John N Miksic
Biographic Data
| ID | 214206 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John N Miksic |
| GIVEN NAMES | John N |
| FAMILY NAME | Miksic |
| SIGNATURE | MIKSIC J N |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Singapore |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6121-8300 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 104 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 43 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Belitung
For decades fishermen working the waters between Sumatra, Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula have been aware of the value of ancient ceramics that are sometimes caught in their nets. This is how the Belitung shipwreck was discovered in 1998.Numerous shipwreck sites dating from the tenth to twentieth centuries have been found in Southeast Asia, but older wrecks are very rare. One of these, known as the Belitung, is one of the most fabulous ever found…
Chinese Ceramics on the Maritime Silk Road
Anne Haour and Annalisa Christie, Editors
Archaeology of Early Chinese Settlement in Southeast Asia
Little historical information is available about early Chinese settlement in Southeast Asia. By the 15th century several Chinese settlements of significant size had formed, but they vanished by the time the Portuguese reached the region. This article surveys the historical literature on these early overseas Chinese settlements, and summarizes the contributions which archaeology can make to clarifying the timing and nature of the process
China and the Maritime Silk Road
The shores of the South China Sea were linked by the circulation of bronze items from Vietnam and precious stones from Taiwan in the mid-first millennium BCE. By the Western Han Dynasty, Chinese ceramics were transported to the Malay Peninsula where they are found together with objects from India. Chinese envoys reached India by the sea route by 5 BCE, reporting on their journey through Southeast Asia. Cloves from eastern Indonesia were reportedl…
Jan Wisseman Christie (1947-2021)
Jan Wisseman Christie. Photo by Clive Christie (1990).Jan Wisseman (later, Jan Wisseman Christie) was born 27 April 1947 in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who both came originally from Texas
Singapore
An Introduction to Seshat
This article introduces the Seshat: Global History Databank, its potential, and its methodology. Seshat is a databank containing vast amounts of quantitative data buttressed by qualitative nuance for a large sample of historical and archaeological polities. The sample is global in scope and covers the period from the Neolithic Revolution to the Industrial Revolution. Seshat allows scholars to capture dynamic processes and to test theories about t…
Khao Sam Kaeo
Reviewed by: Khao Sam Kaeo: An Early Port-City between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea ed. by Berenice Bellina John Miksic Khao Sam Kaeo: An Early Port-City between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea Berenice Bellina (ed.) Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient. Memoires archéologiques 28, 2017. 675 pages. ISBN 978-2-8553-9427-5 This is the most comprehensive report on an early Southeast Asian site connected to the maritime trade …
Ships, Sailors and Kingdoms of Ancient Southeast Asia
This contribution explores the maritime history of Southeast Asian seafaring populations from 500 BC to AD 1500. The initial focus is on seafaring technology and trade, followed by social and political aspects, discussing how these maritime cultures became wealthy through their control of the sea lanes between China and the Indian Ocean, and how they successfully resisted attempts by agrarian empires to tame them, until the arrival of the Dutch a…
Historical Settlement
Settlement patterns increase in complexity in all cultures, from an original condition in which all settlements are of approximately the same size to a situation in which settlements of different sizes and functions come to exist. The first complex settlement systems in the world appeared in southwest Asia. Clusters of settlements with similar characteristics arose in different parts of Asia. The regions of South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast As…
Trade and consumption of fine paste ware in Southeast Asia
Chinese Ceramic Production and Trade
Ceramics are the most abundant types of artifacts made by human beings in the last 12,000 years. Chinese potters discern two types of products: earthenware ( tao ), which is porous and does not resonate when struck, and wares with vitreous bodies ( ci ), which ring like a bell. Western potters and scholars differentiate stoneware, which is semi-porous, from porcelain, which is completely vitrified. The earliest ceramics in the world are thought t…
Historical Archaeology in Southeast Asia
Archaeological Evidence for Esoteric Buddhism in Sumatra, 7th to 13th Century
Ancient Southeast Asia
