The University of Malaya Archaeological Society’s survey of Central Kedah in May 1958
Wang Gungwu, writing in 1958 for the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, reports on a field survey conducted by the University of Malaya Archaeological Society across Central Kedah in May 1958, with particular focus on the Sungai Bujang corridor and the kampongs surrounding Merbok. The article serves as a systematic follow-up to H. G. Quaritch Wales’s pre-war excavations, documenting both the present condition of previously identified sites and newly located archaeological features in a landscape rapidly transforming under post-war agricultural development.
Summary
The survey was motivated by the need to reassess sites that Quaritch Wales had excavated in the 1930s, many of which had been disturbed in the intervening years. The team concentrated on the area north of the Merbok River, working along both banks of the Sungai Bujang and into the surrounding kampongs. A recurring theme throughout the report is the degradation of archaeological evidence: villagers had stripped exposed brickwork for building material, the Japanese had levelled at least one major site during the occupation, and rubber replantation had buried or overgrown others. Where sites remained intact, the team recorded their positions and assessed their potential for further work, but generally found that the most promising locations had already been compromised.
Beyond the re-examination of Quaritch Wales’s numbered sites, the survey yielded several new observations of potential significance. These include socle-stones near Kota Kuala Muda attributed by villagers to the old palace of the Raja of Kedah, a cave on Bukit Singkir (found to contain only bat guano), an inscribed stone fragment reported from Kampong Pasir (since broken up and lost), and a stone causeway at Batu Lintang that emerges at the lowest tide. The report also records oral traditions linking specific locations to ancient objects such as a gold belt and a ganesa, though in most cases the physical evidence had already disappeared or could not be verified.
The overall impression is one of a region where the archaeological record is fragile and actively eroding. The survey functioned less as a discovery exercise than as a salvage documentation effort, capturing what remained of a landscape that was being reshaped by estate agriculture, road construction, and local subsistence practices.
Key Findings
- The structure at Bukit Pendiyat (popularly called an “elephant trap”) measures 130 feet by 95 feet along the outside walls, with an internal platform of 100 feet by 46.5 feet (p. 220).
- Site 4, described as one of the largest ever excavated in the area, was levelled by the Japanese during the war; the team could not determine whether the bricks were removed or the trench filled in (p. 221).
- Site 11, in replanted rubber at Sungai Batu Estate, retains standing boulder-stone walls approximately 40 feet by 20 feet and was the best-preserved of the six sites examined there (p. 221).
- Two socle-stones found near Kota Kuala Muda measure two feet high and one and a half feet square on top; a third, larger stone resembling a pillar foot was found about fifty yards away (p. 223).
- At Batu Lintang, the village headman reported that a gold belt, a ganesa, and other stone images had been found at the tanjong over the preceding forty to twenty years, and that a stone causeway joining the tanjong to the kampong becomes visible at the lowest tide once a month (p. 222).
- An inscribed stone with “Siamese writing” was found at Kampong Pasir some five or six years before the survey but had since been broken up and lost (p. 222).
Conclusion
Wang Gungwu’s report underscores the urgency of systematic archaeological documentation in a region where the physical evidence is being lost to agricultural expansion, local resource extraction, and the general passage of time. The survey’s principal contribution is not the discovery of new sites but the recording of the condition of known ones, establishing a baseline against which future loss can be measured.
Context
- The article is a direct follow-up to Quaritch Wales’s 1940 account of his pre-war excavations in the same area (JMBRAS 18, (1), 1940), and the site numbers used throughout are those assigned by Quaritch Wales (p. 223, n. 1).
- The report draws exclusively on field observation and local oral testimony; no archival or museum collections are consulted.