Researchers in Cambodia have re-created a working harp depicted on the walls of Angkor, possibly reviving a lost musical tradition.

Cambodian researchers, musicians revive ancient harp
ABC News, 20 May 2013

Musicians rebuild Cambodia’s lost ancient harp
ABC News, 21 May 2013

A Cambodian composer has revealed the sound of an ancient harp which has gone unheard for more than eight centuries.

The pin harp is shown being played by maidens in the stone reliefs on the walls of the Angkor Wat temple complex.

It lends its name to pinpeat orchestras, which perform ceremonial music of the royal courts and temples in Cambodia.

Archaeology lecturer Preap Chanmara says unlike the other orchestra instruments – cymbals, xylophones, flutes and drums – the pin harp has been lost.

“We know that there are many music instruments on the sculptures – some even dating back to the time before Angkor Era: the 7th century to the 13th century,” he said.

Full story here and here.

Another upcoming lecture at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies by Dr Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz, on the archaeology of West Sumatra.

Settlement Archaeology of Late 14th to 17th Century in West Sumatra
Dr. Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz, Research Associate, Freie Universität Berlin
Date: Monday, 24 June 2013
Time: 10.30 am– 12.00 nn
Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II

The Freie Universität Berlin’s “Tanah Datar” archaeological project aims to reconstruct early settlement patterns and document the material culture of the Minangkabau in West Sumatra. During the 14th century, the last Hindu- Buddhist king Ādityavarman established his kingdom in this highland area. Various dated stone inscriptions are the oldest documents for this early phase of history.

The potential seat of this kingdom lies on the large mound called Bukit Gombak where settlement features and habitation debris from the 14th and 17th centuries were unearthed in 2011–2012. Excavations at smaller sites and a pre-Islamic burial site including regional surveys provided evidence of a dense settlement pattern in the region. Distributional studies of the habitation deposits offer a number of important observations about the growth of this trading center, the expansion of foreign trade relations, status-related differences and the evolution of craft activity such as metal and earthenware production.

Registration required, details here.

Readers in Singapore may be interested in this upcoming talk at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies by Dr Phon Kaseka on the Cheung Ek Archaeological Site.

Research at the Cheung Ek Archaeological Site
Phon Kaseka, Director, Archaeology Department, Royal Academy of Cambodia
Date: Monday, 17 June 2013
Time: 3.30 – 5.00 pm
Venue: ISEAS Seminar Room II

The village of Cheung Ek, located just outside the capital city of Phnom Penh, is known today as one of the most famous “Killing Field” sites. The “Killing Fields” were sites where large numbers of people were killed and buried by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge Regime in the 1970s. Recent archaeological work at Cheung Ek by Khmer archaeologists have shown, however, that the Cheung Ek area was occupied from a vastly earlier time period. The early historic site which underlies the Killing Fields is significant as it appears to hold the key to a better understanding of early floodplain polities in Cambodia.

Research at the Cheung Ek archaeological site has been conducted in several phases since the year 2000. The findings from the site have slowly developed from one field season to another. Current research at the site has documented 61 kilns, 31 habitation mounds, 11 temple foundations (brick architectural features) and a circular walled site.

Two types of kilns were identified at the site: one type fired earthenware and the other fired stoneware. The earthenware kilns date back to 5th century AD; meanwhile the stoneware kilns are suspected to be dated to a later period, even though the results of the dating are still pending. The research at the site has also revealed a circular, earthen wall with a diameter measuring 740 meters long, or about 54 hectares, making it one of the largest earthworks in Cambodia.

Registration required, more details here.

Following the return of two guardian statues from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cambodia puts a call out to other American museums for the return of antiquities with questionable provenance.

Cambodia Presses U.S. Museums to Relinquish Antiquities
New York Times, 15 May 2013

Buoyed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s decision this month to return two stolen statues, Cambodia is asking other museums to examine any Khmer antiquities they acquired after 1970, when a 20-year period of civil war and genocide gave thieves free range to loot the country’s ancient temples.

“We are calling on all American museums and collectors, that if they have these statues unlawfully or illegally they should return them to Cambodia,” Ek Tha, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, the nation’s governing body, said this week. They “should follow the Metropolitan’s lead,” he added.

Hundreds of Cambodian antiquities are in American museums, as well as in the hands of foreign institutions and private collectors. Many were acquired after 1970 and lack paperwork showing how they left Cambodia.

Full story here.

Now that Myanmar is opening up to the larger world, more tourists are expected to arrive at ancient Bagan, the ancient monument-studded capital. This article explores the tension between what is thought to be shoddy restoration work to the monuments (“against archaeological principles”) and local attitudes to restoration (“living heritage”) at this spectacular site.

photo: jmhullot

The Ancient Burmese City of Bagan Struggles for International Recognition
Time, 15 May 2013

Experts scoff at the contention by Burmese officials that most reconstructions were faithful. Pierre Pichard, a French academic who made regular visits to Bagan in the 1980s and ’90s to catalog its structures, says most “repaired” temples were not rebuilt according to their original form but were modeled after one of a few temples that remained intact. “The result is terrible uniformity,” he says. Sun Oo, vice president of the Association of Myanmar Architects, says that such shoddy refurbishments resulted in many sites having “no historical, architectural or artistic value.” Indeed, UNESCO, citing the prevalence of inauthentic restorations, declined Burma’s 1996 application for Bagan to join the World Heritage list.

