The Spice Route During the Palembang Sultanate Based on Archaeological and Ethnographic Data

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-613-0_38How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Distribution; Spices; Musi Watershed; South Sumatra

Abstract

Spices have become the main commodity of the archipelago in the international trade scene. Chinese news sources provide information about spice commodities in the trading period from the 6th-19th centuries AD. Initially, spices were used for religious rituals and medicinal purposes. This function changed during the Song Dynasty (906-1260 AD). Spice commodities mentioned include nutmeg, cloves, resin, gum jerenang, agarwood, lime, and frankincense. One of the producers of spices is South Sumatra. Historical sources from the Palembang Sultanate period (17th-19th centuries AD) mention pepper as the region’s main commodity. Pepper was produced in the hinterland through cultivation and distributed through large rivers that flowed into the Musi River. Before the sultanate period, evidence of the existence of spice commodities in this area was known from foreign news sources, including Chinese, Persian, Arabic and Portuguese news sources. The results of archaeological research provide evidence that spice commodities are different from foreign news sources, which mention that in South Sumatra spice commodities are resin, candlenut and keluwak. In addition to information about the types of spices traded, foreign news sources do not provide information about the location of production and how to distribute them. Therefore, this research aims to find out the location of production and how to distribute it. The research method used is descriptive analytical using historical archaeological and ethnographic approaches.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Retno Purwantir
AU  - Amilda
AU  - Wahyu Rizky Andhifani
AU  - Eko Yulianto
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/04
TI  - The Spice Route During the Palembang Sultanate Based on Archaeological and Ethnographic Data
BT  - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Linguistics and Cultural Studies (ICLC-6 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 486
EP  - 499
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-613-0_38
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-613-0_38
ID  - Purwantir2026
ER  -