Art and Architecture in the Ancient World: Southeast Asia

Introduction

The art and architecture of Southeast Asia reveal a complex process of blending the indigenous with the foreign, particularly the arts and architecture of its powerful neighbors China and India, and the transformation of utilitarian artifacts into artistic traditions. For much of the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age periods, no cultural borders existed between southern China and Southeast Asia. In addition to the difficulty in determining exactly what art and architecture can be termed indigenous to Southeast Asia, the chronology of civilization in that area is somewhat difficult to determine. Despite extensive archaeological research, no site has been found that has a comprehensive archaeological sequence connecting the prehistorical and historical periods of Southeast Asia. Early Southeast Asian history may be divided into two periods, the Prehistoric (2500-150 b.c.e.) and Indianized (100 b.c.e.-1300 c.e.).

The earliest but isolated evidence of Southeast Asian metallurgy was found in Thailand in 3000 b.c.e. However, the use of metal was not widespread until 1500 b.c.e. Soon after this time, the typical Neolithic assemblages in the region included cattle, pigs, dogs, fowls, cultivated rice, flooded fields, incised pottery, and metalworks. Unbaked clay figurines of animals and humans from this period are often found together, especially in burial sites. Metalworkers employed the lost-wax process as well as bivalve molds of clay strengthened by rice chaff; however, the most influential metalworks did not develop in the region until around 600 b.c.e.

Dong Son culture and Dong Son style

Skilled artisans centered around the Red River in northern Vietnam fashioned unique and beautiful bronze drums by which this culture, Dong Son, became identified. Researcher Peter Bellwood draws a distinction between Dong Son culture and Dong Son style, saying that the former refers only to the north Vietnamese area in which these drums most likely were manufactured and traded and that Dong Son style refers to the “classic expression of prehistoric and protohistoric bronze metallurgy in Southeast Asia.” Dong Son drums reveal amazing expertise and provide a great degree of documentation for social and ritual activities in the prehistoric period. These drums stood on splayed feet, had rounded upper sides, and a flat tympanum. To an anthropologist, the utilitarian significance of these objects is paramount; to the artist, their decorative embellishment is primary.

Among the earliest drums, known as the Heger type, the most famous has a flat top, a bulbous rim, and straight sides and is footed. Cast in one piece and measuring 26 inches (65 centimeters) in diameter, the top has concentric circles decorated with bands of incised geometric designs or friezes illustrating armed humans with bird-feather headdresses, animal figures such as birds, deer, lizards, and fish, and what look like houses raised on platforms. This type of house, regarded as indigenous Southeast Asian architecture, has been attributed to Austronesian-speaking (Malayo-Polynesian-speaking) seafaring people who had invaded much of insular and parts of mainland Southeast Asia by 2500 b.c.e. The sides of some of the finest drums are decorated with friezes of boats, with prows shaped like the heads of birds and sterns shaped like tail feathers, and sometimes with boat cabins containing drums. Of the two hundred or so Dong Son drums found in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, and Indonesia, more than half were believed to have originated in Vietnam. None has been found in Borneo or the Philippines. Often they are found in burial sites accompanying lacquered coffins suggestive of stratified communities. Other bronze pieces associated with Dong Son include bracelets, belt hooks, buckles, plaques, axes, and dagger handles, again usually decorated with animal and human figures.

The lost-wax method believed to be the main technique used in the production of the Dong Son vessels was not known in China before 300 b.c.e., an argument that lends authenticity to the Southeast Asian origins of the culture and its extensions. However, a theory of direct migration of the technique from Europe and western Asia to Yunnan (northern Vietnam) is also seriously entertained by some scholars. The Dong Son drums were manufactured and used in Southeast Asia for many centuries.

Burial jars and related artifacts

A few metal-age sites in Laos and south Vietnam have gained publicity because of their association with jar burial, most likely a secondary burial of cremated or previously macerated bones. Pottery jar burials at Sa Huynh in south Vietnam, which date to about 500 b.c.e., are the earliest evidence of this practice in mainland Southeast Asia, although this tradition goes back much earlier in the Philippines and Borneo to at least 1000 b.c.e. Found buried in clusters, the jars at Sa Huynh are round based or footed, stand about 31 inches (80 centimeters) high, and are plain or cord-marked. Decorated by horizontal bands of incised triangles and lozenges or stamped geometric patterns of dots, circles, and rectilinear figures as found in other ceramic artifacts, these mainland jars bear closest affinity to a Philippine pottery culture, Kalanay, rather than to pottery of other islands in the region. Considered local innovations from Indonesia and the Philippines, burial pottery jars in later years were colored and more polished. One example is an elegant, long-necked flask from Melolo of Sumba Island decorated in incised geometric and anthropomorphic designs with white lime infills. A humanlike figure stands on top of the bulbous, rounded urn, with a spout on one side. The figure can very easily serve as a handle while pouring.

Other burial jars were not ceramic but cast iron or stone. Stone jars were a localized development in Laos discovered by French archaeologist Madeline Colani in 1935. Colani describes two types of stone structures in Laos: megaliths and tombs in the northeast and stone jars in north-central Laos. In the Plain of Jars at the Ban Ang site in Tranh Ninh province, there are 250 stone vessels fashioned out of soft local stones. Bulbous and cylindrical with thick bases, these stone jars measure between 5 and 10 feet (1.5 and 3.0 meters) in height and diameter. Some have mushroomlike forms, others are decorated with relief quadrupeds, perhaps tigers or monkeys, or simply with relief concentric circles. All types of burial jars were found with or without lids and often containing beads.

