Recent archaeological work in Kedah (1958
Alastair Lamb’s 1959 field report documents four visits to Kedah in 1957–58, centred on a detailed re-investigation of H.G.Q. Wales’s Site 8, a granite temple on the west bank of the Sungei Batu Pahat. Lamb’s overarching thesis challenges Wales’s identification of the temple as a product of Pallava colonisation, arguing instead that its architectural and ritual features—particularly the nine-chambered reliquary—point to Javanese rather than Indian origins, and that the dating of Kedah’s Indian sites rests on an insecure evidential foundation.
Summary
The article is primarily an architectural survey of Site 8, the most extensive and best-preserved of the Kedah temple sites Wales had excavated in the 1930s and 1940s. Lamb and the University of Malaya Archaeological Society cleared the plinth and sanctuary, extended Wales’s trenches, and made a significant discovery: an intact, unopened granite casket set into the rear wall of the sanctuary, which Lamb identifies as almost certainly a third nine-chambered reliquary. He provides measured descriptions of the terraces, porch, plinth (approximately 36 feet square, 6 feet high, 16–18 courses of granite brick), sanctuary wall (20 feet square at base, 5 feet thick), and a typology of five socle types (A–E) and eleven shaped stone types (F–P), each assigned a specific structural or ritual function. The socle typology in particular is presented as evidence of deliberate architectural design rather than ad hoc construction.
The article’s most substantial argumentative content concerns the cultural attribution and dating of the Kedah temples. Lamb engages directly with Stutterheim’s 1939 thesis that the chandi ritual and its associated nine-chambered reliquary originated in pre-Hindu Javanese culture, not in India. If Stutterheim is correct, then Wales’s inference—that the presence of nine-chambered reliquaries in Kedah proves Indian (Pallava) origin—collapses. Lamb extends this scepticism to Wales’s dating methodology more broadly, noting that Wales relied on associated finds of uncertain provenance (a miniature bronze shrine roof found in a river bed, a Ganesa of ambiguous style, pottery shards) to assign sixth- or seventh-century dates to Sites 4 through 9. Lamb suggests these objects may simply be trade goods or ballast carried by Indian merchants, and that their presence in a temple context tells us nothing about the architecture’s date or cultural source.
The remaining sections offer briefer notes on Site 7 (Bukit Gajah Mati, where a modern bungalow has been built over ancient laterite foundations), Site 18 (a shallow pit on the Sungei Bujang yielding celadon and glazed pottery, possibly a port), Bukit Meriam (a socle with a triangular mortise found in a village), and Site 28 (celadon dishes fished from the Muda). These serve to underscore the article’s broader point: that Kedah’s archaeological record is fragmentary, poorly documented, and in active danger of loss.
Key Findings
- The intact granite casket discovered in the sanctuary of Site 8 measures slightly over 7 inches cube, has a lid with a small central hole through which sand had penetrated, and contains the rim of a small bronze pot; its form and dimensions match the fragment of a nine-chambered reliquary already in the Alor Star Museum (p. 221–222).
- The plinth of Site 8 is approximately 36 feet square and 6 feet high, comprising 16–18 courses of granite brick; the sanctuary measures about 20 feet square at its base with walls 5 feet thick, rising to 10 courses in places (pp. 218–219).
- Five distinct socle types were identified: Type A (9 in. square, 5–6 in. high, porch area), Type B (10–12 in. square, 10–12 in. high, porch and steps), Type C (larger mortises, plinth edge, 16 originally), Type D (angled mortises at 60°, flanking corner Type E socles), and Type E (with a round depression at the base of the mortise, 12 originally, ringed the sanctuary) (pp. 223–224).
- The roof height is estimated at between 40 and 80 feet (2 to 4 times the sanctuary width), based on comparative ratios from the Kailasanatha Temple at Kanchipuram, the Dharamaraja Rath at Mamallapuram, and Borobudur relief shrines (p. 226).
- Site 18 on the Sungei Bujang yielded celadon fragments and a bluish glazed bowl with fluted decoration; the location is described as “Bujang Pengkalan” (the landing place on the Bujang) and the river is still navigable by motor sampan to this point, suggesting a port function (p. 231–232).
- The granite blocks for Site 8 were quarried from outcrops in the stream bed of the Sungei Batu Pahat; a partially quarried block and a fully detached block of 20 feet in length and 2 feet in section remain visible in the river (p. 227).
Conclusion
Lamb’s definitive takeaway is that the cultural attribution and dating of Kedah’s Indian-style temples, as established by Wales, are not on firm ground. The architectural evidence of Site 8—its use of un-mortared granite blocks (evoking Dieng Plateau chandis), its timber strut system (for which no Indian parallel exists), and its nine-chambered reliquary (which Stutterheim demonstrated to be of Javanese origin)—points toward a more complex cultural synthesis than Wales’s Pallava colonisation model allows. Until the casket is opened and its contents examined, and until the porch, terraces, and roof debris are fully analysed, the precise stylistic affinities of the Kedah temples remain unresolved.
Context
- The article draws on fieldwork conducted by the University of Malaya Archaeological Society (expeditions of 1956, 1957, and February 1958) and Lamb’s own independent visits; it is a primary field report rather than a study of archival documents.
- Historiographically, the article represents an early and significant challenge to Wales’s dominant narrative of direct Indian (Pallava) colonisation in Kedah, introducing Stutterheim’s pre-Hindu Javanese thesis into the Malayan archaeological debate and questioning the methodological validity of dating by associated finds of uncertain provenance.