During a test excavation of Fort Canning in 1984, archaeologist Prof John Miksic discovered glass shards and pottery that revealed Singapore was a port before Sir Stamford Raffles founded it in 1819. His work on the findings, published in his book Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300-1800, earned him the first ever Singapore prize this week, a honour that he describes as “very exciting”.

The award was established after an opinion column in the Straits Times that Prof Kishore Mahbubani, the chairman of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Department of History, wrote in 2014 asking for philanthropists to donate a prize dedicated to the study of Singapore’s history. An anonymous donor stepped forward, offering S$500,000, which was placed in an endowment fund. The interest will be used to pay for the annual prize.

Miksic’s prize winning book synthesises 25 years of archaeological research in the Kampong Gelam area, which was an important trading port during that period. It also draws on written sources, such as Chinese records of merchants’ travels to Southeast Asia, and offers a fundamental reinterpretation of Singapore’s early history, he said. The prize, worth S$50,000, will also allow him to continue with his excavations in the region, he added.

While he did not expect to win the prize, he hoped the book would help some 1,000 volunteers who had helped him with his excavations understand the value of their work. He also hopes to set up a website on ancient artefacts found in Singapore, and will be working with NUS Press on a sequel to the book.

A spokesman for NUS said that the prize was designed to spur interest in Singapore’s history and foster deeper discussion of the country’s place in the world. It is open to non-academic works, including fiction and films, as long as they focus on Singapore’s history.

The inaugural award ceremony for the Singapore prize was held on Thursday (Jan 11). Prof Miksic beat 29 other submissions to the prize, which was announced at the Singapore Book Awards ceremony by a four-member panel led by NUS East Asian Institute’s Professor Wang Gungwu.

The prize was launched in 2014 to mark the country’s SG50 celebrations, with its aim to make the study of Singapore’s unique and complex history more accessible to a wider audience. Its organisers hope to make the prize a yearly event in the future. The winners of the subsidiary awards, which span literary work, education titles, professional titles and children’s books, were also announced at the ceremony.