SINGAPORE: To outsiders, the Myanmar township of Twante may be best known as the place where the British writer George Orwell was once posted to as a police officer during colonial times.
But when National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum curator Foo Su Ling visited the place last year, something else had caught her eye – seemingly strewn everywhere on the banks of the Twante canal were old pieces of pottery.
“Imagine, instead of walking on a shore of sea shells, it was a shore of broken plates,” she said. “And when I went around to the different unexcavated sites, these were all around as well. There were so many kiln mounds. You felt a bit like an explorer.”
For the past two decades, the area around Twante, located west of Yangon, has been ground zero for some of the country’s most exciting archaeological discoveries – scores of kilns, many of which are still unexcavated, revealed how Myanmar once produced exquisite ash-glazed greenware or celadon.
A jar fragment found on the banks of the Twante Canal in Myanmar. (Photo: NUS Museum)
Some 60 pieces of these artefacts, dating back to the 15th century, are currently on display at a small exhibition at NUS Museum. Titled From The Ashes: Reviving Myanmar Celadon Ceramics, it features various celadon bowls and shards, as well as figurines, ranging from elephant and swan incense holders to a small figure of a cow.
It’s the first exhibition in Singapore devoted to Myanmar ceramics.
Beyond acquainting visitors with Myanmar’s ancient art of ceramic making, the exhibition reveals a bigger story about regional ceramic production.
The discovery of these artefacts debunks preconceived notions about ceramics production and trade patterns in the region, says Foo. Prior to the discovery of the kilns in Twante in the late 1990s, Myanmar was never known to be a producer and exporter of celadon. The Chinese were famous for its glazed ware and in Southeast Asia, Thailand was the recognised ceramics centre, said Foo.
Until the historical find, archaeologists and ceramics scholars often attributed many of the pottery found from ancient shipwrecks to countries like China, Vietnam and Thailand. Following the discovery of the kilns, scholars now regard Myanmar as a key exporter of celadon during ancient times – in fact, Foo pointed out, there was one dig done in the United Arab Emirates that revealed pieces of Myanmar celadon.
“We never knew that Myanmar was an exporter (of celadon), but now we have a more complete picture of Southeast Asian (ceramics trade) in the 15th century,” she said.
Animal and human celadon figurines from Myanmar, which date back to the 15th century, are among the artefacts on exhibit at NUS Museum’s From The Ashes exhibition. (Photo: Geraldine Kang/NUS Museum)
But the NUS Museum exhibition takes the historical narrative of Myanmar’s ceramic traditions one step further and draws a link to Myanmar’s budding ceramic sector – exhibited alongside the 15th century finds are a handful of celadon pieces made in Twante over the past three years.
These “prototypes” of celadon ceramics were crafted by Myanmar potters currently reviving an art form previously lost to them. The pieces, old and new, come from the collection of the Myanmar Ceramic Society (MCS), a non-government organisation that has been trying to revive this specific type of glazed pottery-making in Twante for the past couple of years.
While the township is already known for pottery, the products have mostly been simple forms of unglazed clay-based earthenware such as water jars. The highly sophisticated process used to make celadon had been lost to the community. According to Foo, MCS is now trying to redevelop the lost art, using borax to create a hybrid “celabon” ceramics.
“Potters have forgotten how to make ash-glazed greenware and MCS realised that with a rich tradition such as this, it could help invigorate the domestic ceramics industry,” said Foo.
The process of creating this hybrid ceramic and encouraging the Myanmar industry to adopt this new production method is still in its experimental stages. But with Myanmar’s growing F&B industry – which turns to China and Thailand for glazed crockery – there are ready untapped markets for local potters, she said.
15th century artefacts from the exhibition From The Ashes: Reviving Myanmar Celadon Ceramics (Photo: Geraldine Kang / NUS Museum)
Even as today’s potters at Twante continue to explore the possibilities of making glazed ceramics, the discovery of the old kilns already has a positive effect on them.
“Making glazeware is a high-level technology, and in Myanmar, there’s a kind of national pride in rediscovering this tradition of making such things,” said Foo.
“In almost every village area, you’ll find people making earthenware. It’s a very prevalent occupation even today. In a way, this exhibition is an alternative way of understanding Myanmar from the common people’s perspective.”
