These are slides for Sec One students learning the history of Singapore. The focus is on 14th century maritime trade routes in Southeast Asia. Who travelled on them? What were the religious, trade and cultural ideas which influenced Southeast Asia. It also focused on the concept of exports. What is the historical evidence and archaeological evidence of the kind of goods that Singapore exported?

1. Southeast Asian Maritime Trade
 Who travelled on them?
 Trade ideas and religion
 Singapura’s exports and the evidence

2. Southeast Asia Trade Routes

3. Who travelled on these trade routes?
Pilgrims

4. Traders from different kingdoms of different races

5. Diplomats and ambassadors

6. What was exchanged?
• Trade, ideas and religion
Kerala, India

7. •
•
•
•
Ayutthaya (1351-1767)
Myanmar’s Bagan temples (1044-1287)
Cambodia’s Angkor temples (800-1300)
Javanese Borobudur (early 9C) and many
more places in Southeast Asia.

8. Singapura’s exports
Hornbill Casques

9. Tin which they mixed with copper to
produce bronze

10. Laka wood for incense

11. • Batik making/ cloth making

12. Salt and rice-wine making
Bali: Collecting seawater using a teku (dipper made from palm
leaves) which is poured into pans which is then dried.

13. Rice wine making
Rice is washed
for an hour,
steamed and
then spread in
wide-mouthed
Chinese jars for
1 or 2 days to
make rice wine.

14. Excavation evidence
Old Parliament House
Mercury Jars which are
broken and some intact but
they are dicarded.

15. Decorated pottery of cups, kendis, jars and
burners made from local clay

16. Smelted Iron

17. • Chinese coins were melted for their copper
and used to make small items like fishing
hooks and and small statues.
• Small fragments of gold were found in
excavations at Fort Canning and Parliament
House. This suggests that gold-smith work was
done in Singapura.

18. Singapore climate and perishables
• Many of Singapore’s
exports were made up of
perishables. They spoil and
decay easily because of
climate and soil
• Corrosive soil: Items like
iron blades, axes and
padlocks have been found
which suggest that
Singapore imported iron
and worked on iron items

19. Excavations and evidence from the
Bakau Wreck

22. Evidence from Bakau shipwreck
• Mixed cargo of Thai, Veitnamese and Chinese
ceramics (Longquan green celadons and white
Qingbai wares)
Fine Paste kendi
Chinese Longquan stem cup
Thai Sawankhalok jar

23. • Thai Sukhothai turtle kendi
The Bakau was probably headed to Tuban in Java where the ceramics
would have been exchanged for spices and other natural products for the
direct voyage back to China.
The Maritime Experential Museum and Aquarium at Sentosa has a display
of the Bakauwreck and a mode lof the ship based on information found
from the