Chapter 4 Chapter Four: The Development of Pottery Craftsmanship and the Invention of Porcelain in Xia, Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States

From a large number of ancient Chinese documents and historical legends, it can be seen that the Xia people, who lived in the vast plains in the middle and lower reaches of the fertile Yellow River, developed rapidly in productivity and lived a relatively stable life, entered the slave society first through the form of tribal alliances. Xia was the first to establish a slavery country.The central area ruled by the Xia Dynasty was roughly in the west of Henan and the south of Shanxi.Archaeological data confirm the existence of Xia.According to the records of "Bamboo Book Chronicles" and "Historical Records Xia Benji", Xia, from Yu to Jie, had 14 generations and 17 kings, a total of more than 400 years. In the 1930s, not long after the remains of the Shang Dynasty were discovered at the Yin Ruins in Anyang, some people raised the issue of Xia culture, negated the suspicion of the existence of Xia by the doubters, and proposed that Yangshao culture is Xia culture.It was also proposed that the Longshan culture was the Xia culture. After the 1950s, Chinese archaeology has made great progress, and it has gained an understanding of the cultural features, ages, and mutual relations of various regions.Started to explore the Xia culture with the method of modern archaeology.According to literature records, the upper reaches of the Yingshui River in western Henan, the lower reaches of the Yi and Luo Rivers near Luoyang, and the lower reaches of the Fenshui River and the vicinity of the Susu River in southern Shanxi were the active areas of the Xia people. In 1959, a large number of Erlitou culture and Henan Longshan culture sites were excavated, which were earlier than the Shang Dynasty and became important objects for exploring Xia culture.In particular, the Erlitou culture can be divided into four periods of development, with its own characteristics and stages of development. Later, the Dongxiafeng site in Xia County, Shanxi was excavated, and the connection and differences between the two were found. The Wangwan culture of Longshan culture in Henan The relics and the Taosi ruins in Linfen, Shanxi Province have very distinctive cultural features, which provide valuable information for the discussion of Xia culture.Now the main opinion is that the four phases of Erlitou culture are all Xia culture, because although there are changes in the second and third phases, the same factors are the main ones, and they are all earlier than Zhengzhou Bodu.Some people claim that the Henan Longshan culture is not the Xia culture, while others claim that there is an inheritance relationship between the Wangwan type and the Erlitou culture. The dating shows that it is within the Xia calendar, so the middle and late stages of the Henan Longshan culture belong to the Xia culture, and the early stage should be the first. Xia culture.Some people claim that Henan Longshan culture, Erlitou culture and Erligang period Shang culture are of the same origin, Xia and Shang cultures have the same origin, and Xia culture is actually the cultural relics of that period in the Xia Dynasty.These understandings reflect that there are great differences in the understanding of the research object among researchers, and many issues still need to be further explored.Regarding pottery making in the Xia Dynasty, "Mozi Gengzhu Pian" has "Pottery was cast in Kunwu", which says that the Kunwu people in the Xia Dynasty were good at firing pottery and casting copper.Judging from the early Erlitou site and the Dongxia Fengxia cultural site, the soil materials and technological procedures used for pottery making are not much different from those made in Neolithic sites.They are all made of ordinary clay, such as gray pottery, gray brown pottery, black pottery and so on.From the pottery, there are two types of clay pottery and sandy pottery.There is a small amount of white pottery, which uses northern crucible as raw material.Most of the daily utensils and utensils are not finely made, and they are formed by the method of building clay sticks and plates, and there are not many wheel systems.Polished black pottery is finer.The surface is carefully polished, and the firing temperature is around 800°C.The utensils and containers used for drinking and eating include beans, flat pans, high-legged pans, three-legged pans, deep belly basins, small-mouthed high-necked pots, jars, urns, etc.Wine vessels include goblets, jue, jue and so on.Cooking utensils include tripods, deep-bellied pots with folded edges, and round-bellied pots with extravagant mouths.Pottery has patterns, some of which are mainly for decoration, for good looks.Some decorations also play a role in strengthening the body.The decorations include string pattern, leaf vein pattern, petal pattern, cloud and thunder pattern, circle pattern, rope pattern, square pattern, basket pattern, rivet pattern and so on.From the excavation of cultural relics, we know that the scale of the pottery handicraft industry is small, and the pottery kilns are all found individually, and the kiln sites in groups have not been found, and the construction of pottery kilns is not large. Compared with the Neolithic Age, the pottery kilns have changed little. The shape of the kiln is a bun-shaped kiln, with a kiln chamber, kiln grate [bibi], fire chamber, pillars and fire door.The kiln wall is arc-shaped and converges upward. The bottom diameter of the kiln chamber is 1.28 meters. The bottom of the kiln is paved with grass mixed with mud to form a thick kiln grate.Compared with Neolithic kilns, this structure can make the flame rise evenly and improve the quality of pottery.

