Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean contacts: internal networks and external connections

This study reconceptualises Sri Lanka’s external trade and interactions from the middle of the first millennium BC to the early second millennium AD. Unlike earlier analyses, mine draws on the excavated material culture from three port-cum-urban centres—Mantai, Kantharodai and Kirinda—which were linked to major urban complexes, interior resource bases and Indian Ocean maritime networks. The scale and intensity of their external trade and connectivity, crafts and industries varied greatly over time and location. My findings illustrate Sri Lanka's earliest cultural-commercial connections with India from the middle of the first millennium BC. By the beginning of the CE, islanders were trading with the Middle East and the Mediterranean in the west and Southeast Asia and China in the east. The Middle East was a particularly strong connection from about the mid-3rd century. Materials from Southeast Asia and China arrive by the late 7th/8th centuries, with the focus of external trade shifting away from the Middle East to the Far-East around the end of the 10th century, lasting until the 12th/13th centuries and beyond. My findings demonstrate that internal developments in irrigated agriculture, iron technology, crafts, industries and procurement–distribution networks were crucial for external trade and connectivity. Contrary to the traditional view, I identify local agency as an important driving force behind both internal and external trade in ancient Sri Lanka. The island's external connectivity did not depend on a single factor but was based on specific historical realities which were constantly redefined and reformulated in response to the changing dynamics within and outside Sri Lanka

A New Maritime Security Architecture for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road: The South China Sea and the Persian Gulf

China and Iran have the ancient gate of Maritime Silk Road, as well as two new superhighways within this road, namely Strait of Hormuz and Malacca Strait. Unlike the Strait of Hormuz, maritime security in the Malacca Strait needs to be redesigned and re-established by littoral states for the safe corridor. The aim of this study is to find out the new concept and classification of maritime security, namely direct and indirect insecurity elements. This study illustrates that the most remarkable direct and indirect elements are respectively piracy, armed robbery, and external state presence. It is acknowledged that the continuous and dangerous presence of an external state is the indirect insecurity element. In the light of the USA's violation and destabilizing activities in the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea, its presence and passage are considered as noninnocent activities, as these are prejudicial to the good order, peace and security of states located along the coast. Therefore, a new doctrine called the "Doctrine of No Sheriff" is offered in this article to possibly prevent the uprising of hegemonies in every region in the future.

Chinese ceramics as global commodities: a thousand years of production and trade of Chinese ceramics in the Western Indian Ocean

This paper analyses the production and distribution of Chinese trade ceramics from AD 800 to 1900 to understand how these ceramic products became global commodities and how their production and exchange in the Western Indian Ocean evolved. Through a comparative examination of 15 well-identified product types of Chinese ceramics from 216 sites in the Western Indian Ocean, their production kilns, market circulations, and trading quantities have been identified and statistically analysed. The results suggest that the global status of Chinese ceramics in trade from China to the Western Indian Ocean depended on quality, aesthetics, utility, and the ability to navigate challenges such as logistics, production, and market barriers, highlighting the significance of market-adaptive designs in achieving global commodity success

Islamic Glass in the Making

The ancient glass industry changed dramatically towards the end of the first millennium. The Roman glassmaking tradition of mineral soda glass was increasingly supplanted by the use of plant ash as the main fluxing agent at the turn of the ninth century CE. Defining primary production groups of plant ash glass has been a challenge due to the high variability of raw materials and the smaller scale of production. Islamic Glass in the Making advocates a large-scale archaeometric approach to the history of Islamic glassmaking to trace the developments in the production, trade and consumption of vitreous materials between the eighth and twelfth centuries and to separate the norm from the exception. It proposes compositional discriminants to distinguish regional production groups, and provides insights into the organisation of the glass industry and commerce during the early Islamic period. The interdisciplinary approach leads to a holistic understanding of the development of Islamic glass; assemblages from the early Islamic period in Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Egypt, Greater Syria and Iberia are evaluated, and placed in the larger geopolitical context. In doing so, this book fills a gap in the present literature and advances a large-scale approach to the history of Islamic glass

Islamic Glass in the Making

The ancient glass industry changed dramatically towards the end of the first millennium. The Roman glassmaking tradition of mineral soda glass was increasingly supplanted by the use of plant ash as the main fluxing agent at the turn of the ninth century CE. Defining primary production groups of plant ash glass has been a challenge due to the high variability of raw materials and the smaller scale of production. Islamic Glass in the Making advocates a large-scale archaeometric approach to the history of Islamic glassmaking to trace the developments in the production, trade and consumption of vitreous materials between the eighth and twelfth centuries and to separate the norm from the exception. It proposes compositional discriminants to distinguish regional production groups, and provides insights into the organisation of the glass industry and commerce during the early Islamic period. The interdisciplinary approach leads to a holistic understanding of the development of Islamic glass; assemblages from the early Islamic period in Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Egypt, Greater Syria and Iberia are evaluated, and placed in the larger geopolitical context. In doing so, this book fills a gap in the present literature and advances a large-scale approach to the history of Islamic glass