Sankampaeng wares.

Phayao also produced plates in olive, brown and celadon glazes, with what Brown calls a scoop-mouth, “a wide, everted, deeply curved mouth-rim” (1988: 63), such as the dish above, which has an unglazed mouth-rim and was found at the Tak Om Koi burial sites. This dish also has “two fish stamped in the well, dark grey-black body and an olive-brown glaze of which only traces remain on exterior walls.”

From observation of collapsed Sawankhalok wasters, dishes with this type of mouth-rim were stacked mouth-to-mouth rather than foot-ring to foot-ring in the kilns. The same technique must have been used in the Phayao kilns as the unglazed flat mouth-rims indicate.

There are a lot of unknowns concerning Phayao. We don’t know, for example, what relationships the kilns had to the other more renowned sites such as Kalong, Wang Nua and Phan, which were all in the same region; what distinguished Phayao from these other kilns that necessitated a different kiln site; when Phayao was established; or how the potters worked.

Currently, the only way to determine Phayao ware is by chemical analysis, which is costly. More research needs to be done, both on and off the field.

Phitsanulok

Some time around 1430, the capital of Sukhothai was moved east to Phitsanulok, which then became the political centre for the area. From 1463-88, King Trailok moved the Ayutthaya capital there to better conduct wars with Chiangmai [Brown 1988: 57].

When two brick kilns were excavated in 1984, most of the products discovered were unglazed stoneware jars and other utilitarian vessels (including earthenware ceramics) dating to the 15th century, largely in the Sawankhalok tradition. The stylistic similarities of the wares to Sawankhalok indicates that potters from Sawankhalok may have established a new kiln site at Phitsanulok in the 15th century to meet the needs of a growing market [ibid.: 82-83].

Brown recorded that “what glaze is seen, usually on the shoulders of burial-size jars and olive or blackish in colour, may only be a fly-ash glaze, the result of firing high iron content clay in a wood-fueled cross-draft kiln. One carbon-14 result from the two large brick kilns excavated at the site in April 1984 indicated a 14th-century date, although the site must still have been active in the 15th century, the probable date of the Koh Khram shipwreck, from which many examples of the wares were retrieved [ibid.: 95).”

Sankampaeng

Sankampaeng, in Northern Thailand, is located about 25km east of Chiangmai and 70km south-west of Kalong. It was discovered in 1952 by the Thai archaeologist Kraisri Nimmananhaeminda, who also found an inscribed stone stele. Brown [1988: 86] tells us that the text “commemorates the establishment of a Buddhist pagoda in 1488, and speaks of a gift of 25 families of slaves.” Based on this, Nimmanahaeminda thought that potters were included among the slaves and hypothesised that the kilns of this area dated from this time.

However, the origin of these kilns can not be deduced from the stele. Eighty-three kilns have been discovered in the area, of which only seven had been excavated by 1970. These were in-ground kilns and similar in structure to the Laotian kilns—small (only 2-4m long) and partly buried in the ground, with the top half made of hardened earth and mixed with broken bricks.

In shape, though, they are like other Thai cross-draft kilns, having an oval form with the firebox a step below the firing chamber. According to Nimmanahaeminda, similar kilns were being in the late 1900s by Tai people still living in Yunnan Province, China.

Because of the severe disturbance of the kiln sites, it is impossible to provide a precise date to the chronology of Sankampaeng wares beyond the rough dates of 14th to 16th centuries.

The best-known wares of Sankampaeng are underglaze iron decorated plates and dishes, especially those with a pair of fish stamped in the centre of the wares, such as the plate below, which was found at the Tak Om Koi burial sites. The unglazed flat mouth-rim is similar to Phayao wares.

The majority of the kiln sherds, says Brown, are “green-glazed, black-glazed, two-colour and unglazed vessels, especially jars, bottles, mortars, and basins in small and medium sizes.”

Dishes, plates and bowls are also among the most common finds. Grit on the base of this plate indicates that it was set directly on the floor of the kiln for firing.

As can be seen from the base of the plate (below right), there are circular rings which indicate that the vessel was cord-cut from a turning potter’s (straight lines indicate cord-cutting from a stationary wheel).

This plate’s body is extremely mottled in colour due to the addition of sand into the clay, a characteristic of Sankampaeng wares. Colours of the bodies can range from buff to light brown to greyish black.

There are two other types of Sankampaeng wares: (1) The first is a celadon-type glaze that according to Brown (1988: 88) sometimes fires to a ‘true celadon’, but is generally a “thin, greyish green, and laid over a coat of whitish slip that shows horizontal brush lines, a characteristic that helps identify Sankampaeng products—presumably a result of the slip being applied while the vessel turned on a wheel.” This can be seen in the jar below left. This method of glaze application can also be seen in the second type of Sankampaeng wares, (2) which are brown and black monochromes, such as the two jars shown below.

