They did and in 2nd century BC a Greek Buddhist master travelled to Sri Lanka with many monks.

" Silver coins issued by Augustus and Tiberius have over a period of time been discovered in large numbers from the Coimbatore-Karur region ( south India).
.. These coins exhibit similarities with the Roman coins of emperors Augustus and Tiberius; like the Roman coins, the portraits on the Makkotai series do not show any jewellery on the king.
A Chera coin with the portrait of a king wearing a Roman helmet was discovered from Karur. The obverse side of the silver coin has the portrait of a king, facing left, wearing a Roman-type bristled-crown helmet. This coin may belong to the 1st century BC and may be earlier to Makkotai and Kuttuvan Kotai coins. The coin points to Romans having had trade contacts with the Chera kings and establishes that the Roman soldiers had landed in the Chera country to give protection to the Roman traders who had come there to buy materials."

The ceramics found in Bali Indonesia came from this time and region. The trade was spices and Chinese silk and souvenir boomerangs from Marrickville Land Rights Council.

Lovely Greek Tragedy. They came, they conquered.Then they got lazy and just sat at the side of the billabong for 690 years.
When Captain Cook spoke to the local aboriginals he mentioned Homer and they said in Greek with a local accent ."Yes our ancestors told us the same story".
It reminds me of the Elgin Marbles story.
The Earl of Elgin in 1803 could see that the local Turkish people living around the Parthenon were slowly removing all the marble under the sand drift that covered most of the hill. Realising that ancient Greek history was gradually being destroyed.He removed the Marbles for posterity. So in 700 years time the Greeks can still see their preserved history in LONDON.
My blonde daughter said she had a DNA ancestry test. She told me after spending some money . She had traces of African DNA.
Oh!. Please what other myths will we be told.

Yes you got it. Greek marble in UK , Greek gold rings and ceramics in Bali. They say they found Chinese porcelain from Roman times in the mud of the Thames river. Capt Cook had a wooden boat , no myth.

Hi Brock,

Well, there's two to start with:

* the Chinese sailed the southern seas, over many centuries. Well, just the 1420s actually, then the Emperors had the maps torn up. The Chinese/Mongol/Manchu empires were never maritime, so traders from elsewhere went to Chinese ports and transported goods to and from them from and to all parts of south-east Asia from India across perhaps to PNG, and certainly to and from the Philippines. All of the SE-Asian empires, Sri Vijaya, Madjapahit, Champa, Ayuttiya, Khmer, etc. were trading empires, therefore maritime. China wasn't.

* the Arab goat-herders swept out of the desert and conquered vast swathes of civilized countries - and uncivilized countries, such as the goat-herders in north-west Africa. In Spain, established monasteries and school had long traditions of transcribing ancient texts: Christian and Jewish scholars continued the tradition against their far less educated Berber overlords after the invasion in 712: eight hundred years of the dead hand of Muslim oppression. So what happened to all that mythical 'Muslim scientific flowering' afterwards ? How far did it spread across the Muslim world ? Into every corner ? Was the Ottoman Empire as renowned for its science and maths as Christian Constantinople had been ?

Yes, perhaps Austronesians taught Arab seamen the innovations of a double rudder, front and back, to greatly assist tacking. Otherwise, what seamanship would desert Arabs bring to the table ?

Nick and Thomas, please try to keep it real.

Joe

Did Java have ships able to reach east Australia?

" Yes, as demonstrated in recent shipwreck recoveries of Indonesian ships in the Java Sea. You can bring these up on-line -- under Java Sea shipwrecks." _ K Hall.

Kenneth R. Hall, Department of History, Ball State University, USA; khall2@bsu.edu, ... shipwreck archaeological recoveries in the Southeast Asia maritime region have .

Rila Mukherjee - 2011 History
Kenneth R. Hall, 'Indonesia's Evolving International Relationships In The Ninth To Early Eleventh Centuries: Evidence From Contemporary Shipwrecks.

The earliest evidence of the presence of Bajo in Sulawesi is the mention of a people called Bajo Sereng (Moluccan Bajo) in the major narrative epic from South Sulawesi — the La Galigo cycle (Pelras 1996: 74). This reference apparently relates to the role Bajo may have played in relations between the maritime powers of South Sulawesi and the Moluccas. According to Pelras, this text probably dates from the fourteenth century, at the time of the dominant kingdom of Luwu". (Stacey. 2007: 10). Their voyages began in fourth century and included sailing to Madagascar off Africa's coast . ( Ring, Salkan and La Boda. 1996).

In the Indian Ocean (Austronesians) sailed west from Maritime Southeast Asia; the Austronesian peoples reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 AD.

Dewar, RE; Wright, HT (1993). "The culture history of Madagascar". Journal of World Prehistory. 7 (4): 417–466.
Burney DA, Burney LP, Godfrey LR, Jungers WL, Goodman SM, Wright HT, Jull AJ (2004). "A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar". Journal of Human Evolution.47 (1–2): 25–63. .

Hi Nick,

Also: Coedes' 'Indianised Kingdoms of South-East Asia', and Peter Bellwood's 'The Austronesians'. Truly fascinating stuff, a joy to read.

Cheers,

Joe