Far East Kingdoms

Funan (Cambodia & Vietnam)
AD 68 - 550

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By the time the Sa Huỳnh culture of central and southern Vietnam was fading, around the beginning of the third century AD, the region had already emerged into the early historical record. Kingdoms such as Annam and Nam Viet had been ended by a phase of Han Chinese dominance, but the kings of a renewed Nam Viet took Vietnam out of the fading Iron Age and into the medieval period.

To the south of the Sa Huỳnh, the Óc Eo culture flourished as the archaeological expression of the kingdom of Funan. The preceding Dong Nai culture recorded the proto-Funan period in this southerly territory. Also recorded as the alternative 'Phu Nam' - the same name but viewed from an entirely Vietnamese perspective - its history is extremely patchy. Little definitive dating is known for its rulers, and in many cases even the names of those rulers are unknown. It emerged during the early days of the 'Second Chinese Domination' of Vietnam, just a quarter of a century into a period of half a millennium of Chinese control of the north.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Vietnam: A New History, Christopher Goscha, from Early Mainland Southeast Asia, C Higham (River Books Co, 2014), from Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopaedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor, Keat Gin Ooi (ABC-Clio, 2004), and from External Links: Cultural elements of Cham Pa in Dai Viet capital and its vicinity, Nguyen Tien Dong (TiaSang.com), and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Vietnam (Countrystudies), and Pre-Dong Son cultures (Vietnam National Museum of History), and Vietnam in the First State Foundation Period (Vietnam National Museum of History).)

1st century AD

First (female) ruler of Funan.

AD 200s

Diplomatic relations are maintained with the Murunda dynasty of rulers in northern Kalinga during the third century AD. King Dhamadamadhara of Murunda receives the envoy, Su-Wu, who represents King Fan Chan of Funan.