Sawankhalok and Si Satchanalai

The terms Sawankhalok and Si Satchanalai are both used to cover the production of many hundreds of kilns of central Thailand in full production by the mid-1300s. The kilns produced:

1) Unglazed wares
2) Monochrome white, black, brown, celadon, and olive wares
3) Brown glaze with incised decoration inlaid with white
4) Underglaze iron decorated wares

Sawankhalok/Si Satchanalai clay is finer than Sukhothai clay and has many small black spots due to the high iron content of the clay. Sometimes, the inclusions can be red or silver coloured. Like Sukhothai, Sawankhalok mainly created relatively simple shapes – jars, bottles, kendis, bowls and plates.

The earliest Sawankhalok/Si Satchanalai wares included dishes decorated with underglaze iron depictions of flowers in the interior bases, with fish on the cavettos. Specimens of the flowers and fish design have been found on the Turiang shipwreck, dated to around 1370. Scholar Roxanna Brown and marine archaeologist Sten Sjóstrand (2003: 35–37) put together information from shipwrecks to construct a chronology of Sawankhalok/Si Satchanalai wares. Among the first Thai exports were underglaze iron painted designs, mostly of flowers and fish.

Miksic [2009: 63-64] sums it up thus: “The Turiang shipwreck, dated approximately 1370, carried Si Satchanalai plates decorated with underglaze iron-painted designs of simple flowers and fish, but the Nanyang (c. 1380), Longquan (c. 1400) and Royal Nanhai (c. 1460) included Sawankhalok celadon plates. These green plates were major Thai exports until the late 15th century. On shipwrecks of the Hongzhi period, beginning in 1488, they were replaced by celadons from Burma, although Sawankhalok celadon bowls and ring-handle jars continued to appear into the early 16th century.”

The majority of Sawankhalok kendis had mammiform spouts as the image to the immediate right shows, but special shapes were also made, such as the kendi on the far right in the shape of a goose. Mary variations of the ‘goose’ form exist, made in both brown and black underglaze-painte versions, monochrome white and celadon. The goose was the vehicle of the god Brahma in Hindu mythology.

Sawankhalok celadon appeared around 1400, but excavations of the kiln sites have provided little help as to the chronology as they have been severely disturbed.

Six examples of the great variety of forms, decorations and colours of Sawankhalok celadons:

Sawankhalok also produced monochromes in other colours, notably black as well as brown, such as in the two examples below.

There was continuity in forms even as the glazes changed. These were probably produced for another market, and examples are found on the Turiang, dated to around 1370 (see Brown & Sjostrand 2003: colour plate 16).

In the final period of Sawankhalok wares, underglaze black covered boxes made a reappearance, while celadons disappeared. They can be found on the shipwrecks of the Zhengde (1505–21) and Jiajing (1522–66) periods, and are the main decorative elements of Sawankhalok production until it ceased around 1584 [Brown 2004: 7].

John Miksic concludes: “In the Philippines, Sawankhalok ceramics are found in large numbers at certain 14th-15th century sites such as Calatagan [Fox 1959]. On mainland Southeast Asia, Thai ceramics from Sawankhalok have been found at Angkor, where they postdated 1350, based on Groslier’s observations at the royal palace site in Angkor. Whereas Vietnamese ceramics seem to have been exported in two distinct periods, separated by a gap of some years, Thai ceramics seem to have continued more or less interrupted from around 1400 until the late 16th century.” [Miksic 2009:93]

There is some early specialisation for these 3 clusters of kilns: Ban Pa Yang produced mainly architectural fixtures, Tukatha (named after the Thai word for ‘dolls’) made figurines, while Ban Ko Noi manufactured ‘Mon’-type wares and early underglaze wares. At Ban Ko Noi, the earliest wares included dishes decorated with underglaze iron depictions of flowers in the wells and fish on the cavettos, such as the example shown above. There are no clear sources of inspiration for this motif, but specimens of the flowers and fish design have been found on the Turiang shipwreck, dated to around 1370. But Brown [1988: 60] says “sherd debris of trade wares at all three sites today is substantially similar.”

Notes on the three examples of the figurines known as tukatha shown below:

Fig 1: In Thai custom, such figurines were used in ceremonies connected with rain and fertility [Van Oenen: 262]. This example is unusual because the couple is kissing rather than merely embracing, which is the typical position (see for example, Brown 1988: pl. XXXIII e).

