SEAArch – The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog

Hope everyone’s been having a happy new year! I’ll start of the first post of the year with yet another linkdump covering all the news stories from the last three weeks. This past December’s been an extremely hectic one with lots of travel to see family and friends, hence my inability to provide updates at regular intervals. I’m back in front of the desktop now, finishing the final stretch of the thesis. News updates should be back to the regular schedule again.

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It’s mid-December already, and I haven’t posted any news so far on account of being in Hanoi for the first couple of weeks, and then falling majorly sick after returning. So rather than trying to catch up with three week’s worth of archaeology news from Southeast Asia, here’s all of them in one brilliant link dump, sorted by date (most recent ones first) and country.

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The Philippine expedition to trace the ancient maritime routes on a reconstructed ancient boat called the Balangay is scheduled to arrived in the city of Butuan at the end of the week. Butuan was where the first ancient Balangays were first discovered.

Voyage of Balangay nearing Caraga region
PIA Information Services, 18 November 2009
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Hindus around the world celebrate the Festival of Lights, or Diwali, over the past weekend, and so we have a couple of Hindu-Indian themed posts in this week’s edition of Rojak.

photo credit: magiceye
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A dispute seems to be brewing between two heritage groups over the significance of finds at at archaeological site in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.

Heritage Council: Nothing final in ‘Huluga’ discovery
Sun.Star, 07 October 2009
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An exhibition showcasing the artefacts unearthed from Cebu in the Philippines showcase a range of items as early as the 13th century and as recent as the early 20th century. Among the finds are gold necklaces, ceramic wares from Thailand, and bottles for aerated ginger ale (although it’s unclear if the bottles were unearthed with the ginger ale, or if it just said so in the label). All this points to a rich record of regional interactions that Cebu played in Southeast Asia.

Cebu’s archaeological finds on display
Cebu Daily News, 03 June 2009
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Final preparations are underway for a team from the Philippines to retrace the ancient maritime routes using a modern reconstruction of an ancient boat, called the Balangay. The 15-metre boat was rebuilt by craftsmen using traditional methods (such as the choice of wood and the use of wooden dowels rather than metal nails) will be manned by a crew of nine. Setting sail from Manila, they will follow a shore-hugging route to Tawi-Tawi, on the southern end of the Philippines. If all goes well (and it is going to be a long journey lasting until at least the end of 2010), the expedition might extend west, as far as Madagascar. Good luck to the crew!

Balangays have been known to be in use as early as 1,600 years ago – I think that’s probably one of the earliest evidence for seafaring that we have material evidence for – but the technology to travel across the seas is probably much older. I won’t be surprised if ancient peoples in this region had access to that technology a couple of millennia before then. Finding such evidence will be much trickier, since wood doesn’t preserve well in this climate.

Filipinos to sail around the world aboard ancient boat
GMA News, 20 June 2009
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