K'un-lun po
Ancient sailing ship from Java or Sumatra
K'un-lun po (also called Kun-lun po, Kunlun po, or K'un-lun bo; Chinese: 崑崙舶) were ancient sailing ships used by Austronesian sailors from Maritime Southeast Asia, described by Chinese records from the Han dynasty. In the first millennium AD, these ships connected trade routes between India and China. Ships of this type were still in use until at least the 14th century.
Description
The characteristics of this ship are that it is large (more than 50–60 m long), the hull is made of multiple plankings, has no outrigger, mounted with many masts and sails, the sail is in the form of a tanja sail, and has a plank fastening technique in the form of stitching with plant fibers.
These ships are observed by the Chinese as visiting their southeastern ports and identified as K'un-lun po (or bo), which means "ships of the southern people". They were not made by the people around the Malacca straits, large shipbuilding industry only existed in the eastern half of Java.
History
Greek astronomer Ptolemy said in his work Geography (ca. 150 AD) that huge ships came from the east of India. This was also confirmed by an anonymous work called Periplus Marae Erythraensis. Both mention a type of ship called kolandiaphonta (also known as kolandia, kolandiapha, and kolandiapha onta), which is a straightforward transcription of the Chinese word K'un-lun po—meaning "ships of Kun-lun".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “K'un-lun po” is ancient sailing ship from Java or Sumatra. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through K'un-lun, Ancient and sailing, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “K'un-lun po” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.