An Investigation of Archaeological Remains at Lamreh Site, Aceh, Indonesia and Their Context Within the Lamuri Kingdom

Abstract

This study contributes to provide a deeper understanding of the artefacts found at Lamreh site and their context within the history of Lamuri Kingdom. To this end, a comprehensive investigation was performed over three weeks at Lamreh, where several archaeological findings had been recovered which consisted of plakIJAPS, Vol. 15, No. 2, 59–88, 2019 Archaeological Remains at Lamreh 60 pling gravestones, imported ceramics, glassware and Chinese coins. The plak-pling gravestones were dated back to the 15th century CE, including one with the inscription of Sultan Muhammad bin Alauddin who was possibly one of the royal officials of the Lamuri Kingdom. The shapes and motifs of the plak-pling gravestones displayed a strong influence of the pre-Islamic Hindu-Buddhist culture. In addition, other interesting findings were imported ceramics, despite their fragmented condition, are both interesting, help with dating the site, and provide a better understanding of economic, social networks and value chains. Morphological, technological and contextual analyses, as well as relative dating, were used to reconstruct the shapes, types, origin and ages of the ceramics, as well as to identify them based on classes of export ceramics from China and Southeast Asia from 14th until the 15th century CE. Additionally, the glassware had been identified as a Chinese type dating back to at least the 13th to 14th century CE. Therefore, these pieces of evidence suggested that Lamreh was an important market for the ceramics trade in Southeast Asia for 300 years. These and other findings had proven that Lamreh was an urban trading centre in the Lamuri Kingdom which had strong connections in both the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean around a thousand years ago. The artefacts unearthed there had also provided evidence of a religious, cultural and commercial relationship between Lamuri and the outside world from approximately 1200 CE.