Notes on “Malay Pottery” in East Malaysia, and Neighboring Areas.


 

THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL
VOL XXIX NO.50 DECEMBER 1981

 
 
Title : 
Notes on “Malay Pottery” in East Malaysia, and Neighboring Areas.

Author : 
Wilhelm G. Solheim II

Abstract:
The original purpose of this paper was simply to put on record an unusual earthenware “kendi” that is similar to a whole earthenware jar I had seen in the Sarawak Museum in 1959. When I revisited the Sarawak Museum 20 years later I found that several more jars of the same type and provenience had been added to their collections. On the same trip I visited the Brunei Museum and saw there sherds of very similar pottery from an archaeological excavation conducted by the museum. I felt this comparable material would give more and better context to the “kendi” and so decided this should also be included. This new material clearly points to the inclusion of the “kendi” in the general classification of “Malay pottery.” As “Malay pottery” has not been the subject of publication for a number of years I finally decided that it would be well to review what I mean by “Malay pottery.” The first report with which I am acquainted in which a specific kind of pottery was identified as “Malay pottery” and equated with the spread of the Malay people was a paper of mine that appeared in this journal in 1959. Hesitating to use the name “Malay” for this pottery at that time, I called it the Bau Pottery Complex (Solheim 1959a:2) after the name of the area in which the first pubhshed archaeological site was found where this pottery was the primary pottery recovered. The site is Gua Bungoh, in caves near Bau, about fifteen miles southeast of Kuching. The pottery pictured and described (Harrisson and Tweedie 1951: 173—175, PI. 2) as coming from this site is, except for three sherds, typical of the “Malay pottery.”

DOI:
XXXX


How to cite:
Solheim, W. G. (1981). Notes on “Malay Pottery” in East Malaysia, and Neighboring Areas. The Sarawak Museum Journal, XXIX (50): 3-16

References

 

 

 
 

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