Article

Notes on beads from Johor Lama and Kota Tinggi

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Notes on beads from Johor Lama and Kota Tinggi

Alastair Lamb’s 1964 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society examines glass and stone beads recovered from the Johor Lama and Kota Tinggi sites in Johor, Malaysia, and argues that while some beads are genuinely of Roman or earlier Mediterranean manufacture, there is no evidence they reached the Malay Peninsula in Roman times; rather, the assemblage most likely dates to the 15th century and later, reflecting the expanding complexity of maritime trade in the Indian Ocean and China Seas.

Summary

Lamb’s article addresses a long-standing question in Malayan archaeology: whether the “Roman” glass beads found at Johor River sites constitute evidence of direct Roman-era trade contact with the Malay Peninsula, a claim that had been advanced by G. B. Gardner (1937) and supported by the bead specialist Horace Beck. Lamb reproduces Beck’s detailed 1936 report on Gardner’s collection of approximately 600 beads and 800 gem stones, providing the most comprehensive technical description of the assemblage available in the literature. He then weighs this evidence against the broader archaeological context, particularly the work of C. A. Gibson Hill, who demonstrated that the ceramic assemblage at Kota Tinggi (Chinese porcelain sherds and stamped earthenware) cannot be dated before the 15th century, thereby constraining the terminus post quem for the beads in situ.

Lamb’s central argument is that the Johor bead assemblage is distinctive in its extraordinary variety—spanning Hittite, Cypriot, Roman, Chinese, and European types, with specific gravities extending well beyond the range found at other Southeast Asian bead sites such as Kuala Selinsing, Pengkalan Bujang, and Takuapa. This diversity, combined with the presence of high-lead-oxide glasses (indicative of Chinese manufacture) and glass imitations of semi-precious stones, points to a trade network of considerable complexity that aligns with the great expansion of maritime commerce in the 15th century rather than with any earlier period. Lamb further documents two new finds from the Tirot collection of 1963: a gold filigree bead closely comparable to Mediterranean examples from Oc-èo in South Vietnam, and two glass beads moulded in the shape of human molar teeth, both of which reinforce the picture of a sophisticated and multi-sourced bead trade operating at the Johor sites.

Key Findings

  • Gardner’s 1930s collection yielded approximately 600 beads and 800 gem stones from Makam Sultan and other Johor River sites; Beck’s 1936 report catalogues 59 numbered items with specific gravity measurements and comparative identifications (pp. 88–97).
  • The Makam Sultan site, on ceramic evidence, was first occupied no earlier than the late 14th century A.D., meaning all beads in situ must post-date that horizon regardless of their date of manufacture (p. 97).
  • Beck identified a steatite bead as Hittite (not later than 700 B.C.) and an eye bead as comparable to South Italian examples of 700–500 B.C., but these are isolated anomalies within an assemblage that does not support a pre-15th-century occupation (pp. 92–93).
  • Several Johor beads have specific gravities of 3.6–4.6, far exceeding the 2.3–2.5 range typical of Mediterranean glass and the 5% or less PbO found at Kuala Selinsing, Pengkalan Bujang, and Takuapa, indicating a significant component of Chinese-manufactured glass (pp. 87–88, 94–96).
  • The gold bead from Kota Tinggi (7mm long, 6.75mm wide, 20-sided filigree framework) closely matches gold beads from Oc-èo, South Vietnam, which L. Malleret attributed to Mediterranean origin from the Roman period (p. 97).
  • Two glass beads moulded in the shape of human molar teeth (crowns 7mm × 10mm, maximum thickness 6mm) were found at Makam Sultan; no prior literary reference to imitation human teeth as beads exists in the available literature (p. 98).

Conclusion

Lamb concludes that the Johor bead assemblage, for all its antiquity of individual pieces, is best understood as a product of the 15th-century and later expansion of maritime trade, during which genuine Roman and earlier beads—or their imitations—were circulating through Southeast Asian markets via Middle Eastern, European, and Chinese intermediaries. The site does not support the identification of the Malay Peninsula as Ptolemy’s Golden Khersonese on the basis of bead evidence alone.

Context

  • The article draws on the unpublished Horace Beck report held in the files of the National Museum, Kuala Lumpur, and on the Tirot collection (c. 100 specimens) gathered in 1963; the Gardner collection itself (800+ items) was no longer in the country at the time of writing (p. 88).
  • The study contributes to the historiographical debate on Roman-era trade in Southeast Asia by applying a strict contextual dating argument (ceramic-based terminus post quem) to challenge earlier assumptions of direct Roman contact, a position consistent with Gibson Hill’s 1955 critique of the Kota Tinggi assemblage.

References