After entering the Shang Dynasty, the improvement of pottery making technology was firstly reflected in the improvement of pottery kilns. The Shang Dynasty was also a steamed bread kiln, with a higher fire chamber, a fire door, and larger grate holes, which were conducive to the full combustion of fuel and increased temperature.Shang Dynasty pottery includes clay pottery, sandy pottery, red pottery and sandy red pottery, muddy black pottery, black skin pottery, and white pottery, with the first type being the main one.The common shapes of utensils include tripod, steamer, steamer, 鬲, 斝, goblet, jue, 盉, bean, gui, three-legged plate, basin, urn, large-mouthed statue, cylinder, etc.Some pottery is very finely made, the surface is polished, or convex string patterns are applied on the polished pottery, and striped double hook patterns, cloud and thunder patterns, circle patterns, etc. are printed by patting.On the other hand, a large number of domestic pottery uses pottery beaters to make deep Jomon patterns, with additional pile patterns and concave string patterns on the edge or shoulders, and there are also some square patterns. Fine pottery is shallowly engraved with fish-shaped patterns and Kui Dragon pattern, cicada pattern.

The Shang Dynasty lasted for more than four centuries from the 16th century BC to the 11th century BC. Archaeologists divided the Shang culture into two periods: early and late.The early period was from the establishment of the Shang Dynasty to the time before Pan Geng moved to Yin, and the later period was from Pan Geng’s move to Yin to the end of Shang Dynasty.There have been some changes in the craftsmanship and types of pottery in these two periods. Early Shang pottery.The selection and processing of mud materials are more meticulous, the daily utensils are more delicate, and the carcass is relatively thin.Mainly muddy gray pottery and sandy gray pottery.The surface of fine pottery is black, and the fetal heart is taupe, which is the so-called black pit pottery.Thin and bright black pottery is also produced, but in small quantities.A lot of cooking utensils used by folks are still coarse terracotta and brown pottery with coarse sand.The decoration of the pottery is very regular, and the decoration effect is very beautiful, such as clear rope pattern, string pattern, cloud thunder pattern, double hook pattern, circle pattern, open hole and additional pile pattern.Compared with the pottery of the Xia Dynasty, the number of food utensils in the eating utensils has increased. Widened, stable and strong, it replaced the high-stalked beans on a shallow plate that were not easy to place steadily in the Xia Dynasty; the cooking vessel tripod made of sandy pottery in the Xia Dynasty was also made of fine mud polished pottery, and its function was changed from a cooking vessel to a food vessel; The bowl is widely used, the bowl body is widened, and two thick ears are added.Among drinking vessels, vessels for drinking and drinking, such as goblets, jue, jia, yu, etc., are made in various and large quantities.For cooking utensils such as cooking rice, cooking meat, and boiling water, 鬲 was used a lot, and Ding was reduced. 甗 was added.

