The Significance of Clay Rollers of the Ban Chiang Culture, Thailand
William J. Folan, Burma H. Hyde · ScholarSpace (University of Hawaii at Manoa) · 1983
LAY OBJECTS from the upper zones of the prehistoric village site of Ban Chiang, Thailand and environs and similar rollers from Non Nok Tha (Solheim, personal communication) and Kampuchea (Cambodia) (Mansuy 1902:20) dating from approximately 1600 B.C. (Higham 1979:674) have usually been identified as rollers used to decorate textiles with colored designs (Charoenwongsa 1973: 8; Kanchanagama 1975; Gorman and Charoenwongsa 1976:22, 23; Van Esterik and Kress 1978) (Plates I and II).Additionally, these rollers have been interpreted to be amulets worn in certain ritual contexts as well as being indicators of personal accomplishment such as success in trading, military, or other high status activities (Van Esterik and Kress 1978:55).The purpose of this paper is to offer an alternative interpretation for the use of these clay artifacts based on studies of simil"r artifacts from such places as Iran, the southeastern United States, and California that are thought to represent ideographic tokens (Schmandt-Besserat 1977; Webb 1977; Hyde and Folan 1980; Folan and Hyde n.d.) (Plate III, Figs. 1 and 2). BAN CHIANGThe clay artifacts from Ban Chiang are approximately 3-10 cm long by 2.5-4 cm in diameter.They appear to be hand molded, mostly convex cylinders finally shaped while leather-hard to form either a series of narrow disks or lower relief before being fired to a high degree of hardness.In at least two cases (Plate J) the clay objects appear to