Fig 2: Other examples have been found in Banten Lama, West Java. The missing heads of these figurines led some researchers to hypothesise a sacrificial ritual (Spinks 1978: 86–88; Çoedès 1939). However, Guérin and Van Oenen (2005: 251–267) note that the figurines are seldom found with heads still attached and explain that the frequency of missing heads may be due to the weakness of the joint between head and body. Male figurines are also known, many also missing heads. They are often depicted with fighting cocks in place of children, but others hold fans, bottles, or other objects. The hypothesis of sacrificial rituals therefore must be judged unproven. These may not be a special category, but just one of a larger group of figurines, including humans, animals, and supernatural beings such as demons.

Fig 3: There are many examples of hunchback droppers in Thailand; some examples are known from North Sumatra, and a wide range of these figures of various qualities is reportedly found in South Sulawesi. The figures are sometimes misinterpreted as female due to the hair pulled back and secured with a pin, but they are intended to represent males [Guérin & Van Oenen 2005: 202–202]. Although the use of these objects is unknown, one theory proposes that they represent sorcerer-magicians [ibid.: 199].

CELADONS

By the 1400s, the kilns of Si Satchanalai were producing celadons as evidenced by the wasters found in excavations.

This is corroborated by the number of shipwrecks of that period that have Thai celadons as part of their cargo. The Nanyang (c. 1380), Longquan (c. 1400) and Royal Nanhai (c. 1460, shown below) included celadon plates. The latter had celadons, together with underglaze iron decorated wares, such as those shown here. The Royal Nanhai (see examples below) had at least two other types of wares that typify Sawankhalok/ Si Satchanalai production, including monochrome whites and monochrome browns.

Si Satchanalai ware is high-fired stoneware—the fired body is greyish with black spots (as can be seen in the above examples where pieces have been broken off). This comes from the high iron oxide content of the clay; the iron appears as black, red or silvery inclusions.

Reddish tints (for example, at the bottom of the headless figurines) can occur when the ceramic piece is fired in a reducing atmosphere (when there is too little oxygen in the kiln during the firing process). When the piece is brought out to cool, the increase in the level of oxygen in the atmosphere can cause the exposed parts of the clay to re-oxidise, turning them red.

Identified and written about since the late 19th century, the kiln sites of Si Satchanalai are among the most well-known of Thai ceramics. The term Si Satchanalai covers a large number of kilns (over 600 in the 3 three clusters of Ban Ko Noi, Tukatha and Ban Pa Yang), although it actually refers to a walled settlement about 10 km from Ban Ko Noi in central Thailand.

The group of wares from this area used to be called Sawankhalok and were differentiated from Sukhothai wares. This was because—before proper excavations were conducted in the 1970s and 1980s—people thought that production started at Sukhothai and when the clay there was exhausted, potters moved to Sawankhalok/Si Satchanalai.

New data has shown that this idea is now no longer valid—Sukhothai and Sawankhalok/Si Satchanalai wares were found together at the Tak Om Koi burial sites on the Thai-Myanmar border, and on the Koh Khram shipwreck in the Gulf of Thailand. Excavations also proved that the oldest kiln was at Ban Ko Noi, which produced the oldest Thai glazed ceramics, possibly dating to around the 1300s. The site has been severely disturbed and no further refined dating can be proposed until a chemical analysis of the sherds has been done.

Singburi

According to Brown, the site of Singburi may have been founded by potters from the North who sought safety during the troubled times of the 1550s, when the Burmese invaded Thailand.

We can date the ceramics of Singburi to the late 16th century and into the 17th, when its jars sank near Africa with the Dutch ship, the Witte Leeuw, in 1613.

Singburi wares are “primarily unglazed stoneware storage jars with thick handles, baluster jars, sometimes with stamped pictorial decoration (includes elephants) on the shoulder, and other wares such as basins almost identical to [those from] Phitsanulok” … excavations began in 1988” [Brown 1988: 84, 95-96]. It may have been active until Ayutthaya was destroyed by the Burmese in 1767.

Such jars have been found on a good number of shipwrecks including the Witte Leeuw, Royal Nanhai and the Koh Khram.

Sukhothai

There is a legend that “Chinese potters went to Sukhothai in the late 13th century and founded the Thai stoneware tradition” [Miksic 2009: 94]. However, there are no ancient sources that corroborate this story and Brown noted several forms of evidence, including decorative motifs, use of tubular supports or pontils, and kiln design, which are not paralleled in China, though there are some links with Vietnam (Brown 1977: 59).

From the historical point of view, the principality of Sukhothai was established “between 1220 and 1250 when, according to Thai history, it broke free from and allegiance to Angkor – it is around this time, in fact, that Khmer history records a war with Siam” [Brown 1988: 57]. By 1300, the Sukhothai kilns were in full production, indicating a strong relation between the founding of the kingdom and the increase in production.