White pottery, Shang Dynasty white pottery craftsmanship is outstanding, far surpassing the Neolithic Age. All kinds of vessels are made solemn and elegant, with matching patterns and shapes. Like bronze wares, they are dense and noble, with a sense of mystery. All kinds of pottery in the early Shang Dynasty, from the rigorous workmanship, show the prosperity of a dynasty in its rising period. Late Shang Dynasty Pottery.During this period, the bronze craftsmanship was highly developed, and the daily utensils and ritual vessels were solemn, exquisite and luxurious, representing the highest achievement of Shang Dynasty art.Some pottery also learned the shape and decorative patterns of bronze ware.Pottery was widely used by all classes of society.Pottery is a highly popular and practical handicraft with a large output, many varieties and rich contents.Although pottery decoration also learned the patterns of bronze ware, there are still a large number of patterns made during the pottery making process that help the pottery to form stable and improve the yield, such as Jomon, checkered pattern, basket pattern, etc.Some decorations to beautify pottery, such as petal pattern, square pattern, flame pattern, swirl pattern, circle pattern and tadpole pattern, are widely used.Solemn and simple, the same patterns as bronze patterns, such as zigzag pattern, herringbone pattern, taotie pattern, dragon pattern, cloud and thunder pattern, milk nail pattern, serial pattern, etc., are both mysterious and beautiful.

During the 273 years from Pan Geng's move to Yin to the demise of Zhou, the Shang Dynasty gradually became corrupt.Like copper ware, pottery was produced in large quantities, and the production was very particular. The upper classes were addicted to alcohol, and the number of pottery wine utensils increased sharply.After the fall of the Shang Dynasty, the inscriptions on the bronzes of the Western Zhou Dynasty revealed the corruption of the rulers of the Shang Dynasty, many of which were related to the merchants' greed for alcohol.The inscription on the famous bronze vessel "Da Yu Ding" said: "The merchant "only borders and marquises, Dian Yu (yu Yu) Yin Baipi, and his rate is in wine."A social atmosphere often starts from the ruling group and spreads to the upper class of society, and it doesn't take long for it to spread to the common people. This is how the society of the Shang Dynasty formed a drinking atmosphere.In the late Shang Dynasty, a large number of bronze vessels were wine vessels, which were used by the upper class in society. Among the pottery, there were more wine vessels, such as gu, jue, jia, jug, zun, you [youyou], zhi [zhizhi] and other wine vessels. The utensils are very popular and are used by all classes of society.Food utensils mainly include gui, plates, beans, etc.; containers for holding things mainly include pots, jars, urns, etc.Cooking utensils made of sandy pottery include 鬲, 甗, pots, 甑 and so on.The pottery used by the common people, especially the cooking utensils, mainly focuses on practicality and is less artistic.The carcass is relatively rough and thick, and the decorations are mainly thick rope patterns, triangular scratch patterns, net patterns, etc.

The society of the Shang Dynasty buried the dead generously. After the death of the princes and dignitaries of the ruling group, people buried them with precious bronzes, jades, ivory carvings, and exquisite gray, black and white pottery.The common people were buried with rough pottery.There is a kind of pottery with very rough craftsmanship, low firing temperature, high water absorption, loose texture, grayish yellow pottery color, and easy to break.This kind of pottery cannot be used in daily life. They are specially made for the funeral of the dead. This kind of pottery is called Ming ware.Some Ming ware are also very finely made, although the fire is low, they have high artistic value.For example, a large amount of black leather pottery was unearthed from the Yin Ruins of the capital city of the Shang Dynasty in Anyang, Henan Province, on which were painted taotie patterns, triangular patterns, cloud and thunder patterns, and checkered patterns in red colors.

