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5月2日外宾报告

来源： 发布时间：2012-04-28【字体：大 中 小】
题目：The Strange Case of the Guangxi Cups
姓名：James W. Lankton
单位：Material Culture and Data Section

　　  UCL Institute of Archaeology

　　  London, UK
时间：2012年5月2号（周三）上午9:00
地点：溢智厅
Abstract：

Although glass vessels are generally rare in China before the end of the Han Dynasty, two groups stand out. Vessels of the first group, with the best known example being the fragments of a mosaic glass ribbed bowl found in Jiangsu, were made from natron glass and can safely be assumed to represent imports from the Roman world. Vessels of the second group are most often small cups (6 to 9cm rim diameter and 4-7cm high), with a few related examples of shallow bowls or plates. Their distribution is almost exclusively limited to Han-period tombs in present-day Guangxi Province and the former Han territory in northern Vietnam, and the total number of such vessels is around twenty. Most distinctive is the chemical compositional type, a low-lime potash glass not known in the West at this time, indicating an Asian origin for these ‘Guangxi’ cups. Several strands of evidence, including chemical composition, morphology and, perhaps most convincingly, an exclusive distribution in areas controlled by the Han Empire, have led most scholars to consider that these potash glass vessels were made locally (eg Borell 2010), making the ‘Guangxi’ cups the first glass vessels produced in Chinese territory.

Imagine our surprise when we found fragments from at least twenty-seven low-lime potash glass vessels from three sites in Peninsular Thailand. Both by chemical analysis and by microscopic examination, these Thai fragments are indistinguishable from the Guangxi cups found in China, although no intact vessels have come from the Thai sites. Because the Thai material was uncovered in clandestine excavations, there is very limited archaeological information, although the other material found, including Chinese storage jars, supports a date in the late-Western Han to Eastern Han period. The great majority of the Thailand finds are from Tha Chana, a relatively small site just south of Khao Sam Kaeo, a well-excavated proto-urban area on the eastern coast of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, dating to the last four centuries BCE. Villagers at Tha Chana also found evidence for local glassworking, including large chunks of raw glass and debitage from bead, bracelet and possibly glass vessel manufacture.

There is no question that the Tha Chana potash glass vessel fragments are related to the cups found in Guangxi. What we don’t know is how. During this presentation, we will discuss some of the possible answers, drawing as well on other seemingly ‘Chinese’ materials found both at Tha Chana and, further west, at Arikamedu.

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