Sukhothai is famed for its stoneware plates, dishes and bowls, having an underglaze iron black decoration of fish in the centre, encircled by rings (one, two or three). Other Sukhothai characteristics include the evenly spaced unglazed scars left by the spurs (usually five in number), which are sometimes integrated into the fish designs; a white slip showing on the base; and a coarse, grainy, greyish (sometimes brownish) body with white particles.

Roxanna Brown calls the drawing of the Sukhothai fish “free, lively, summary” [1988: 64], as opposed to the more formal representations of Sawankhalok fish. Examples are shown below.

Dating Production

Shipwrecks tell us that the Sukhothai and Sawankhalok kilns were operating simultaneously at least in the first half of the 15th century, rather than consecutively as previously believed [Miksic 2009: 32]. On the Turiang, dated to around 1370, a larger number of Sukhothai wares were found, compared to fewer Sawankhalok ceramics. Sukhothai wares also appear on the Longquan wreck, dated to about 1400 [Brown & Sjostrand 2003: 80–81] as well as on the Ko Khram and Rayong wrecks of 1380–1500 [Pisit & Sayan 1990: 18–19, 48–49], which indicated an export trade for these pieces.

On the right, another common design on Sukhothai wares–the ‘sunburst motif,’ which Brown calls ‘pikun blossoms’ [1988:65].

Brown pointed out that the types of wares found aboard the Turiang present the “intriguing possibility” of an early date for the trade of underglaze-decorated Vietnamese and Thai ceramics. The entry of Thai ceramics into the regional export market coincided approximately with the early Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) in China when all private overseas trade was forbidden and the status of the Jingdezhen kilns shifted from private enterprises to court kilns producing ceramics only under the emperor’s direction. This enabled the Thai kilns (Sawankhalok and Sukhothai) to clinch the market in glazed ceramics at least until the late 16th century when China regained the market. [Miksic 2009: 32-33]

Thai ceramics seem to have continued more or less interrupted from around 1400 until the late 16th century. J C Shaw suggests that the Sukhothai kilns ceased production in the 1560s due to Burmese invasions and the revival of Chinese exports after the Ming trade ban was lifted in 1567 [Shaw 1981:27].

Suphanburi

Suphanburi is a kiln site that was excavated in 1985-6. It produced mainly unglazed stoneware jars, much like those found in Phitsanulok and Singburi.

Very little is known of this production centre, but specimens have been found in Okinawa, along with Martaban jars and underglaze blue and black decorated ware from Vietnam.

Wang Nua

Wang Nua was discovered in 1970, located 30 km south of Kalong. Twenty-five kilns were found, but only eleven were excavated in 1972.

Archaeologists found mainly celadons, strengthening the idea that the northern Thai kilns were highly specialised.

Most of the finds at the excavations were roughly made pieces, but extremely rare fine examples have also been discovered, mostly at the Tak Om Koi burial sites, such as the plate shown below.

Bibliography and Recommended Reading:

Brown, Roxanna M., The Ceramics of South-East Asia: Their Dating and Identification, 2nd edn. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Brown, Roxanna M. The Ming Gap and Shipwreck Ceramics in Southeast Asia, Bangkok: Siam Society, 2009.

Brown, Roxanna M. and Sten Sjóstrand, Maritime Archaeology and Shipwreck Ceramics in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur: Department of Museums and Antiquities, n.d.

Miksic, John N., Archaeological Research on the ‘Forbidden Hill’ of Singapore, Singapore: National Museum, 1985.

Miksic, John N. Southeast Asian Ceramics: New Light on Old Pottery, Singapore: Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, 2009.

Miksic, John N and C T Yap, “Fine-Bodied White Earthenwares of South East Asia: Some X-ray Fluorescence Tests” in Asian Perspectives 28, 1:45-60, 1990.

Pisit Charoenwongsa and Sayan Prisanchit (eds.), Underwater Archaeology in Thailand II, Ceramics from the Gulf of Thailand, Bangkok: Samaphan Publishing Company, 1990.

Richards, Dick, South-East Asian Ceramics: Thai, Vietnamese, and Khmer from the Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Rooney, Dawn F., Ceramics of Seduction: Glazed Wares from Southeast Asia, Bangkok: River Books, 2013. For more on kendis in Thailand and Southeast Asia, see Rooney article here.

Shaw, John C., Introducing Thai Ceramics also Burmese and Khmer, Bangkok: Duangphorn Kemasingki, 1987.

Srisuchat, A. “Earthenware from Archaeological Sites in Southern Thailand: The First Century BC to the Twenlfth Century AD” in J N Miksic (ed.), Earthenware in Southeast Asia, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003, pp. 249-261.

Websites:

www.washingtonocg.org (Washington Oriental Ceramic Group)

https://asia.si.edu (Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art)

https://museum.bu.ac.th/en/newsletter/ (Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum newsletters, early ones edited by R. Brown)

www.maritimeasia.ws (Sten Sjóstrand’s website)