White pottery, white pottery made in the late Shang Dynasty was more elegant, and the main shapes of the vessels were 鬶, ​​pot, 盉, jue, 罍 [lei Lei], plate, you, bowl, bean, bowl, gui, etc.The pattern decoration is complicated and rigorous, including Taotie pattern, Kuilong pattern, zigzag pattern, back pattern, cloud and thunder pattern, etc. Printed hard pottery, a kind of gray or taupe pottery produced in the southern part of China in the Shang Dynasty. The surface is densely printed, but the patterns of each unit can be seen. The texture is harder than ordinary pottery, with a hardness of five to five. Six degrees, the firing temperature is about 1,000 degrees, and the water absorption rate is far lower than that of ordinary pottery, which is called imprinted hard pottery.In the Shang Dynasty, it was found in Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangdong, Fujian and other places.It is found most in Jiangxi, and it is found in Henan, Hebei, Shanxi and Shandong in the northern loess belt.

Printed hard pottery has been produced in the late Neolithic period in the south. At the beginning, it was printed patterns on ordinary pottery. In the late Neolithic age, it was fired into hard pottery and formed with a fast wheel. It is durable, simple and thick, and is a common shape in the Shang Dynasty. There are cauldrons, urns, statues, pots, and so on.Craftsmen carved square patterns, cloud and thunder patterns, zigzag patterns, herringbone patterns, leaf vein patterns and thick-lined fretwork on the pottery rackets of pottery tools, which were densely stamped on the carcass during molding.The rope is tied to the pottery racket, and the pattern that is shot is the Jomon, and the Jomon is mostly shot on the bottom outer wall of the utensil.

Zhou is an ancient tribe in the central and western parts of the Loess Plateau. They have lived in the Jingshui and Weishui basins since ancient times and engaged in farming and animal husbandry.When he arrived at Gugong Danfu, he settled down in Fufeng and Qishan, Shaanxi.By the time of King Wen and King Wu, the main tribes moved to Feng and Hao, and their power gradually became stronger. They united with the eight powerful tribes of Shu, Yong, Qiang, Wei, Lu, and Peng to launch a war to destroy the Shang.In the 11th century BC, the Shang Dynasty was destroyed and the Zhou Dynasty was established.The Zhou Dynasty was divided into several stages. The Western Zhou Dynasty was from the 11th century BC to 770 BC. The Eastern Zhou Dynasty was from 770 BC to 476 BC, which is often called the Spring and Autumn Period.The period from 475 BC to 221 BC was the Warring States Period, which ended when Qin Shihuang unified China.

Compared with the pottery of the Shang Dynasty, the number of wine vessels in the pottery of the Western Zhou Dynasty was greatly reduced.Cooking utensils made of sandy pottery, such as tripods, 鬲, and 甗, were used in the Shang Dynasty when they were set up and a fire was fired underneath, so the feet of the utensils were made thin and tall.In the late Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, due to the change of usage habits, when making pottery and various cooking utensils, the bottom was widened and the abdomen was deepened to accommodate more food. Convex almost becomes an arc.Containers such as pots and beans are relatively wide in shape with straight lines, and the trumpet-shaped feet of beans are flexibly arranged according to the width and depth of the upper plate.The ring feet of the gui vessels also have different arrangements, and the general trend is that they are more concise than Shang Dynasty pottery, and pay more attention to the display of practical functions.

