Independent Researcher, Singapore
My research focuses on studying Southeast Asian settlements via their material culture. I sampled the high-fired ceramics of Singapore, which in precolonial times operated as a regional emporium, and Kota Cina, an older port-settlement in Sumatra. The periods represented by these two sites span the liberalisation of South China Sea trade during the Song and Yuan Dynasties to its abrupt closure during the Ming Dynasty, contexualised by the rise of regional powers such as Majapahit and the Melaka Sultanate. These dissertations were only the third and fourth scientific examinations of these sites’ ceramics, and the first to focus upon oxides representing their body-pastes’ and glazes’ recipes.
Compositional data measured with scanning electron microscopy was used to test the correlation of ceramic categories to differences in production sequences, along with comparisons to contemporary Chinese ceramics’ recipes. I wish to expand these studies by the geological origins of these ceramic clays through more precise techniques such as mass spectrometry, and study other traded materials such as glass and metals. In addition to this, I have also explored the anthropology of Chinese settlers’ burials in colonial Melaka and Singapore and engaged in archaeological fieldwork in Britain, Montenegro, Belize, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia.
Travelling Objects, Species, and Ideas I
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
09:00 – 10:45 (GMT+7)
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
09:00 – 10:45 (GMT+7)