Megalithic structures

Before Indianization occurred in Southeast Asia, megalithic records for the mainland were virtually nonexistent except in Laos, where besides the stone burial jars, there were megalithic tombs equipped with underground burial chambers and large sitting stones reminiscent of the “dolmens” of Sumatra Island. However, the prehistoric megaliths of insular Southeast Asia are more varied, including slab graves in Malaya and huge human statues carved on large stone blocks depicting men astride a buffalo or flanking an elephant. One Sumatran relief carving depicts a man pulling a sitting elephant by its ear while carrying a sword at his side and a small Dong Son drum on his back. Other artifacts from Sumatra include stone blocks with hollowed-out mortars, troughs, avenues of upright stones, and terraced graves. Found at Sulawesi, Indonesia, were a number of circular stone vats, some of which were decorated with human faces on their sides and some of which had lids with animal motifs. One such vat was decorated by a series of horizontal lines that look like ribs. A Laos-Sulawesi parallel and connection have been suggested; however, these vats did not contain anything to indicate funerary usage, and the two regions are separated by 3,000 miles (4,830 kilometers).

Indian Influence in Southeast Asia

The introduction of Hinduism and Buddhism into Southeast Asia has been attributed to all sorts of people: Brahmin priests, monks, adventurers, traders, and even princely politicians. Although the two religious traditions were separated by about seven hundred years in India, in Southeast Asia, both arrived almost simultaneously. The architectural legacy produced by this cultural invasion has been impressive and often compared to the monuments of India. The most well known are the Hinduized Angkor Wat on the mainland and Māhāyana Buddhist Boraboḍur in Java. Built long after 700 c.e., their realization took many centuries. Records for these times remain spotty throughout the region.

Southeast Asians used as their base the Indian notion of nagara, a town or sacred city modeled after the legendary Mount Meru, which would have its highest point (peak) protruding from the center, the base of which would consist of a series of descending layers of terraces and palisades. At the heart of this town was the temple. Scholar Carol Brown Heinz noted that although Hindu and Buddhist monuments both tended to have a central raised part, Hinduized leaders such as those at Angkor Wat viewed the temple as housing the lingam of Śiva, Śiva’s phallic icon, and Buddhist monarchs viewed these temples as stupas housing relics of the Buddha. Both the Buddhist and Hindu leaders regarded these temples as places where the royal and divine mixed.

The Indian architectural blueprint would be replicated over and over again as nagaras rose and fell, often leaving abandoned palaces and temples as new leaders built more buildings and tried to recapture the lost cosmological powers. Funan, Chenla, Angkor, Srivijaya, Ava, Ayutthia, and Boraboḍur had similar fates. Relief decorations in every nook and corner of temples bore cultic devotions to Hindu gods and their adventures or depictions of the Buddha’s life history and demeanor. Many of these reliefs require major restoration; some have been recovered only in fragments.

Until the early eighth century c.e., the finest masterpieces of pre-Angkor art were created in the region of Sambor Prei Kuk and the Mekong River in Cambodia. In Cambodia, home of the Khmers, history started with legendary Funan, noted in Chinese annals as early as 192 c.e., then replaced by Chenla to the north in the sixth century and later to be reconstituted in the glory of the Angkor period between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. Art records for pre-Angkor remain sparse: A group of sixth century c.e. statues, probably Funanese, was discovered carved in rock caves then shielded by a brick wall at Phnom Da, Angkor Borei. Archaeological excavations at Oc Eo, the ancient Funanese maritime capital, yielded several images of the Buddha, one of which was probably a fourth century c.e. creation.

The earliest architectural brick buildings on record were built in Chenla during the seventh century c.e. Stone masterpieces of the sixth and seventh centuries include a statue of Krishna holding up the mountain with his left arm, 63 inches (161 centimeters) tall; standing Buddha in the pagoda of Tuol Lean, 22 inches (56 centimeters) tall; Buddha seated in meditation, 35 inches (90 centimeters) tall, from Phum Thmei; the head of Vishnu at the national museum at Phnom Penh, 7 inches (18 centimeters) tall; the torso of Durga from Sambor Prei Kuk, 23 inches (59 centimeters) tall; and a reclining Vishnu relief at Battambang, 62 inches (158 centimeters) long and 25 inches (63 centimeters) high. Contemporary of Chenla and earlier Funan were the state of Dvarati and the kingdoms of the Pyus and Mons, which would lay the foundations for later Siam and Burma, whose artistic production would involve more use of wood, shell inlay, ivory gold leaf and textiles. The Pyus are believed to be the highest users of gold among the ancient states of Southeast Asia. Chenla was also in part contemporary to the island kingdoms of Sumatra and Java.

Additional Resouces

Bellwood, Peter. Man’s Conquest of the Pacific. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Giteau, Madeleine. Khmer Sculpture and the Angkor Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson, 1965.

Heinz, Carol Brown. Asian Cultural Traditions. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1999.

Pal, Pratapaditya. A Collecting Odyssey: Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1997.