The daily utensils are mainly argillaceous gray pottery with good texture, and the cooking utensils are sandy gray pottery, red pottery and brown gray pottery.Eating utensils include plates, bowls, beans and so on.Containers for holding things include pots, urns, cans, etc., and cooking utensils are mainly 鬲, cauldron, and jars. Warring States pottery handicraft industry has obvious characteristics of the times: First, in addition to the small workshops distributed among the people as agricultural sidelines, the political and economic centers and commercial centers of the vassal states have developed large-scale kilns, such as the capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, that is, the Zhouwangcheng in Luoyang, and Yanxia, ​​the capital of the Yan Kingdom. Houma in Shanxi, the capital of Jin State, Linzi in Shandong, the capital of Qi State, Maojia Mountain in Jiangling within the capital of Chu State, Xiaoshan Evolution Zone in Zhejiang Province, the hometown of Yue State, and Fusheng District in Shaoxing, etc., the pottery handicraft industry is very developed, and the remains of a kiln are as many as several The area of ​​10,000, 100,000, and hundreds of thousands of square meters is thick, which shows that the production scale is large, very prosperous, and the operation time is very long.As the crafts of the various pottery regions competed, workshop owners and artisans took steps to improve quality.Products appear in the same area, small workshops will also learn from and imitate from workshops with strong technical force, so that the quality of pottery will be further improved. Second, it was popular in the Warring States Period to engrave craftsmen's inscriptions on utensils. Those official inscriptions with ancient documents are the products of official workshops.But the largest number are the inscriptions of various private workshops, which are found in various places.For example, at the site of the pottery workshop area in the ancient city of Wuji, Wu'an County, Hebei Province, a large number of pottery and pottery pieces with inscriptions were found.The inscriptions include: "Niu Wentao", "Su Jisi", "Youzhou [Chui Chui]", "Han □", "History □", "Sun □", "Unsun", "Ji(Qi〔qiqi〕 ) Chang”, “Ai Ji”, “Jun” and so on.The content of these inscriptions is complicated, and no matter whether the surname or the first name are printed, they are not from the same workshop.These are the products of some private workshops, and the products of each workshop bear the mark of each workshop owner.Official workshops have abundant funds, many craftsmen, only one stamp, and the products are more standardized and of better quality.Products with imprints from official workshops and private workshops have been found in Luoyang, Zhengzhou, Xianyang, Linzi and other ancient capital sites of the Warring States Period.Private workshops are small, while government-run workshops are large. They are all concentrated in a certain production area, and the houses where craftsmen work are very small and simple.The pottery kilns are dense, and each pottery-fired unit is only three to seven square meters from the pottery kiln site in the ancient city of Wuji, Wu'an County, Hebei Province.These facts show that the production of pottery is very prosperous, and the working conditions of craftsmen are very poor. It is not easy for them to exert their high intelligence and produce a large amount of exquisite pottery under such difficult conditions. Third, due to the large demand for pottery utensils in the society, various workshops have given full play to their technological advantages, and some areas have appeared to specialize in the production of certain types of products. stamp the child.Some are good at firing pottery pots, and the pottery pots they burn are round and regular, very easy to use.This division of labor greatly improved the Warring States pottery making process from blank casting to firing. From small utensils of general eating utensils to large pots and giant urns, they were all fired well, with the same color throughout and no distortion. Plain pottery without any decoration is beautiful. Fourth, the development of Chinese history into the Warring States period gradually tended to unify, and this tendency became more and more obvious culturally, but the economic and cultural systems of each vassal state formed its own system.There are still great differences in geographical conditions, pottery raw materials, craft traditions, and people's living customs.Therefore, the pottery produced has its own characteristics, especially in the north of the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin, coastal areas, northeast, and northwest remote areas.After Qin Shihuang unified China, regional differences were still very clear in the long historical period. The method of pottery making is that daily-use utensils are formed by pottery carts, with skilled skills and few decorations. The surface of the utensils has thin and uniform wheel patterns.The utensils with complex structures or huge shapes are made by the method of building clay strips.Small works of strong artistic quality, or accessories for various images of decorative utensils, are made by kneading.Models or imitations are used for special utensils such as duck egg pots, pottery figurines with human figures, animal images, and tiles.Although bronze ware, lacquer