Numerous objects are mentioned in the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals, a semi-historical account of the Malacca sultants, thei ancestors, and their descendents, first written in 1482 by a Johore prince, Raja Bongsu, also known as Tun Sri Lanang. The objects include textiles, weapons, metalwork, furniture, musical instruments, tombstones, vessels, buildings, gardens and fortifications. The importance of these objects is twofold : first, although they are accidental to the narration of the story, they give us hints about of the material culture of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Malacca and the surrounding port cities. Second, they tell us something about how artistic objects were to be understood in Malacca in those centuries.

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