There were two well-defined routes (Pamela Gutman, also from Prof Dr Suebsaèng Promboon, The Siamese Maritime Trade, AD 1351-1511, Spafa Workshop, Cisarua, Indonesia 1984). The earliest and most continuous until the present time is the overland route from Yunnan. This route passed through the Taiping river joining the Bhamo-Myitkyina road about twenty miles north of Bhamo from where goods were shipped by boat down the Irrawaddv river to the delta for trans-shipment to India, Southeast Asia and other countries.
Another land route became important with the rise of Ayuthia in the middle of the 14th century. As a great trading centre Ayuthia was an essential link in the China trade. Goods were trans-shipped by junk or sent overland either to Pranburi or to Kui on the western shore of the Gulf of Siam for transport by caravan across the narrow isthmus to Tenasserim and thence downstream in small river boats to the port of Mergui. Another overland route connected Sawankhalok with Martaban and passed through Raheng (Tak) and Mesot (Mae Sot).
During this period the trade was principally in the hands of Muslim merchants who shipped the goods to India and further West. Samudra Pasai in North Sumatra was then an important trading centre in the India and Middle East trade with China. The pigment for the first Chinese blue and white ware in the 14th century was transported by sea-route from the Persian Gulf by way of Aceh.
The pattern of trade in Southeast Asia during the Yuan dynasty (1280—1368) was marked by the increasing activity of the Chinese traders. This accelerated the final disintegration of Sriwijaya and promoted new commercial centres in Java, Northern Sumatra and along the Eastern coast of the Peninsula such as Pattani, Ligur and Ayuthia. As the former Sriwijaya’s ports degenerated into piratical hideouts it compelled trading ships to avoid sailing through the Straits. The Chinese therefore chose to trade with ports along the Eastern coast of Siam and the Malay Peninsula and thus revitalised the use of the trans-peninsular routes across the narrow isthmus. They preferred to come to either Mergui and Tenasserim on the Western coast or other ports like Pasai, Sumudra and Perlak in North Sumatra.
The town of Martaban was first mentioned in an old Burmese inscription of 1326 where it is called ‘Muttama’, the name which until now is often used by the Burmese (Martaban is now named Moattama - webmaster). The name Martaban might be derived from the Tai names for Mergui and Tenasserim, “Marit” and “Tanan”. In view of the fact that Martaban was nominally under Sukothai hegemony from 1281 to 1314 and that the area from Martaban to Tenasserim was under Ayuthian control from the mid-14th to soon after the mid-15th centuries, it is possible that the terms “Martaban” or “Maritanao” were used to describe the coastal region from the Salween river to the lsthmus of Kra.
In the 14th century Martaban was already a busy harbour. It was mentioned by Ibnu Batuta an Arab traveller in 1350 in connection with large jars “... Martabans or huge jars, filled with pepper, citron and mango, all prepared with salt, as for a sea voyage”.
The demand of the Arab, Indian and later the European traders for large jars in which to store liquid and foodstuffs was met by the supply at Martaban, most probably by the supply of local jars. Historical sources mostly refer to the fact that the jars were produced locally (S. Adhyatman, Abu Ridho, Tempayan-Martavans 2nd revised edition 1984, 63-66). So the generic name of martavan or martaban jars were indeed first applied to the jars produced and used at the Martaban site. It was later used for all kinds of large earthenware and stone-ware jars from different origins. For instance it is reported that presently Upper India also produce large black jars which they call ‘Martaban” (J G Scott, Burma, a handbook of Practical Information, London 1921, 278). The import of Chinese ceramics consisted of porcelain especially celadon dishes which are called “gori” (Volker 1971, 5. Green glazed ware like Chinese and Thai celadon are greatly prized in Burma). At present celadon wares are still called “martabani” in the Middle East.
By the middle of the 15th century Ayuthia had lost control of Martaban, and the Mon capital of Pegu of the Pegu kingdom dominated the ports of Bassein, Syriam and Martaban which were well known to Chinese merchants by this time. Peguan merchants, mostly Moslems, traded with India, Malacca and Indonesia. That considerable intercourse subsisted between the Peguans and Malays before the arrival of the Europeans is testified by the fact that the Portuguese found a considerable number of Peguans settled at Malacca when they captured it in 1511.