Ancient Southeast Asia provides readers with a much needed synthesis of the latest discoveries and research in the archaeology of the region, presenting the evolution of complex societies in Southeast Asia from the protohistoric period, beginning around 500BC, to the arrival of British and Dutch colonists in 1600. Well-illustrated throughout, this comprehensive account explores the factors which established Southeast Asia as an area of unique cul…
Vikram Lall. The Golden Lands
social and ethnic marginalization as a cultural minority in a Muslim state" (p.151).Johnson labels the Thammathut project as "politically non-threatening" (p.154), but it is difficult-at least for a Southeast Asianist who focuses on Islam-to not see this project as a mirror image of the much feared and condemned Wahhabi expansion started in the 1970s, and more generally the orthodoxization of Muslims in Southern Thailand, which in this book is co…
A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times by Michael Aung-Thwin, Maitrii Aung-Thwin (review)
Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300–1800
The overland Silk Road linking China with West Asia and Europe is a famous and fabled trade route. The sea route that was its alternative was arguably more significant, both historically and economically, and holds the greatest potential for understanding the great movements of people, ideas and goods in Asia. With its teeming port cities and huge vessels carrying exotic luxuries along with everyday commodities such as iron and fish oil, the Silk…
Borobudur
Nail of the World
[Current Approaches to Socioplitical Complexity in Asia] Recent Archaeological Excavations in Singapore
Chinese Ceramics and the Economics of Early Southeast Asian Urbanisation, 14th to 16th Centuries
Archaeological research in Singapore has identified more than 10 sites within the boundaries of a settlement founded at the beginning of the 14th century. The settlement appears to have covered an area of about 85 hectares by the middle of that century. Thereafter, it contracted to a small outpost at the mouth of the Singapore River before disappearing around 1600. The ceramics from this research are still being sorted, but it is now possible to …
Historical Dictionary of Ancient Southeast Asia
Part 1 List of Figures Part 2 Editor's Foreword Part 3 Reader's Note Part 4 Maps and Diagrams Part 5 Introduction Part 6 THE DICTIONARY Part 7 Appendixes Chapter 8 A Kingdoms and Rulers: Chronological Tables for Ancient Southeast Asia Chapter 9 B Language Families of Southeast Asia Part 10 Glossary Part 11 Bibliography Part 12 About the Author
Fishbones and Glittering Emblems
Reviewed by: Fishbones and Glittering Emblems: Southeast Asian Archaeology 2002 John N. Miksic Fishbones and Glittering Emblems: Southeast Asian Archaeology 2002. Anna Karlström and Anna Källén, eds. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska Museet), 2003. 540 pp. 396 Swedish kronor. The European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists (EurASEAA) held their ninth biennial conference in Sigtuna, a historic city in Sweden, in…
Monumentality and the Rise of Religious Authority in Precontact Hawai'i [and Comments and Reply]
Heterogenetic cities in premodern Southeast Asia
Archaeologists working in non-Western areas of the world tend to employ monothetic, unilinear definitions of 'urbanization'. The definition of what constitutes a 'city' in archaeological terms is also ambiguous. Most definitions are biased by dependence on early archaeological work in the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia. Models of city formation must be based on multi-linear, polythetic criteria, in order to accommodate non-Western phenomena. A …
Classical Archaeology in Sumatra
Chinese Ceramic Production and Trade
Ceramics are the most abundant types of artifacts made by human beings in the last 12,000 years. Chinese potters discern two types of products: earthenware ( tao ), which is porous and does not resonate when struck, and wares with vitreous bodies ( ci ), which ring like a bell. Western potters and scholars differentiate stoneware, which is semi-porous, from porcelain, which is completely vitrified. The earliest ceramics in the world are thought t…
Early Burmese Urbanization
Urbanization in Southeast Asia is sometimes assumed to have been synonymous with the development of orthogenetic structures such as religious centers under external influence. An alternative hypothesis proposes that social structures stimulated by local cultural and environmental conditions and regional historical events emerged in several parts of Southeast Asia, marked by evolution rather than stasis. One of the major stumbling blocks in the pa…
Chinese Ceramics and the Economics of Early Southeast Asian Urbanisation, 14th to 16th Centuries