But many lay people in Burma, a Buddhist-majority country where religion plays a prominent role in daily life, see the crude refurbishments not as desecration but as practical updates to accommodate Bagan’s function as a living and breathing pilgrimage site. Mahabodhi Paya, a 13th century temple, for instance, includes a number of the contemporary amenities that trouble conservationists. Though its pyramidal tower is well preserved, its interior floor is covered with modern tiles and carpet, and its altar is adorned with neon lights. The tiles and carpet are more comfortable than the original sandstone to walk and kneel on, and the lights “make it easier to concentrate on Buddha,” says Than Maung, a 75-year-old local man who prays there most days.

Full story here.

A documentary on the Perak Man that has won acclaim in the recent Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival will be aired in Malaysia. I would love to get a copy of this documentary, and if any readers in Malaysia can help out, please contact me!

Perak Man, New Straits Times 20121002

Ministry to air award-winning documentary on Perak man – Rais
New Straits Times, 12 May 2013

The Information, Communications and Culture Ministry will air a documentary on Malaysia’s most important prehistoric find, “Perak Man”, which won awards in two categories at the Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival.

Former Information, Communications and Culture minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said in addition to television and cinema airing the DVD of the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas)-produced film, entitled “Unburying the Past”, copies would also be circulated to universities and schools.

Full story here.

Just got this notice in the mail and on our Facebook page, but, act quick! Deadline for grants ends on Friday (May 17).
Conference: Proto-globalisation in the Indian Ocean world
7-10 November 2013

The Indian Ocean has emerged as a major topic of interest amongst scholars across a range of disciplines in recent years.  Researchers in fields as diverse as archaeology, genetics, history, linguistics and palaeoenvironmental studies have all explored evidence for precociously early coastal and transoceanic movements of goods, people, ideas, plants and animals in the region.  The ‘Proto-globalisation in the Indian Ocean world’ conference provides an opportunity for these scholars to gather and to critically evaluate the evidence for and implications of long-distance contacts and exchanges in the pre-1000 CE Indian Ocean.  It will consider the goods, technologies and ideas that moved across the ocean in this period, evaluating the possible existence of early globalised commodities, exploring object biographies, and considering the role of cosmopolitan Indian Ocean contacts in transforming societies on the littoral and beyond.  It will look at how cultural transfers were intertwined with extensive movements of plant and animals species both domestic and wild, considering the ecological, agricultural and disease impacts of species translocations, and their implications for the contemporary world in terms of biodiversity and food security.  Finally, it will explore the axes, processes and agents of early Indian Ocean interactions, critically rethinking in particular traditional notions about the drivers and agents of early exchanges and commerce, and drawing attention to the important role of smaller, less centralised and/or more mobile societies in the early Indian Ocean.  The gathering of scholars from a broad range of regions, disciplines and projects will enable discussion, debate and the exploration of synergies, as well as consideration of larger questions about the degree to which the Indian Ocean represented a globalised space in the pre-1000 CE period, the role of data from earlier periods in transforming Eurocentric notions of globalisation and the ways that studies of the past might inform our understanding of contemporary globalisation.

Conference Details

Wenner Gren burary details (Deadline: 17 May 2013)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to return two statues from Koh Ker, after a review of their provenance. These two statues are not the same ones involved in the Sotheby’s auction, but the museum’s action sets an interesting precedent for other museums.

Kneeling Attendant from Koh Ker, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 20130503

Metropolitan Museum of Art to Return Two Khmer Sculptures to Cambodia
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 03 May 2013

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced today that it will return to the Kingdom of Cambodia two 10th-century Koh Ker stone statues of “Kneeling Attendants”—donated in separate stages to the Museum in the late 1980s and early 1990s—and on public display in its Asian Wing for nearly 20 years. The Met recently came into possession of new documentary research that was not available to the Museum when the objects were acquired.

The decision follows a recent meeting in Phnom Penh between senior museum officials and representatives of the Cambodian government.

Commented Thomas P. Campbell, Director of the Metropolitan: “The Museum is committed to applying rigorous provenance standards not only to new acquisitions, but to the study of works long in its collections in an ongoing effort to learn as much as possible about ownership history. This is a case in which additional information regarding the Kneeling Attendants has led the Museum to consider facts that were not known at the time of the acquisition and to take the action we are announcing today. In returning the statues, the Museum is acting to strengthen the good relationship it has long maintained with scholarly institutions and colleagues in Cambodia and to foster and celebrate continued cooperation and dialogue between us.”

Read the full media release here.

A team from The Australian National University excavated a 5,000-6,000-year-old cemetery site in northern Vietnam.

Excavations at Con Co Ngua, Science Alert 20130501

New clues to Southeast Asia’s past
Science Alert, 01 May 2013

An archaeological dig led by Dr Marc Oxenham from The Australian National University’s School of Archaeology and Anthropology has uncovered possibly the earliest cemetery site in Southeast Asia.

More than 140 ancient burials including men, women, teenagers and children have been recovered from the site in the Thanh Hoa province in Northern Vietnam.

The burial site, known as Con Co Ngua, is believed to have existed sometime between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. Rising sea levels helped preserve the site under a thick cap of marine clay.

“Archaeological cemeteries and living sites of such antiquity are all but unknown in the region, with only a handful of burials from a number of cave sites previously known,” Dr Oxenham said.

Full story here.