Notes on the remains of some ancient brick structures in Pekan district
W. Linehan, a colonial official stationed in Pekan in 1925, documented the excavation of four ancient brick structures in the Pekan district of Pahang, arguing that they date to the period between the 14th century and the mid-15th century and likely represent the material legacy of a pre-Malay (Siamese) population displaced by the Malay conquest of Pahang. Published in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1928, the article remains one of the earliest systematic archaeological reports from the Pahang river valley.
Summary
Linehan’s excavations, conducted in 1925, uncovered the remains of four quadrilateral brick buildings at Tambak Siam, Kuala Chini, Pekan, and Pengkalen Durien. The most complete structure, at Tambak Siam on the left bank of the Pahang River, measured approximately 20 by 24 feet with walls up to one and a half feet high, built of large bricks (ranging from 8¾″ × 4″ × 2½″ to 12″ × 8¼″ × 2½″) laid without mortar in up to six courses (p. 78). The interior yielded a socketed iron tool (tulang mawas), four gun-flints, a human tooth, fossil damar, and fragments of porcelain identified as an early Ming type comparable to a piece described by Gulland (p. 78).
At Pengkalen Durien, on the Bebar River some 30 miles from its mouth, the most significant find was a small undamaged jar of Sawankalok ware with a greyish-green crackle glaze, which Linehan had identified by Mr. Rackham of the Victoria and Albert Museum as a 14th-century product of potteries north of Bangkok (p. 80). The Kuala Chini site, near the confluence of the Chini and Pahang rivers, produced fewer finds—pottery fragments, a glass bead, and fossil damar—but was notable for an adjacent graveyard containing uninscribed Achehnese-pattern tombstones probably not later than the end of the 17th century (p. 79). The Pekan site, near the padang, yielded four batu lintar (stone implements) and fragments of iron, with the late Sultan Mahmud reportedly having excavated the same location at an earlier date (p. 79).
Linehan’s dating argument proceeds by elimination. The gun-flints at Tambak Siam, if contemporaneous with the original structure, would push the date no earlier than 1635 A.D. (the first European use of flint-locks), but Linehan cautiously notes their small size and weight suggest they may be intrusive relics of later occupants (p. 80). The Sawankalok jar provides a firm terminus post quem of the 14th century. Combined with the traditional Malay conquest of Pahang around the mid-15th century (the first Malay ruler of Pahang dying in 1475), Linehan places the structures between the 14th and mid-15th centuries (p. 80).
Key Findings
- The Tambak Siam structure measured approximately 20 × 24 feet, with walls up to 1½ feet high, built of large bricks (up to 12″ × 8¼″ × 2½″, weighing 13 lbs) laid in up to six courses without mortar (p. 78).
- A socketed iron tool (tulang mawas) found at Tambak Siam was compared to a bronze celt from Kenaboi, Negeri Sembilan, as illustrated in Winstedt’s Malaya (p. 78).
- A small undamaged Sawankalok jar with greyish-green crackle glaze, identified by Mr. Rackham (V&A Museum) as a 14th-century product of potteries north of Bangkok, was recovered at Pengkalen Durien (p. 80).
- Porcelain fragments at Tambak Siam were identified as an early Ming type, comparable to a piece in Gulland’s Chinese Porcelain (Vol. I, p. 149, Ill. 223) (p. 78).
- Uninscribed Achehnese-pattern tombstones, probably not later than the end of the 17th century, were found in a graveyard adjacent to the Kuala Chini brick structure (p. 79).
- An artificially worked stone from the Ngudu River, west of Lake Chini, was tentatively identified as a possible Buddhist votive tablet (p. 80).
Conclusion
Linehan concludes that the four brick structures are of the same period, likely built between the 14th century and the mid-15th century, and may have served as small shrines or habitations of Buddhist hermits (p. 80). He links them to a pre-Malay, probably Siamese, population that occupied the Pahang river valley before the Malay conquest, noting that the Hikayat Hang Tuah (16th century) records a mixed language in Pahang and that place-names such as Kampong Melayu near Kuala Chini imply the former coexistence of a non-Malay community (p. 80).
Context
- The article was published in JMBRAS Vol. 6 (1928), a period when the Society’s journal was a primary vehicle for colonial-era archaeological reporting in the Malay Peninsula, and Linehan’s work represents one of the first field excavations in Pahang.
- The plates (XLIV–XLV) accompanying the article include a photograph of the Tambak Siam structure and an illustration of the artificially worked stone from the Ngudu River, both of which serve as the only visual record of these sites.