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A very sleepy, blurry picture of me in the final days of the Heavenly Bodies exhibit. You will be missed, O red haired child.
HELLO!
Many, many, many. MANY apologies for the lateness of this post. The past few weeks have been pretty hectic - with work and the BTS concert a week after my last post and me being sick and all - so this post will be kind of long? I think. Hopefully!
I brought my notebook home with me this weekend for the express purpose of recording here some of my research over the past few weeks!
THE LOST SEAPORT OF MUZIRIS
So recently, I’ve been working on more geographical research, and continuing my look into different Buddhist sites across South Asia. The map I’ve currently built features many of the major points of interest for Buddhist pilgrims in Ancient India, including locations such as Nagarjunakonda (which I believe I mentioned before), Pataliputra, Amaravati, and others.
I’ve also been looking into several trade relationships between points along the Silk Road, as I plot the different key locations that would have been centers of trade, commerce, and exchange back in Ancient Times™.
One of the Key Points that I ended up doing a bundle of research on was the ancient lost seaport down of Muziris. Thought to have existed in modern day Kerala, Muziris was a central trading seaport and urban center on the Malabar Coast that is believed to have dated as early as the 1st century BC, if not before it. It was a major connection between Southern India and the Persians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, and most majorly, the Roman Empire. Indian merchants would trade in spices - most importantly black pepper - as well as semi-precious stones and gems, ivory, Chinese silk, and other naturally occurring South Asian resources. The Romans would bring, in return, gold currency, thin clothing and linens, textiles, copper, tin, lead, and other goods.
But the question I kept running into was how was this ancient city even found? It was thought to have been completely destroyed in a cataclysmic natural disaster in the 1340s, ending with a complete geographic shift in landscape that wiped Muziris from the map, both literally and figuratively. So how do we even know it existed at all? Could this have been a fantastical mythical place only told in legend, in hushed whispers across campfires, passed on from generations only through word of mouth?
While the mystery is enticing, this port did exist, as can be told from records in both South India and the Mediterranean of trade within that region, where it is known through its alternate names: Murachipattanam or Muchiri. The most telling evidence, however, comes from the investigation and excavation of the suspected location of Muziris in present day Kerala. Muziris does not exist as a modern day city, and most traces were, as mentioned before, destroyed in the natural disaster. However, through multiple excavations over the 20th century, archaeologists have discovered concrete evidence on both the location of ancient Muziris, but also proof that trade between the Romans and South India had occurred.
It was once thought to have been situated along present day Kondugallur, a town about 18 miles north of Cochin, but many scholars debate this, and place it closer to present day Pattanam, a town on the North Paruvar route 1.5 kilometers from Kodungallur. The Kondugallur area was excavated around 1945, but no evidence dating back as far as the time of Muziris was found at that time, nor was anything before the 13th-16th century found in a later excavation in the same area in 1969. When Pattanam was excavated in 1983, however, they discovered fragments of amphoras, west Asian and Mesopotamian pottery, glass and stone beads, some metal ornaments, and both human and structural remains indicating an early historic urban settlement that would have been inhabited by a diverse population in addition to the indigenous Iron Age peoples. The diversity of this region would have brought people and traders of all religions, as there is evidence of Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim travelers settling in the area.
What I found most fascinating about this area is the idea of an international system of trade, and it further piqued my interest as to how trade relations between the Indian subcontinent and the rest of the world evolved and changed over time. I hope to dive deeper into this area, and to see what other mysteries Muziris has to offer.
INTERIOR DECORATION FOR THE COLONIAL MIND
Another point of interest in the past week or so has been an interesting look into furniture belonging to the Dutch colonizers in South Asia. During the era of the VOC (Dutch East India Company), many Dutch colonists in Southwest India were in need of furniture to decorate and make their houses functional. Thus, they would commission the local craftsmen to build furniture out of ebony. Ebony was naturally sourced (read: harvested and stolen) from Mauritius in South Africa, as well as the eastern coast of India and the island of Ceylon, now modern day Sri Lanka.
The stylings of these pieces would cater to European demand, but designs were sourced from kalamkari, a type of hand painted or block-printed textile design also known as chintz that was common in India and Iran. The most common examples of kalamkari would be in upholstery and in textiles like rugs, drapery, and curtains. Almost all of the pieces I was able to look into featured spiral turnings, and this distinct, kalamkari-inspired floral carving done in half-relief, intricately carved into the distinct, black-colored wood. The style, as a result, was neither fully European, nor completely Asian in its stylings, and thus, in a way, represented the melding of two cultures - the indigenous and the foreign.
These pieces are rather difficult to date precisely, however. While most pieces and the style itself seem to have been most popular in the 17th century, the sample size is small due to the rarity of surviving ebony furniture. The pieces that were commissioned would have been done so by wealthy, high-ranking Dutch expats who could afford the expense. Additionally, many of the surviving pieces appeared to be modified or altered, with parts switched out, replaced, or added. Most of the unique features in surviving pieces, ones that would not be in classical versions, are results of these modifications and early restorations. Additionally, later reproductions of this styling would often have thicker, sturdier parts and a smoother, more pronounced finish. Thus, it is difficult to accurately pinpoint exactly when many of these pieces were originally manufactured.
There were also many stylistic differences based on where the furniture was actually manufactured. The three centers of production in that time were the Coromandel Coast in India, the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and the Indonesian archipelago.
The styling in Sri Lankan ebony furniture was distinct and recognizable due to its low relief carving, and the fact that its stylistic evolutions closely followed that of the Dutch.
Furniture from the Coromandel Coast displayed a wider range of skills, including pierced carving, ivory inlays, and a frequent use of figurative elements. They were also more likely to have been made of actual ebony, rather than a different stained hardwood. The figurative ornamentation would often be inspired by Hindu mythology and symbolism.
Most objects from the Indonesian Archipelago would have been made in Batavia (modern day Jakarta), in a style closely following coastal trends. Typically thicker, sturdier, and bulkier than their Sri Lankan or Indian counterparts, these pieces had deeper carving with bolder, fleshier floral ornamentation, and would probably not have been made from genuine ebony.
There is also an absence of figurative or animal motives in later pieces of furniture, attributed to a combination of the rise of Islam in Southeast Asia and the fact that Dutch patrons were often put off by “pagan” imagery. The stylistic elements were also mimicked in VOC silver and even on the gravestones of Dutch colonists form the 1700s. Ebony furniture all but disappears by 1750, with newer styles taking its place.
TILL NEXT TIME!
PHEW! That was a bunch of information and that too with no pictures or visuals. Unfortunately I do not have pictures of this stuff. You’ll have to come see it for yourself one day! (Seriously, come visit me some time!)
I hope you will all forgive me for being such a dunce about writing these weekly!
Hope to see you next week, and regale you with even more history!!!
See you soon!
Mallika