ware, low-temperature glazed pottery and primitive celadon were representative of living utensils with a high level of craftsmanship at that time, they were only used by powerful figures in the upper class of society, while pottery was used by a wide range of social classes.Craftsmen are intelligent, different types of pottery with different uses are made with different skills, and the artistic consciousness is quite strong. Fifth, during the Warring States period, bronze art gradually declined.Bronze ware is complicated in craftsmanship and expensive, but if a complete set of ritual vessels is made of pottery, the cost is very low.Hundreds of pottery can be burned in one kiln, and the upper class of nobles use it as funeral objects without lowering their status at all, and it also meets the requirements of "ritual".Common people can also afford it.Gradually, the concept of "no courtesy to ordinary people" was broken, and bronze-like utensils such as tripod, pot, gui, 甗, 簠 and other Ming wares were produced, which were exquisitely made, unlike Shang and Zhou pottery Ming wares, which were crude and loose, which were perfunctory for the dead. .Ming wares were produced in a complete set, exquisite and elegant, and some not very large tombs were also unearthed, reflecting the changes of the times. The imprinted hard pottery in the south of the Yangtze River developed to the coastal areas during the Warring States Period, and was widely used in people's daily life.The imprinted hard pottery in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is of a high level. It is mainly a kind of gray carcass utensils, including altars, pots, bowls, bowls, etc. Compared with ordinary gray pottery, although there are not many types of utensils, each utensil There are many sizes and specifications, and the output is large.Among the pottery fragments unearthed from the Warring States Cultural Sites in the south of the Yangtze River, hard pottery with printed patterns accounted for about 40% of the total number of pottery pieces, and hard pottery with printed patterns accounted for 50% of the total number of unearthed objects from tombs.The production of imprinted hard pottery during the Warring States Period in the coastal areas of Guangxi, Guangdong is quite common. Some utensils, such as ampoules, pots, urns, vats, etc., have some similarities in shape with products in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, that is to say, there are many commonalities in craftsmanship.The shape of the four-eared gourd [pao planer] pot with small mouth, thin neck, sloping shoulders, and flat abdomen, the double-handled [pan pan] three-legged altar, and the three-legged covered basin are all very regional.The imprinted hard pottery in various regions has decorative patterns, and the decorative patterns in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi include fretwork, sieve pattern, Pozi pattern, fine square pattern, square frame and round hole pattern, etc.In Guangdong and Guangxi, dotted and linear comb-tooth patterns, smooth grate patterns, round bead patterns, comb-tooth patterns, etc. are popular. Based on the long-term development of pottery technology, China invented porcelain in the middle of Shang Dynasty.Porcelain is made of china clay (kaolin), with a layer of vitreous glaze applied on the surface, and fired at a high temperature above 1200 °C.Porcelain is characterized by dense carcass, impervious to water, and airtight. There is a layer of glassy glaze fired at high temperature on the surface, which does not hide dirt, is easy to wipe and clean, clean and hygienic, and is solemn and elegant, which is incomparable to pottery.The invention of porcelain is a major contribution made by the Chinese people to the progress of human utensils. According to archaeological excavations, Chinese porcelain was invented in the middle of the Shang Dynasty.A kind of utensils with hard texture and glassy green glaze were first discovered in the cultural site of Erligang, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, such as Dakouzun, which are very hot and can make a pleasant metallic sound when tapped lightly.Later, it was found in Henan, Shandong, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places.Silicate scientists have made many scientific tests on these utensil specimens, proving that its raw material is the same as the porcelain raw materials recognized in the past dynasties, not ordinary pottery clay, but a kind of kaolin.The firing temperature reaches 1200±30°C, which is higher than the temperature of any daily pottery and the same as the firing temperature of modern porcelain.The glaze on the surface of the carcass is a high-temperature glaze fired at the same time as the body.Generally, pottery has strong water absorption, but it basically does not absorb water, and there are well-developed mullite crystals in the green body.It can be proved scientifically that it fully meets the standards of porcelain and should be the earliest porcelain in my country.Its products started from the middle of the Shang Dynasty to the Western Zhou Dynasty, Spring and Autumn Period, and the Warring States Period, and the craftsmanship gradually improved, forming an independent system.With the progress of the times, pottery has gradually lost its importance in people's life, while porcelain has become more and more important.