Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c13.454

v2.c13.454

'These two groups of colonies were mainly agriculturalists. The others which occupied Selensing, Panga, Puket, and Takua Pa, prospered by the exploitation of tin and gold-mines. They have left comparatively fewer traces of their civilisation, but the pits they dug in the mine-fields are still clearly distinguished from later ones by a special technique¹. It is difficult to assign any date to these colonies, and some of them may be later than the seventh century A.D. But the inscriptions, referred to above, certainly indicate that the beginnings of most of them must be referred to an earlier date, though many of the actual archæological remains undoubtedly belong to a later period.'