Archaeological research in Singapore has identified more than 10 sites within the boundaries of a settlement founded at the beginning of the 14th century. The settlement appears to have covered an area of about 85 hectares by the middle of that century. Thereafter, it contracted to a small outpost at the mouth of the Singapore River before disappearing around 1600. The ceramics from this research are still being sorted, but it is now possible to …
Water, Urbanization, and Disease in Ancient Indonesia
Were ancient "tropical" civilizations fundamentally different from "non-tropical" ones? Judging from the relative scarcity of reported ancient cities in the tropics compared to the temperate regions, the answer to this question is "yes." One reason for the relative scarcity of ancient cities in tropical areas is probably the greater difficulty encountered in obtaining potable water in hot climates. In the 14th century the people of eastern Java a…
Evolving Archaeological Perspectives on Southeast Asia, 1970–95
In the late 1960s, archaeological theory underwent a period of rapid and significant change. A group of scholars became known as progenitors of an approach termed New Archaeology. Some of these changes have been critized as lacking in substance, but it cannot be denied that much archaeological research and analysis performed during the 1970s and 1980s followed a new and more constructive agenda
Urbanization and Social Change
Miksic John N. Urbanization and Social Change: The Case of Sumatra. In: Archipel, volume 37, 1989. Villes d'Insulinde (II) pp. 3-29
Archaeological Studies of Style, Information Transfer and the Transition from Classical to Islamic Periods in Indonesia
Archaeologists have long sought to identify the key indicators which would allow them to measure the level and rate of cultural development. Technology and energy capture are two of the indicators which have been proposed, but there are grounds for objecting that these are still variables dependent on another factor: the capacity of a culture to record and process information. The communication of information has been studied by archaeologists bu…
Jan Wisseman Christie (1947-2021)
Jan Wisseman Christie. Photo by Clive Christie (1990).Jan Wisseman (later, Jan Wisseman Christie) was born 27 April 1947 in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who both came originally from Texas
Trade and consumption of fine paste ware in Southeast Asia
Historical Archaeology in Southeast Asia
Archaeology and Early Chinese Glass Trade in Southeast Asia
When trade between China and Southeast Asia blossomed between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, Chinese traders began to form overseas Chinese communities. Their presence had significant effects on the region, including the formation of new urban settlements and the introduction of new lifestyles in which imported items played an important part, not only among the elite, but among many hinterland groups who probably never saw a Chinese trade…
The education of archaeologists in Indonesia
Classical Archaeology in Sumatra
Indonesian publications on archaeology, 1975–82
(1984). Indonesian publications on archaeology, 1975–82. Indonesia Circle. School of Oriental & African Studies. Newsletter: Vol. 12, No. 34, pp. 45-50
The education of archaeologists in Indonesia
Urbanization and Social Change
Miksic John N. Urbanization and Social Change: The Case of Sumatra. In: Archipel, volume 37, 1989. Villes d'Insulinde (II) pp. 3-29
Archaeological Studies of Style, Information Transfer and the Transition from Classical to Islamic Periods in Indonesia
Archaeologists have long sought to identify the key indicators which would allow them to measure the level and rate of cultural development. Technology and energy capture are two of the indicators which have been proposed, but there are grounds for objecting that these are still variables dependent on another factor: the capacity of a culture to record and process information. The communication of information has been studied by archaeologists bu…
Moated Sites in Early North East Thailand
Archaeology and Early Chinese Glass Trade in Southeast Asia
When trade between China and Southeast Asia blossomed between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, Chinese traders began to form overseas Chinese communities. Their presence had significant effects on the region, including the formation of new urban settlements and the introduction of new lifestyles in which imported items played an important part, not only among the elite, but among many hinterland groups who probably never saw a Chinese trade…
Monumentality and the Rise of Religious Authority in Precontact Hawai'i [and Comments and Reply]
Evolving Archaeological Perspectives on Southeast Asia, 1970–95
In the late 1960s, archaeological theory underwent a period of rapid and significant change. A group of scholars became known as progenitors of an approach termed New Archaeology. Some of these changes have been critized as lacking in substance, but it cannot be denied that much archaeological research and analysis performed during the 1970s and 1980s followed a new and more constructive agenda
