Recent archaeological discoveries in Malaysia 1964: Malaya
B.A.V. Peacock’s 1965 report documents four archaeological discoveries made across Malaya in 1964, the most significant being the recovery of two Dong-s’on bronze drumheads from a burial mound at Kampong Sungai Lang, Selangor. The article, published in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, provides the first detailed account of these drums in a Malayan context and presents a preliminary radiocarbon date of 485 B.C. that, if confirmed, would push the presence of Dong-s’on-type bronze technology in the region far earlier than previously assumed (pp. 248–255).
Summary
The Kampong Sungai Lang discovery dominated the year’s Malayan archaeological activity. In June 1964, a small-holder clearing old rubber stumps for coffee planting unearthed two bronze drumheads from a clay mound in a peat swamp. The drums, classified as Heger’s Type 1, were buried inverted on a wooden plank—identified as chengai and tentatively interpreted as a dug-out canoe—within a hemispherical mound approximately fifteen feet in diameter and three feet six inches high, constructed on the mangrove mud surface before the overlying peat had accumulated (pp. 248–251). Ten concentrations of pot sherds were disposed radially around the drums on the original mud surface, representing vessels placed before the mound was heaped up. The pottery was distinctive: squat ovoid pots with narrow necks, sharply everted rims, and a smooth lacquer-like reddish-brown resinous coating, a type previously reported only in association with tulang mawas-type iron implements and granite cist graves in southern Perak and Selangor (p. 251). No human remains were recovered despite ideal preservation conditions, leading Peacock to speculate the site may mark a surrogate burial for a person lost at sea (p. 252).
The remaining three discoveries, though briefer in treatment, collectively reinforce the picture of a rich and varied archaeological landscape. At Kampong Pengkalan Bujang, Kedah, a carved granite balustrade bearing a grotesquely sculptured face was excavated to a depth of five feet, with a snana-droni (image pedestal) found nearby, suggesting a temple structure of unusual elaborateness for the state (p. 253). At Kampong Raja Pagoh, Johore, road-building exposed a hoard of Chinese export porcelains—blue and white, white glazed, celadons, and reddish earthenware—near a new mosque (p. 253). Finally, two new cuttings at Gua Kechil, Pahang, excavated by University of Malaya students in August 1964, proved fairly rich in artefacts, building on Dr. F. L. Dunn’s earlier investigations at the site (p. 254).
Key Findings
- The two Dong-s’on drumheads (Heger Type 1) measured just over 14 inches (10-point central star) and just under 18 inches (12-point star with four frogs in the round); one motif on the larger drum matches a design recorded on drums from Thanh-hoa and Kon-tum in Indochina (pp. 251–252).
- A single radiocarbon date from the wooden plank (Geochron Laboratories, sample GX0280) yielded 2435 ± 95 years B.P., equivalent to 485 B.C.—considerably earlier than anticipated and requiring further corroboration (p. 252).
- The smaller drum bore an irregular pattern of square holes cut into its hemispherical upper section, a feature also observed on an intact specimen in the Thai National Museum, Bangkok, and explained in Thai hill-tribe tradition as commemorating the deaths of important personages (p. 252).
- A second clay mound, disturbed by drainage ditch clearance a few hundred yards away, produced two bronze bowls with crude linear decoration, four hexagonal rock crystal beads, two broken rock crystal pieces, and fragments of the same coated pottery, indicating the area may be a rich archaeological zone (p. 252).
- The Pengkalan Bujang balustrade (4 ft 8 in long, 1 ft 2 in maximum width) and the associated snana-droni pedestal suggest a temple staircase; Quaritch-Wales had dated the locality to the 11th–12th centuries A.D. and Lamb to the late 11th–14th centuries A.D. (p. 253).
Conclusion
Peacock’s report establishes that 1964 was a landmark year for Malayan archaeology, with the Kampong Sungai Lang drums providing the first in-situ recovery of Dong-s’on-type bronze drums in the peninsula and a radiocarbon date that, if validated, would fundamentally revise the chronology of early metalwork in the region. The convergence of evidence—drums, distinctive coated pottery, rock crystal beads, and the possible canoe context—points to a complex ritual deposition of considerable antiquity, while the Pengkalan Bujang and Raja Pagoh finds underscore the continued potential for major discoveries in both the classical and post-classical periods.
Context
- The Dong-s’on drum find at Kampong Sungai Lang was the second archaeological recovery of Dong-s’on-type bronze drums in Malaysia, the first being a drum found near Klang earlier in 1964 (p. 245).
- The Pengkalan Bujang site had previously been investigated by H. G. Quaritch-Wales (1940) and H. A. Lamb (1961), both publishing in MBRAS and the Federation Museums Journal respectively (p. 253).