Credit: Sungai Batu 788 BC: The Great Kingdom of Kedah Tua
In June 2023, we have touched a topic about hybrid ship from Oxford University’s thesis paper by Alexander Wain(2015).
It was stated;
“By 1371, however, both the Nusantara and China were producing near identical vessels, constituting a hybrid Chinese-Southeast Asian design. In other words, from 1371 onwards, Chinese and Southeast Asian ship construction methods merged. For example, whereas traditional Southeast Asian ships would be joined together with only dowels and Chinese ships with iron nails, these hybrid ships used dowels to fasten planking and iron nails for the framework”.
Chinese never built seagoing ship until 9th or 10th century AD, and what they have built was a ship to served the transportation and logistic in the riverine network and shore patrolling.
One of the aspects that Chinese contribute in the hybrid ship was a buoyant system where ( if not mistaken which I read Gavin Manzies book), the lower part of the ship was built by compartments. Therefore, any leakage of the body, it will contain by the compartment and the water will not flooded the entire bottom part. While peg, dowel and lash-lugged technic was Nusantaran technic.
Wain continues, “In fact, all early Nusantara shipwrecks dating from this period (including the Chinese Royal Nanhai, Longquan and Bukit Jakai wrecks) are of this hybrid style. This merging of ship designs strongly suggests technical exchange between the Nusantara and China, resulting in a new form of vessel that became standard in both regions”.
Thats brings to the conclusion that by 14 century AD onwards the similarity between Chinese and Nusantara vessel was common and it is not wrong if we say it was actually identical based on structural design and sizes. The only difference was the location of the construction yard it was built. Considering the abundance of labour and timber in China, most likely they can built efficiently.
Referring to other paper, Smith (2012), wrotes , “By contrast, evidence for early seafaring from Southeast Asia is strong. A knowledge of open-water sailing is demonstrated by the evidence of human activities in the islands of the Indo-Malaysian archipelago starting as early as the sixth millennium B.C.E. Plank-built craft are attested in the marine archaeological record of the Malay peninsula from the third-fifth century C.E. The thriving exchange in durable goods such as bronze seemed to have accompanied a trade in perishables including spices; cloves, for example, appear to have been traded within Southeast Asia long before contacts with either south or east Asia.
The sustained contact between groups is confirmed by the presence of similar pottery complexes, such as the Sa-Huynh and Bau-Malay, in both mainland and island Southeast Asia by the end of the first millennium B.C.E.) In sum, whatever contact was sustained in the early first millennium between Southeast Asia and the subcontinent was likely to have been initiated by individuals sailing from Southeast Asia”.
(The subcontinent is referring to India and the plank that dated 3rd to 5th century AD is obviously referring to Pontian boat wreck).
In earlier paragraph, Smith wrotes, “Literary evidence for early Indian seafaring is also sparse. The early historic Sangam literature of the southernmost Indian subcontinent indicates that merchants came sailing to the subcontinent for the purposes of trade, not the reverse”.
The Sangam literature was referring to the collection of poem where it mentioned iron from “Kazagham” which mean Kedah according to Indian scholars.
The last sentence by Smith from both quotation above, was what a French scholars, Pierre Yves Manguin indicates that the term “Kholandio-phonta” written in Peryplus of Eritrean Sea (first centuty AD) was about the ships that used to sail to India from Southeast Asia. Manguin stressed that kholandio-phonta mean “kunlun bo” in Chinese i.e. kunlun ship.
C&P: 6/11/2025: 8.42 p.m
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