Archaeology Ceramics, and Coins
Compte-rendu de l'ouvrage d'A. REID, intitule Southeast Asia in the age of commerce. Volume two. Expansion and crisis (New Haven Yale, 1993), proposant une synthese sur l'evolution du systeme economique, l'organisation commerciale, l'urbanisme, la religion et les structures des etats de l'Asie du sud-est du XVe au XVIIe siecle
Water, Urbanization, and Disease in Ancient Indonesia
Were ancient "tropical" civilizations fundamentally different from "non-tropical" ones? Judging from the relative scarcity of reported ancient cities in the tropics compared to the temperate regions, the answer to this question is "yes." One reason for the relative scarcity of ancient cities in tropical areas is probably the greater difficulty encountered in obtaining potable water in hot climates. In the 14th century the people of eastern Java a…
Between Two Oceans
Drawing on a impressive range of archaeological and historical sources gleaned from research and documents in Britain, India, Singapore, United States and Australia, the book traces the geo-strategic development of Singapore from its first settlement in the thirteenth century through the turbulent phases of the Early Modern period to the dramatic military episodes that have been such a distinctive feature of the twentieth century. In presenting a…
Heterogenetic cities in premodern Southeast Asia
Archaeologists working in non-Western areas of the world tend to employ monothetic, unilinear definitions of 'urbanization'. The definition of what constitutes a 'city' in archaeological terms is also ambiguous. Most definitions are biased by dependence on early archaeological work in the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia. Models of city formation must be based on multi-linear, polythetic criteria, in order to accommodate non-Western phenomena. A …
Early Burmese Urbanization
Urbanization in Southeast Asia is sometimes assumed to have been synonymous with the development of orthogenetic structures such as religious centers under external influence. An alternative hypothesis proposes that social structures stimulated by local cultural and environmental conditions and regional historical events emerged in several parts of Southeast Asia, marked by evolution rather than stasis. One of the major stumbling blocks in the pa…
Borobudur
Indonesia
Recent Publications on Angkor
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From megaliths to tombstones
The highland–lowland nexus has been one of the staples of historical and anthropological analysis of mainland Southeast Asian studies. At the risk of greatly oversimplifying the situation, it is po
Southeast Asian Archaeology 1998
Reviewed by: Southeast Asian Archaeology 1998. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists. Berlin, 31 August-4 September 1998 John N. Miksic Southeast Asian Archaeology 1998. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists. Berlin, 31 August-4 September 1998. Wibke Lobo and Stefanie Reimann, eds. Hull: Centre for South-…
Historical Dictionary of Ancient Southeast Asia
Part 1 List of Figures Part 2 Editor's Foreword Part 3 Reader's Note Part 4 Maps and Diagrams Part 5 Introduction Part 6 THE DICTIONARY Part 7 Appendixes Chapter 8 A Kingdoms and Rulers: Chronological Tables for Ancient Southeast Asia Chapter 9 B Language Families of Southeast Asia Part 10 Glossary Part 11 Bibliography Part 12 About the Author
Fishbones and Glittering Emblems
Reviewed by: Fishbones and Glittering Emblems: Southeast Asian Archaeology 2002 John N. Miksic Fishbones and Glittering Emblems: Southeast Asian Archaeology 2002. Anna Karlström and Anna Källén, eds. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Östasiatiska Museet), 2003. 540 pp. 396 Swedish kronor. The European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists (EurASEAA) held their ninth biennial conference in Sigtuna, a historic city in Sweden, in…
Chinese Ceramics and the Economics of Early Southeast Asian Urbanisation, 14th to 16th Centuries
Archaeological research in Singapore has identified more than 10 sites within the boundaries of a settlement founded at the beginning of the 14th century. The settlement appears to have covered an area of about 85 hectares by the middle of that century. Thereafter, it contracted to a small outpost at the mouth of the Singapore River before disappearing around 1600. The ceramics from this research are still being sorted, but it is now possible to …
[Current Approaches to Socioplitical Complexity in Asia] Recent Archaeological Excavations in Singapore
Nail of the World
Borobudur
History (33 works) · Archaeology (29 works) · Geography (29 works) · Ancient history (20 works) · Asian Studies and History (17 works) · History (15 works) · Southeast asia (13 works) · Art (11 works) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (11 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (8 works)