sailors who had to lay over sometimes up tofive months waiting for the
monsoons to shift.
Chinese reports on Funan began with the visit of two imperial emissaries
who arrived there between 225 and 250CElikely sent to investigate the
opening of an official maritime silk route to India. However, the report they
made on their return, or at least what has come down to us, contains rela-
tively little about Funan’s trade except that customs taxes were paid in gold,
silver, pearls, and perfumes. Other Chinese emissaries followed over the next
four centuries as did Funanese embassies to China, conveniently recorded in
Chinese imperial archives. The information they convey has been greatly
augmented by archaeological excavations carried out at a site in Vietnam
called Oc Eo, which must be the place Chinese observers described as
Funan’s principal port. Oc Eo is a few miles from the coast of the Gulf of
Thailand, to which it was linked by a network of canals that also extended to
the Mekong River. Cargoes were landed from India bringing carnelian and
agate, bronze jewelry and seals, cotton fabrics, pepper, and at least one
Buddha head from Gandhara in northwestern India. The same ships carried
Roman Empire products, including glassware, gold and silver jewelry, and
gold coins, one of which with the likeness of the emperor Antoninus Pius
(138– 61 CE) was made into a pendant. From China came silk andfinely
made products such as mirrors and, from closer to home, tin from the Malay
peninsula and copper from Thailand.
Over the years Southeast Asian merchants were successful in introducing
substitute products at reduced costs for goods passing between
Mediterranean and Indian and Chinese markets. Benzoin, a balsamic resin
from Sumatra, for example, could be used as a treatment for skin irritations,
as afixative in perfumes, and as incense; it proved to be a good substitute for
myrrh. The woods and bark of the camphor tree, also from Sumatra, pro-
duced another resin used for incense and as a stimulant in medicines.
Agalloch, or aloeswood, from the Malay peninsula, Cambodia, and the
highlands of Vietnam was a soft, resinous wood burnt as incense whereas
sandalwood, a fragrant, yellowish wood from a parasitic tree found on Timor
1,800 miles east of Funan, was used for furniture, carvings, and containers
such as chests and boxes. New spices–cloves, nutmeg, and mace–joined
pepper and cinnamon although in much smaller quantities and at much
higher prices. Oc Eo was more than just an entrepot; it was also a manu-
facturing center, at least for jewelry. A range of gems and precious stones,
from malachite, jade, and olivine to amethyst, beryl, and rubies, was used
along with gold and silver by specialist craftsmen who borrowed Indian and
sometimes Roman motifs and styles.
Chinese travelers picked up secondhand information on other trading
states located down the Malay peninsula and around the Gulf of Thailand.
Referring to the countries of this region, one Chinese report maintains“all
the countries beyond the [Chinese] frontier come and go in pursuit of trade,”
The all-water route 115