The Wushi waiguo zhuan 吳時外國傳 (Account of Foreign Countries in the Wu Period) and Nanzhou yiwu zhi 南州異物志 (Record of Unusual Things from Southern Lands) are two Sinitic texts produced in the third century, during the time of the Wu Kingdom (ca. 190-280 CE). The Wu Kingdom actively extended diplomatic and exploratory initiatives into the southern seas; the materials translated here are the earliest substantive records of the information they gathered. They are an important source for our understanding of the early patterns of settlement and exchange in "Maritime Asia," the vast expanse of the South China Sea and Indian Ocean (Acri 2018). They are especially important for what they tell us of Southeast Asia, which left no textual records from this period.
If you have visited this site before, you can navigate directly to the region of Maritime Asia that most interests you by referring to the map below. It shows the extent of the Wu Kingdom, the route of the Kang Tai embassy to Funan, and the approximate extent of ten regions of maritime Asia for which there are passages in these two texts. The regions are numbered in the order they are presented in this StoryMap; to link directly to a region, use the header bar at the top of the page. However, if this is your first time here, I strongly recommend that you start with the background information that follows.
Introduction I: The Cham Coast II: Funan III: Funan Seas IV: The Java Sea V: The Isthmus of Kra VI: The Mainland VII: South Asia (north/central... VIII: South Asia (south) IX: Sinhala (Sri Lanka) X. Parthia & Rome References
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