The first glazed ceramics made in Southeast Asia beyond the orbit of Chinese control were associated with the Khmer rulers Indravarman and Yasovarman, who reigned from the 880s to 940. It is not known, however, how the method of firing stoneware or the technique of glazing first appeared in Cambodia.
Khmer ceramics were not exported beyond the Khmer cultural zone.
The term 'Angkorian' refers to ceramics that have been found in relation to temples of the Angkor period, approximately 9th to the 14th centuries, with the peak period of production from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The distribution of these wares is over a vast area, under the rule of the Angkorian Khmers, even though most of the finds are concentrated around the famous Angkor Wat.
Because most of the finds come from either temples, burial sites or caches, wares of different periods and production sites have been mixed together and they cannot be dated with precision. Nonetheless, the chronology established by Groslier in his 1981 book Khmer Ceramics 9th-14th century can still be used for an overview.
Thailand Angkor period ceramics (and their copies) were widely available in the antiques market in Thailand (Bangkok) in the early 1980s.
This kind of ceramics have been studied in great detail by Roxanna Brown and published in her 'The Ceramics of South-East Asia: Their Dating and Identification', 2nd edn. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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