Article

New data for studying the early coastline in the Jambi area

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

New data for studying the early coastline in the Jambi area

E. Edwards McKinnon (1984) presents new archaeological evidence from the lower Batang Hari river in Jambi, Sumatra, to challenge Obdeyn’s long-standing “gulf theory,” which proposed that the coastline of South Sumatra had changed dramatically over the past fifteen centuries. Drawing on discoveries made in 1982—including a bronze dipalaksmi image and previously unrecorded ceramic deposits at Koto Kandis and Muara Kumpeh Hilir—McKinnon argues that the coastline has remained essentially stable since late Srivijayan times, rendering Obdeyn’s historical reconstruction untenable (pp. 56–57).

Summary

The article addresses a specific problem in the historical geography of Sumatra: Obdeyn’s 1941–42 reconstruction, which posited a large gulf reaching inland as far as Jambi and Palembang in historical times, implying that the coastline had shifted considerably over the past fifteen hundred years. McKinnon contends that the 1982 discoveries at two sites below modern Jambi—Koto Kandis and Muara Kumpeh Hilir—provide the empirical basis for rejecting this model. Both sites yielded substantial ceramic assemblages dating from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, exposed in river banks at low tide, demonstrating that these locations were occupied well before the period Obdeyn’s theory would allow for coastal habitation (pp. 56, 60–62).

The argument is reinforced by geomorphic and toponymic evidence. McKinnon notes that geologists surveying alluvial gold deposits in the Batang Hari drainage basin have suggested the last major geological changes in the area occurred approximately 7,000 years ago (Toh 1975), and that a toponym “Kompei” or “Kumpeh” appears in Chinese sources as early as the seventh century (Wolters 1967). The canalisation of the upper Batang Kumpeh, evidenced by early Sung-period sherds on its banks, further indicates human modification of the waterway prior to the twelfth century, consistent with a stable rather than shifting coastline (pp. 60, 63).

McKinnon situates these findings within the broader context of the Muara Jambi site, where forty brick-built monuments have been identified across approximately 1,000 hectares on the north bank of the Batang Hari, with ceramic evidence of trade contacts extending to Java, Thailand, Vietnam, India, and China (p. 60). The lower Batang Hari sites are presented as part of a network of riverine communication linking Muara Jambi—associated with the ancient toponym Melayu—to the sea, confirming the political and economic importance of this corridor during late Srivijayan times (pp. 60, 65).

Key Findings

  • A bronze dipalaksmi image, 35 cm in height, in late Cola style, was discovered at Koto Kandis in August 1982; it dates to the late thirteenth or fourteenth centuries and indicates a close association between the lower Batang Hari and Tamilnadu (pp. 62–63).
  • At Koto Kandis, a profusion of thirteenth- to fourteenth-century sherds (including ch’ing pai, grey-glazed stoneware, and Fukien whiteware) is exposed along a foreshore stretching up to 1½ km, buried beneath a metre-thick layer of sticky alluvium (p. 62).
  • Muara Kumpeh Hilir, located approximately 50 km below Muara Jambi, yielded twelfth- to fourteenth-century sherds and late Sung/Yuan-period Chinese stoneware exposed in the river bank at low tide in September 1982 (pp. 60–61).
  • The upper reaches of the Batang Kumpeh between Muara Kumpeh Hulu and Penarikan appear to have been canalised, with early Sung-period (late tenth or eleventh century) sherds found on its banks, suggesting the work predates the twelfth century (p. 63).
  • Multiple Sumatran coastal and riverine sites—including Pulau Kompei, Kota Cina, the Panei/Barumun complex, Muara Kumpeh Hilir, and Koto Kandis—appear to have been deserted or destroyed in the late fourteenth century, a pattern McKinnon tentatively links to Majapahit expansion into the Strait of Malacca (p. 65).
  • The toponym “Kandis” is mentioned in the Nagarakertagama (1365) as a Sumatran place-name, providing a textual anchor for the site’s historical significance (p. 62, n. 6).

Conclusion

McKinnon’s definitive takeaway is that Obdeyn’s picture of a large gulf reaching inland to Jambi and Palembang in historical times is “without foundation.” The coastline of Jambi, like that of Palembang, has changed relatively little since late Srivijayan times and, in all probability, very little during the past fifteen hundred years. The sites of Koto Kandis and Muara Kumpeh Hilir were already occupied by about the twelfth century and possibly much earlier, and their strategic positions within a network of riverine communication confirm the lower Batang Hari’s role in ancient maritime trade (p. 64).

Context

  • The article grew directly from the SPAFA Consultative Workshop on Environmental and Archaeological Studies on Srivijaya held in Palembang and Jambi in September 1982, which brought together Indonesian and international scholars and catalysed the discovery at Muara Kumpeh Hilir (p. 56).
  • Historiographically, the piece builds on and extends the reconsiderations of Sumatran coastal geography published by Wolters (1979) and Manguin (1982), applying the same methodological framework—combining geomorphic data with archaeological surface evidence—to the lower Batang Hari specifically, where no equivalent study had previously been undertaken (p. 56).

References