The first eyewitness account of local production and export of martaban jars was by the Portuguese Duarte Barbosa who reported the trade of Pegu with India, Malacca, Sumatra and Siam in the 16th century. He noted that “In this town of Martaban are made very large and beautiful porcelain vases, and some of glazed earthenwares of a black colour, which are highly valued among the Moors, and they export them as merchandise”.
Apparently the jars were not only used as containers of foodstuffs but were also a popular export commodity by itself. As far as their contents are concerned it was repeatedly mentioned in travel reports that the jars were used to contain water, oil and salted food for long sea voyages and for the export of Nipah arak (a type of palm wine). Apart from foodstuffs the Peguans exported gold, rubies, musk, tin and martaban jars to Malacca which they then exchanged for cloth, sandalwood, pepper, cloves, silk, porcelain and iron pans. Dutch sources in the 17th century mention that the Peguans brought their wares also to Aceh and to Banten on the Northwestern coast of Java which was later conquered by the Islamic kingdom of Demak in Central Java. This site might have been linked in Chinese ceramic trade since the 9th/I0th century as late Tang sherds were found buried in the surrounding area (Abu Ridho found at Banten Lama as surface finds, 9th century sherds of white Chinese porcelain bowls of the Samara type, and Dr B McKinnon found identical sherds at Banten Girang).
Since 1635 the VOC had offices in Syriam and Ava; the Dutch settled in Arakan in 1625. The trade of the martaban jars of Pegu were nearly all shipped from Pegu (Volker 1971, 221) and most probably those were indeed Burmese jars and not Chinese. Historical reports by Lintschoten (1598) and by Pierre de Laval (1610) mentioned the manufacture of martaban jars at Martaban, while in 1664 the Englishman Anderson reported on the more intensive Dutch trade and on the goods that were traded in Pegu “many sorts of clothing are sent to Pegu a port in Banggala, which returns rubies and readie money also Martavans Jarres”. It is inconceivable that the Burmese should import jars from China where they were already producing glazed jars in the 11th century if not earlier (see later). Besides that the total amount of jars imported through the city of Batavia and the Nusantara archipelago is only 1,300 while 1,140 jars were channelled to other markets in Asia; in records about the trade of the VOC in the 18th century no mention had been made of the sending of martaban jars to Indonesia As the jars found in Indonesia from the 17th to the 19th century far exceeds this amount, they must have been shipped through traditional trade routes other than Bhamo in Upper Burma. In recent years many Chinese martavan jars were recovered from sunken ships on the China route. (Tempayan-Martavans 1984-49)
The role of Martaban itself as a great harbour probably stopped after the Burmese attack in 1613, although the jars continued to be made. A report by Alexander Hamilton in 1727 mentioned that “Martavan in former times was one of the most flourishing towns for trade in the East, having the benefit of a noble River. which afforded a good Harbour for Ships of the greatest Burden.. But after the Barmans conquered it they sunk a Number of Vessels full of Stones in the Mouth of the River so that now it is unnavigable except for small vessels”. He further mentioned that they still make earthenware. “They make earthenware there still, and glaze them with Lead-oar. I have seen some Jars made there, that could contain two Hogheads of Liquor”. This report was again supported by the Jesuit Pimenta early in the 17th century (V C Scott O’Connor, The Silken East, Vol. II, 1904, 583). He wrote “Some of the Peguans in this time had with the Siamites help brought the castle of Murmulan into their possession whom the king besieged a year together ... And thus the whole tract from Pegu to Martaban and Murmulan was brought to a wildernesse”.
The Dutch closed their offices in Burma around 1680, but most probably the jars continued to he transported for a tong time along the traditional sea routes between Burma, Malacca and Indonesia.
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Nothing has ever been published on Burmese ceramics although the name Martaban, an ancient port in Southern Myanmar has lent itself to a group of large dark glazed earthenware and stoneware jars. A revised edition of the book TEMIPAYAN MARTAVANS concerning martaban jars found in Indonesia which was published in August 1984 by the Ceramic Society of Indonesia contains pictures and references to present production of Burmese jars in Upper Burma.