The precolonial history of Singapore is an area of wilful ignorance and self-denial among many residents and scholars of the nation-state. To acknowledge that the island has a history prior to the landing of Thomas Stamford Raffles and the English East India Company in 1819 would open the door to numerous contestations that do not fit neatly into the dominant state narrative of a small, insignificant fishing village that British guidance and the modern developmental state has willed into modernity, and has been largely ignored in official accounts and textbooks in the nation-state until recently. With this work, John N. Miksic — an archaeologist who has worked throughout Southeast Asia from a base in Singapore for over thirty years — has meticulously presented a history of Singapore prior to 1819 that places it within larger networks of trade as well as given it a prominence that will influence Singaporean and Southeast Asian historiography for decades to come.

Following an introduction that outlines archaeological research in Singapore since 1819, Miksic divides the book into three sections. The first section consists of four chapters that summarise much of the research on coastal Southeast Asian trade ports prior to 1300 and then focuses on what is known about Singapore through ancient historical texts. This section makes up the first half of the book, and provides much needed context, as early Singapore was part of this network of trade ports that linked East and South Asia with Southeast Asia. In this section, Miksic argues that these early maritime trade routes were vastly more important than the more reknown ‘Silk Road’ as it allowed for an exchange of more trade goods at much higher volumes. Despite its importance, little is known about this trade route, however, as the water and humidity of island Southeast Asia has left few traces of the vast network that was built of easily destroyed wood and fragile trade products. Miksic also provides a valuable survey of sites — with a particular emphasis on summarising the finds of recent marine archaeological sites — as well as a general history of what can be understood from the available record about trade and urbanisation of early Southeast Asia that explains why there are various tales about Singapore and how they fit into the larger economic and cultural history of precolonial Southeast Asia.

The following section of the book — consisting of three chapters — focuses on archaeological evidence from Singapore. Archaeological digs, often under the supervision of the author, have taken place in Singapore since 1984. In the first of these chapters Miksic discusses each major excavation, and provides details of the sites and what was discovered. The two subsequent chapters document the goods produced and traded in fourteenth-century Singapore, with a focus on beads, pottery, coins, and even mercury. While this section gets bogged down in details, such as the stratigraphy of the sites as well as how weather influenced the excavations as well as the participants, these details reflect the work of an active community of archaeologists interested in the precolonial history of the island that Miksic has led for over thirty years. The hundreds of thousands of artefacts — albeit mostly pottery sherds — support the previously mentioned textual sources describing the presence of a vibrant trade port in Singapore.

Chapters 9 through 12 form the third section of Singapore and the Silk Road of the sea, and focus on what the archaeological and textual evidence tells us about the relationship between Singapore and various regions in the precolonial era. The first of these chapters discusses the connections between Temasik (ancient Singapore) and the polities of Java, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and India in the fourteenth century, and is followed by a consideration of its relationship with neighbouring Riau, as well as how Singapore fits into larger considerations of urbanism and trade, and the early nineteenth-century European constructions in Singapore. The book finishes with a short conclusion that summarises all of the evidence.

Precolonial Singapore, based on archaeological and textual evidence that Miksic musters, was a mid-sized trade port located on the edges of Javanese and Thai mandalas in the fourteenth century that remained an important geographical marker in the shipping channels between the South China Sea and the Melaka Strait for the next few centuries prior to colonial rule, although reduced in size and importance. Ancient Singapore was also a unique settlement. It was more urban, and compact, than most settlements in early Southeast Asia, as habitation was focused in a small space around Fort Canning Hill, and even included a unique defensive wall, all of which has allowed for archaeological excavations to be particularly fruitful over the past thirty years. While these conclusions may not sound earth-shattering, they should be put into a context in which Singaporean history has traditionally begun in 1819. The weight of the evidence has, and will, force readers of this work — including local officials — to think of Singapore as more than a colonial construct. The basis for its position as a modern trade port, thus, is long-standing and not solely due to British colonial policies or the modern, independent government. Singapore has for centuries been located at the crossroads of great trade empires, and its role as an entrepôt has a much deeper history that goes back 700 years.