A journey to search my soul

This is a blog of my personal collections. The purpose of this blog is to educate myself and public in regards to antiquities especially related to religion and calligraphy. I welcome everyone to input their feedback in this blog which they think would be helpful. I do not watermark the photos in this blog so everyone is free to use them as long as they are not used for illegal and unethical reasons. I appreciate if you could notify me if you plan to use any of the photos here. Enjoy browsing!!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Ancient Artifact Review 11 : Malacca "Swatow" shipwrecked plate ( 16-17th century)





This is a museum piece of shipwrecked plate retrieved from the Strait of Malacca ( off coast Malaysia). Typical Swatow wares are coarsely potted with crackled glaze. Swatow word is believed a Dutch mistranslations of word Shantou which is a place in Guandong province of China.
However recent findings by Chinese scholars led to believe that Swatow wares were produced in Zhangzhou China where was very famous in making and exporting wares to Europe, Japan & South East Asia between 16-17th century.
The unique thing about this plate is the motif executed in calligraphic stroke to resemble the word "ALLAH" in Arabic. This motif is believed intentionally designed for export to Malacca and other Malay Islamic kingdoms in south east asia.
The plate is 10" in diameter and 3" height.
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