Far East Silk Trade May Not Have Had Smooth Sailing Thanks to Pirates

Pirates lurking in waters off Thailand in the 9th Century may have disrupted the legendary “silk route of the sea” and forced its sailors ashore.

The first evidence that the sea route connecting China, India and the Middle East once had a land link has been found on the Malay Peninsula in southern Thailand.

Archeologists have uncovered thousands of pieces of old Chinese porcelain and Egyptian and Iraqi glass at the sites of ancient harbors on both the east and west coasts of the narrow peninsula.

The silk route of the sea, which influenced the world with a flow of goods and ideas for centuries, replaced the famous “Silk Road” that once tied China to the rest of the world.

Normally, the sea route went around the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula through the Strait of Malacca. Being forced to unload goods more than halfway up the peninsula and lug them 50 miles overland was hazardous and expensive.

It must have disrupted trade in the civilized world then, much like a blockade of Persian Gulf oil would wreak havoc today. Modern pirates still prowl the Strait of Malacca, the busy trade route linking the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

“Since we found exactly the same kind of material at both sites and nowhere else on the peninsula, we can assume it went directly across,” says Bennet Bronson, an archeologist with the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. “All the expensive Chinese porcelain dates from a fairly tight time frame, from about AD 825 to 875, so we can assume this cross-peninsula arrangement lasted only a short period.”

Bronson theorizes that pirates or a hostile naval force blocked passage through the strait for about 75 years.

“Finding this land link is truly significant, and it proves that trade on the silk route must have been extraordinarily lucrative and important to justify the expense of this venture,” says Karl L. Hutterer, a University of Washington archeologist who has worked extensively in Southeast Asia.

“Sending valuable merchandise across that rugged piece of real estate probably required not only an army of guards,” Hutterer explains, “but an incredible administrative setup on each side of the peninsula.”

“It must have been a logistics nightmare,” says Bronson, whose research is supported by the National Geographic Society. Vessels coming from China unloaded their wares on the east side of the peninsula at the small port of Laem Pho. From there, small boats, beasts of burden and human muscle power carried the goods over a rugged, forested landscape to a commercial center on the west coast known as Ko Kho Khao.

Trade between East and West began by land as early as the 2nd Century BC over a series of paths and roads that originated in China and was named the Silk Road, in honor of a commodity that was once worth more than gold.

Tired of braving sandstorms and marauders, many merchants in the 7th Century traded in their horses and camels for oceangoing vessels, and a maritime silk route soon predominated.

The first ships to ply the route were probably single-masted Arab dhows. “Chinese records talk about ships with four masts,” says Bronson. “They could probably haul hundreds of tons.”

Arabs were lured to China and Southeast Asia by silk, gold, gems, porcelain, sandalwood and spices. To China they brought fine Middle Eastern glass, Indian steel, incense, ivory and exotic birds.

Even more significant was the human traffic. Merchants, diplomats, pilgrims, even pop-music groups of the time traveled the seaway, carrying ideas, inventions, articles of faith, languages and artwork.

With luxury items passing through the ports, people at both Thai harbor towns enjoyed the good life. They ate their exotically spiced meals from the finest porcelain plates and drank from delicate glass cups.

Thousands of pieces of exquisite porcelain plates and saucers with deep colors, imaginative designs and fine glazes have been uncovered at both places. Undoubtedly broken in shipment, they were on their way to the Middle East, where they were to be prized showpieces in palaces.

Countless fragments of Egyptian glass, which once formed delicate cups valued by Chinese nobles, were found scattered about.

The Chinese later dominated the silk route with fleets of huge cargo junks. One vessel sighted off the coast of India in the 14th Century had four decks and a crew of a thousand.

Eventually, heavily armed Dutch and Portuguese trading ships doomed the silk route of the sea.