were in the main burial chamber. The glass is lead-barium as made in central China, but the plaques, in their shape, size, and position around the middle of the corpse, seem to be belt plaques, as commonly found on the steppe. Chinese gentlemen wore long robes, while the horsemen of the steppe wore short robes—more suitable for riding—and hung their dagger and other accouterments from a belt. Zhao Mo’s family came from northern China where the steppe met the settled, and Lukas Nickel suggests that he might have had mixed ancestry, which “made him appreciate a drinking horn, robes in nomadic fashion and a box with foreign-inspired decoration,” all objects buried with him.74 This would explain the belt plaques, although the use of glass remains unusual. Glass beads, necklaces, and a glass bi were also found in the burial.
Over two thousand other tombs from the same period have been excavated, some near Hepu and Guixian, also part of the Nan Yue kingdom and nearer the Vietnamese border. While many contained glass beads, only eleven contained glass vessels—one or two ribbed glass bowls (figure 5).75 These, along with another bluish-green bowl found in a tomb in central China, were originally identified as Roman.76 The latter is still believed to be early Roman—showing that some glass vessels did indeed make their way to China at this time.77
FIGURE 5. Form of glass bowls found in Hepu and Guixian, South China. After Borell (2011: fig. 3.1).
Borell concludes that these were tombs of those who held a status just below the top rank. The mold-made shape of the bowls is distinctive, unlike anything Roman or Hellenistic, and analysis has shown them to be potash glass with a low magnesium level, which suggests a mineral source for the potash, possibly saltpeter. Borell has argued convincingly that these were products of a local industry and that such glass was exported from this region by the maritime routes: similar pieces have been found in Arikamedu in southeastern India. She places the dating of the start of this industry to the middle or late Former Han, that is, after Nan Yue. The use of glass imported from central China in the Nan Yue royal tomb suggests that the material was valued and might have prompted the start of this local industry. But the industry could also have been influenced by glassware coming from central China, from elsewhere in South or Southeast Asia, or from further afield.
The preliminary scientific analysis of one of the bowls found with the one under consideration here from the Hengzhigang burial has shown some presence of potash, and given this Borell suggests it might also be a product of a local workshop. However, the presence of some potash is not in itself inconsistent with the bowls being Hellenistic, and without further evidence the shape, color, weathering, and design still point toward a Hellenistic origin. If we accept this—allowing some element of uncertainty—then the question remains how these bowls came to Guangzhou.
Analysis of the many beads found in the other burials shows that they are of four different types, including the local potash and the Chinese lead-barium glass. Borell concludes that this is evidence for “a complex network of interregional exchange.”78 A large part of this exchange was almost certainly by sea.
MARITIME TRADE ROUTES
Maritime trade routes connected Africa and Eurasia from earliest times, with trade relations, for example, between the Harappan civilization of the Indus valley and Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC.79 By the second half of the first millennium, spices from India were reaching Greece via the ports of southern Arabia.80 Within a few centuries, sailors were making use of the monsoon winds: the Greek historian Strabo (64/63 BC–ca. AD 24) tells of a man called Eudoxus of Cyzicus who made the return journey twice, setting sail from the Egyptian Red Sea in the time of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (r. 145–116 BC).81 This use of monsoon winds opened up easier access to ports in southern India and, from there, to Southeast Asia.
At Arikamedu near Pondicherry in southeastern India, excavations have shown the port developing from the mid-third century BC with a distinctive type of pottery produced in the Hellenistic Mediterranean, rouletted ware, being imitated in Arikamedu from the mid-second century.82 The presence of unfinished agate pendants in a Southeast style were, as Bérénice Bellina points out, probably also imitations intended for export to Southeast Asia, where Indian imports are common.83 The site also contained numerous locally produced glass and stone beads that were also widely exported.84 Imported glass vessels discovered here, although not in great numbers, include soda-lime Hellenistic and South China potash glass.85
The southwestern coast of China and the coast of northern Vietnam bordered the Tonkin Gulf, protected from the ocean by the island of Hainan. Petroglyphs found along the coast suggest the Yue people were accustomed to traveling by sea. In 1975 the excavation at Zhongshansilu to the east revealed a shipyard dating from the third century BC. It is estimated that this could have been used to build ships twenty-nine meters long and three to six meters wide that could carry a cargo of twenty-five to thirty tons.86 The Chinese official history of the Han dynasty describes a route from near Hue, in present-day Vietnam, to what is now the island of Sri Lanka via the Malay Peninsula, several stops in Myanmar, and Chennai on the east coast of India.87 The Chinese were said to have carried silk and gold to trade for pearls, precious stones, and other items—including one named biliuli in Chinese, which could mean glass.88 A poem from a later period shows the continuing importance of this region for trade, including slaves (see chapter 10): “Argosies laden with slaves from the sea—rings in their ears; / Elephants laden with girls of the Man—bodies bound with bunting.”89
A design on a vessel in Zhao Mo’s tomb is a depiction of four ships, clearly showing a rudder that would have been essential for such navigation (figure 6).90 Clay and wooden models of both river and seafaring ships have been found in other Han-period tombs.
FIGURE 6. A line engraving on a bucket from the tomb of the king of Nan Yue (ca. 122 BC), Guangzhou, showing a wooden boat. After Erickson, Yi, and Nylan (2010: 166).
The transport by sea of this glass bowl and its two companions at this time from a Red Sea or Gulf port via India and possibly several other landfalls to South China in this period is therefore certainly possible. We can tentatively date the production of the glass bowl to the late second century or early first century BC and its burial in the tomb to the first century BC. We do not know whether it was exported directly after production, possibly taking a year or more to reach its final destination. Given that it was found with two other similar bowls, we might hypothesize that they were part of a much larger glass cargo. How did they come into the possession of the buried man, or his family? What was their significance? Were they even used before being buried with him, or were they acquired solely for burial?
These, and many more questions, will probably always remain without definite answers. However, because the elements used to make glass have a distinctive geographical signature based on their isotopes, refined methods of isotopic analysis combined with trace element analysis developed in the past few decades have enabled tests that will confirm the geographical source of the materials and therefore suggest the probable production area. Such isotopic analysis of this piece would provide support—or otherwise—for our hypothesis: that it was Hellenistic and made in the Levant. Discoveries of other pieces, in tombs, in shipwrecks, or elsewhere, might also add support or suggest other stories we can tell about this piece. This story is not yet finished.
If this is confirmed as a Hellenistic piece, then it was one of many such items made as an everyday drinking cup and not as a luxury item. But far away in South China it was rarer and almost certainly considered as both exotic and a luxury: it might never have been used for its original purpose. A possibly analogous situation is seen in the Chinese ceramics exported by sea to Europe from the fourteenth century. These were usually everyday items or pieces made
