This book explores the ancient maritime trade between China and Southeast Asia. It examines the various features of the trade with Southeast Asia, especially the economic background as well as the Chinese imperial and regional attitudes towards it during the eleven centuries before the foundation of the Sung dynasty in 960-roughly the period from the Han dynasty to that of the T'ang.

The relations between the societies and states of Southeast Asia and China have been of enormous significance to both these regions, extending back for literally thousands of years. This useful single-valume edition of key studies on Southeast Asia-China interactions, which were first published in the 'Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society' (and its precursors), includes classics such as Wang Gungwu's 'The Nanhai Trade' and Paul Wheatley's 'Geographical Notes On Some Commodities Involved in Sung Maritime Trade'. In this compedium, 18 studies examine political, economic, and social interaction as well as the flows of people and technologies which have tied these regions together over the period.

Under the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, China's maritime trade went through several stages of rapid expansion. This concerns both activities initiated by the central government and private seafaring: Chinese ships would sail to ports in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, and foreign merchants would come to China, often declaring themselves as tribute envoys. In the early 16th century, the Portuguese made contact with the Middle Kingdom, leading to the foundation of Macao in the 1550s. The present volume, the third collection by Roderich Ptak, explores important structural features related to China's maritime ventures and Luso-Chinese relations. It also discusses the perception of maritime space in late medieval Chinese texts and the importance of trade routes, especially the so-called eastern route from Fujian via Luzon to the Sulu 'zone'. The third section presents different 'key' regions as seen through Chinese eyes: Hainan, the coral island in the South China Sea, Barus on Sumatra, and finally Wang Dayuan's chapters on the Kerala coast.

In 1997 Michael Flecker investigated a shipwreck in the north Java sea. The wreck comprised the remains of a mid 10th-century ship with its cargo of thousands of ceramic and non-ceramic artefacts. This report describes the methodology and aims of the underwater operation, discusses the finds that were recovered and places these within the context of maritime archaeology in southeast Asia. Flecker evaluates the evidence from the Intan shipwreck alongside contemporary historical information about sea travel, ports, trade routes and cargoes.

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)