Carla Sinopoli considers the evidence of two classes of
goods produced in the craft areas of Vijayanagara, the capital of an empire
that lasted from 1340 to 1565. She considers textiles and ceramics, and tests
the production of both based on three distinct types of craft production
models. These models are a) administered production, b) centralized production
and c) non-centralized production.
Sinopoli briefly describes each of the three models.
Administered production, she states, occurs when crafts are produced by some
administrative structure whether a temple or a centralized state. In
administered production, workshops are bound to the administrative structure
and should be centralized around a certain area of significance for a given
administrative structure. Centralized production occurs when there is both
large scale production and segregated workshops BUT without direct involvement
of a given structure. The last system is
non-centralized production and this is characterized by small workshops and
local consumption of the goods produced.
One interesting concept that Sinopoli to differentiate
between administered production and centralized production is that of attractiveness.
Put simply, the workshops should compete to make their goods more attractive to
potential customers, via “increasing elaboration in material complexity” (vs.,
I assume, standardized production in the case of administered production). She
does not really extrapolate on the ways she might test for attractiveness.
Moving on to textiles, Sinopoli uses what she calls
“historical documents”, which range from indigenous texts and inscriptions to
foreign accounts of the city (I will not critique her use of these sources).
Sinopoli argues that textiles were important “in long-distance trade, in temple
worship, in life crisis ceremonies, and in expressions of ritual and political
status or prerogatives.” She tells that textile production was dominated by
castes or subcastes of weavers, while they were organized in communities. The
administrative structures exercised an indirect control in the forms of
taxation, and a merchant caste was handling the distribution of the weavers.
Thus, she argues, textiles were part of centralized production since the state
exercised only indirect control over the weaving communities.
The single most important part of her argument that textiles
were, in fact, centrally produced (vs. administered production) is that the
state appears to have no involvement in distribution. This was tested
epigraphically. However, I have doubts that administrative structures were not
involved in production. First, she stipulates that the workshops were clustered
around temples. Clustering around an administrative structure is one of the
ways in which she can test for administrative production. Secondly, as she
states herself, textiles were tremendously important for political status and
or religious significance. Comparatively, ancient states did regulate clothing
practices specifically to maintain status boundaries, though this may affect
distribution more than production. The Vijayanagarese system appears less
differentiated than she initially lets on: though distribution and production
are handled by two different castes, the government, by granting exemptions and
taxing the workshops, clearly had an interest in regulating the production
aspect of textile-weaving. The dual-caste system for production/distribution
could be linked to caste relationships as much as economic impetus. Finally,
Sinopoli mentioned that “attractiveness” was the largest differentiator between
centralized and administrative production. Attractiveness never enters the
discussion. Perhaps the problem I am having is that the distinction between
administrative and centralized is more fuzzy and difficult to test for, and
thus making the distinction, problematic for scholars (since the concluding
result of the model should vary greatly).
Sinopoli's description of ceramics is more thorough and more
convincing both in terms of methodology and logic. Her point that ceramics are
not mentioned in texts is relatively moot (they are never mentioned except in
specialized texts, and even then, the ceramics really has to be unique). In spite
of lack of geographical data (and hence one cannot test for lack of spatial
clustering), her point that there is varied types of ceramic still stands. She
demonstrates technological variety by using archaeological data (specifically
water vessels) and ethnographic data. She justifies her blend of archaeology
and ethnography by stating that “continuities in production technique,
identifiable from archaeological evidence, and the limited available historic
documentary evidence supports assumptions of long-term continuity in technique
and organization.” It is worth noting that her use of ethnographic data is done
as a way to expand on archaeological data, not as a primary mode of analysis.
By looking at these pots, and comparing them to five random
samples of six vessels, she is able to conclude that the pots from Vijayanagara
appeared to correspond to an ideal type (variance in neck thickness/lip angle)
but that these samples allowed for maximum variation from potter to potter. The
site distribution of the shards appears to link types to communities and
districts. Thus, she concludes that a ceramic workshop would allow for
consumption of goods in one area. Ethnographic data is then used to show the
ways in which these workshops functioned. They functioned around the nucleated
family, with a master potter and an apprentice at the wheel. Women and children
were only involved in the firing of the pottery. From a body of twelve vessels,
she is able to conclude that vessels were very varied. This implies non-centralized
production.
One major problem with the article as a whole (even if I am
convinced that ceramics are non-centralized production) is her choice of
sources. She chooses textiles and practical ceramics (and not just any
ceramics, water-carrying vessels hence practical ceramics) as a means to
investigate production types. Prior to any analysis, knowledge from comparative
study would point to textiles being produced either administratively or
centrally, and this form of base, daily-used ceramics to being produced
locally. In other words, her evidence choice foretold the results. Then her
larger conclusion on “spheres of production” need further investigation before
the generalizations that textiles were part of a centralized-production network
(rather than administrative or even non-centralized) and ceramics were part of
a non-centralized network can be sustained.
