Book Description

From the time of its rediscovery in the early 1970s, the site of Kota Cina, on the shore of the Malacca Strait, in the present province of North Sumatra, Indonesia, appeared as one of the major old settlement sites in the region. This book represents the latest contribution to the accumulation of knowledge on the history of the site between the late eleventh and early fourteenth centuries CE. A first set of eighteen studies offers the main results of the archaeological research programme conducted from 2011 until 2018 by the École française d’Extrême-Orient in cooperation with the Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional Indonesia. It includes a contribution on structures, features and stratigraphies; studies devoted to the 227,000 finds uncovered during these excavations (earthenware, Chinese ceramics, glassware, metal, Chinese coins, lithic material, faunal remains, wood, worked organic finds, fruits and seeds), as well as a geomorphological and paleo-environmental contribution. A second set of studies presents the results of other surveys and excavations which shed additional light on the programme that constitutes the core of this book: two contributions devoted to Kota Cina itself, one devoted to the neighbouring site of Bulu Cina, and one devoted to recent excavations in the South Sumatra Province. A third set includes two studies which constitute reappraisals of two corpora (Hindu-Buddhist statuary from Kota Cina, contemporary Chinese written sources) allowing to apprehend the history of relations between Kota Cina in particular, and the Straits of Malacca more generally, with South Asia on the one hand, and China on the other hand, in the light of the most recent knowledge. The concluding chapter draws on all these contributions in an attempt to offer a synthesis of certain aspects related to the occupation of the Kota Cina site: morphology and spatial evolution of the settlement, dwelling features, space occupation, as well as domestic life and religious practices. Within this framework, an essay on the economic and political history of Kota Cina is proposed, from the emergence of the site until its abandonment, including its involvement in overseas trade routes, and hypotheses on its political status.