1. (Louise Cort, 11  July 2002) The Hauges acquired this vessel as "Oc Eo."  They knew a Vietnamese military officer stationed in the Mekong  delta area; he recovered pots from the swampy margins of rivers during the  low-water season. Such pots were said to be "from Oc Eo."

Mrs. Tran Thi Thanh Dao, Museum of Vietnamese History,  Ho Chi Minh City,  believes this piece is from Oc Eo, based on similar  pieces in her museum identified as coming from Oc Eo, collected after 1975 from  Oc Eo by a museum staff member.  He  collected them near Vong The mountain.  They were discarded by local people who had been digging for gold and other Oc  Eo-era artifacts or digging their fields for planting.  See also S2004.49, 99, 162–164.

2. (Louise Cort, 13  May 2005) The Hauges owned a copy of Malleret's 1960 publication on Oc Eo and  employed it to confirm the pieces they acquired as "Oc Eo culture."  It is important to note that Malleret acquired all his ceramic samples, except  those that he excavated from Oc Eo, as surface finds  located in the course of general surveys of other sites (Malleret 1960, 92).

Malleret summarized his vision of Oc Eo  culture ceramics drawn from such surveys: "Ceramics held a considerable  role in the material life of the ancient inhabitants of the Transbassac.  Judging from the enormous mass of fragments that lie scattered under the sun in  Oc Eo and occur in compact sheets at certain levels,  one is inclined to think that the ceramic industry occupied an important place  among their activities. In fact, it seems that one was in the presence of a  city whose population had been dense and had deposited enormous accumulations  of debris over several centuries. But pottery was not mixed solely into the  domestic aspect, where it was manifest as stoves, as cooking pots, as diverse  containers, as lamps, as rattles for infants. It had furnished containers and  crucibles for metallurgists, net weights for fishermen, spindle-whorls for the  preparation of thread from textile fibers, and perhaps also stamps for  impressing patterns onto woven cloth.... It is possible that pottery served  numerous additional offices in a commercial setting in a maritime  location." He goes on to mention the probable roles of small-mouthed  vessels for storage and transport of foodstuffs, including oils and salt; of  straight-necked jars for holding liquids and creating an air-tight seal  necessary for fermenting fish sauce (nuoc mam); of small, wide-mouthed vessels  for domestic storage of materials in the kitchen, as well as for unguents,  perfumes, medicines, cosmetics, and rouge (although they were easily portable  and could have been commercial items). He proposes that ceramic containers,  along with wooden ones, served to transport raw materials and finished products  of the important industries of Oc Eo (including gold jewelry, glass and stone  beads, bronze and tin metallurgy) (ibid., 92–93). He describes necks of large  jars over forty centimeters in diameter, presumably used for storing rainwater  (ibid., 94).

Malleret studied 291 whole objects and more than 2000 sherds  (787 from systematic excavations). He found five types of earthenware body (ibid., 98–100, analysis in Appendix I, 353–357):

  (I) unfired or very low fired, without sand (including  crucibles and spindle-whorls);

  (II) red clay containing considerable  sand and mica, naturally occurring in the clay, which seemingly was used  without adding additional temper, formed by hand or on the potter's wheel into  fishnet weights, stoves, and lids for cooking pots. Even when the exterior is  fired red or gray, the interior may retain the color of ochre earth. Some  appear to have been slipped;

  (III) red clay with added fine sand  temper, possibly derived from ground laterite containing particles of limonite;  worked by hand or on the wheel;

  (IV) blackish clay containing little sand, blackened by  firing in reduction, sometimes with burnished surface, worked by hand or on the  wheel, found in the lowest levels beneath the brick monuments at Oc Eo;

  (V) fine paste, sometimes hard but usually soft, of  homogenous, well-processed texture, variously rose, salmon, gray, or yellowish  in color, sometimes appearing to contain temper made from prefired and ground  clay, used mainly for special products with a certain "artistic  cachet."

In addition, (VI) much higher fired than the previous five  types, like stoneware, showing a connection to glazed Khmer stoneware,  suggesting a Khmer occupation level at Oc Eo.

Malleret, Louis.  1960. La civilisation matérielle d'Oc-Eo. L'Archéologie du Delta du Mékong,  tome 2. Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient, Vol. XLIII. Paris: l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient.

3.  (Louise Cort, 3 October 2008) The  paddle-impressed band of decor around the neck features a distinctive design of  diamonds alternating with teardrop-shaped forms. The distinctive large-scale  ridges impressed with paddle and anvil on the body of this pot reminds me of  the ridged texturing on the bodies of modern water jars made in Kompong Speu  province, southern Cambodia. It is not impossible that this small pot (containing  something for transport or sale) could have made its way into the Mekong River  Delta area, just across the border. The vessel in any case is not protohistoric  (Oc Eo culture) but recent, probably made within the last few centuries.

To Period added  Nguyen dynasty or XXXX. To Date added 19th–mid 20th century. To Origin added  Southern Vietnam or Southern Cambodia.