Indian Glass in Southeast Asia

Abstract

For the last decade, Southeast Asia has been an area where glass research has been extremely active. Although many questions remain unanswered, a clearer picture of the organization of the glass industry and trade/exchange through time has emerged. At a very early period (fourth–second century BCE), glass ornaments were manufactured in modern Thailand using techniques and raw materials imported from northern India, as well as other regions, possibly within Southeast Asia. Production from these very early workshops was distributed around the South China Sea. At the same early period, production centres located in other regions of Southeast Asia might have operated too, as evidenced by the very specific type of beads found in modern Myanmar with familiar compositions but with very local typologies. Around the second-first century BCE, a shift occurs with the loss of the northern Indian connection and instead glass beads from southern India and/or Sri Lanka appears at certain Southeast Asian sites. Other sites present a very different glass pattern suggesting that different exchange networks co-existed for a while. Around the middle of the 1st millennium CE, available data become scarce. Even if evidence indicates that ties with India seem to remain strong, more research would be necessary to define the nature and intensity of exchange between the two areas. Another point that needs investigation is the disappearance of certain primary glass production around that time. This might have stimulated imports from India, as well as the Middle East and later from China. Around the tenth century CE and later, connections with South India/Sri Lanka are still visible in Southeast Asia suggesting continuity over more than a millennium. In parallel, the presence of beads possibly from north-eastern India would indicate that a connection lost around the second century BCE was reestablished.