Humans love color and splendor. In the early civilization, people created pottery from scratch, and then they could not wait to paint cups, plates, pots, pots, bowls, pots and other utensils with dazzling patterns and heaven and earth creatures, and the brilliance of faience showed off illuminated thousands of years of civilization. But in the human pottery culture, there is a very unique existence, it is a single color, not to be dazzling, but so different, low-key luxury, by the world archaeological community as "the most exquisite production of the earth civilization", it is the eggshell black pottery high handle cup.
Thanks to modern craftsmanship, porcelain can reach a thinness of 1 mm has been regarded as a treasure. More than 4,000 years ago, the craftsmen who lived in the Longshan culture period were already skilled in their craftsmanship, and they could make eggshell black pottery high-handled cups with a thickness of 0.2-0.5 mm.
The few eggshell black pottery cups unearthed are rare treasures, they are as thin as cicada wings, black paint is as new, the posture is beautiful, light as silk, like an oriental pearl that brings together the wisdom and peak craftsmanship of the ancients, interpreting the unique songs of the ages.
Compared with eggshell pottery, even the most gorgeous and dazzling cups in our hands will be eclipsed.
Take a look at the treasure of the town hall and the best value of the eggshell black pottery
There are very few surviving complete vessels of the eggshell black pottery high-handled cup, and each piece is a national treasure. In the eggshell black pottery high-handled cup in the collection of the Shandong Museum, there is a treasure of the town hall - the high-handled cup. It has a diameter of 12 cm, an inner diameter of 4.9 cm, a height of 16.9 cm and a shank height of 13.2 cm. It was excavated in 1960 at the site of Yaoguanzhuang in Weifang, Shandong. This ingenious set of cups, the handle of the cup is inserted into the cup, the wide edge of the cup is like a straw hat, but also like a blooming flower, deep abdomen and large capacity, and its handle is shaped into a fine bamboo stripe. This set of cups is made in a complex process, but the shape of the vessel is regular and symmetrical, as thin and crisp as an eggshell, and it is rare that it can be left intact.
There is also an eggshell black pottery high-handled cup in the Shandong Museum, which is the most beautiful of the excavated cultural relics. This eggshell black pottery high-handled cup excavated from the site of Rizhao Donghaiyu has a height of 19 centimeters and a caliber of 4.5 centimeters. The middle of its slender handle has been made by craftsmen into a raised hollowed-out drum belly, and the surface is covered with neat and uniform small skeleton holes, and the abdomen is hidden with pottery pills, which is exquisitely skilled. Now, 4,000 years later, the cup body still reflects a black luster, and the elegant temperament exudes seductive charm. I don't know how many people linger in front of this high-value eggshell black pottery high-handled cup, stare at it for a long time, and feel the essence of human craftsmanship, in order to print this masterpiece into their minds.
The surviving eggshell black pottery high-handled cup is extremely rare at present, and after thousands of years of burial, most of them have been reduced to fragments when they are excavated. As an endorsement of Longshan culture, it embodies the peak level of neolithic ancient pottery.
Extremely complex processes stop at imagination
The earliest discovery of eggshell black pottery fragments was in 1930, located in Zhangqiu Chengziya Longshan Cultural Site, and in the Longshan Cultural Belt Eggshell Black Pottery High Handle Cup is mainly distributed in Weifang, Linyi, Zibo, Qingdao area, mostly excavated in tombs. What surprises archaeologists is that whether it is fragments or relatively complete pottery cups, they all have different shapes and unique characteristics, which shows that the high-handled cup is by no means mass-produced, but can only be the condensed efforts of a very small number of craftsmen who have mastered high-precision craftsmanship.
After scientific analysis, the material of the eggshell black pottery high-handled cup is a fine mud deposited in rivers and lakes that has been repeatedly washed and does not contain any impurities. But in the face of its craftsmanship, we can only spread the wings of imagination: more than 4,000 years ago, some tribal aristocrats in the Longshan cultural belt monopolized the exquisite black pottery craftsmen, after generations of research and experimentation, they slowly groped out a process for producing eggshell black pottery; in this process, they invented a pottery wheel with a speed of up to 200 rpm, this high-precision inertial fast wheel, which can precisely control the speed and steering, and the embryo-making craftsmen can experience countless failures to make the pottery embryo reach the ultimate thinness The craftsmen also mastered the secret craft of polishing, decorating, firing and carburizing the pottery embryos... But what are their power transmission devices? The modern imagination is in trouble at the moment, because it is a mystery.
Ritual vessels used for sacrifice are symbols of power and rank
With such a complex process, so much manpower and materials to make such a refined thin pottery, it will never really be used in daily life, but for other purposes. The mysterious black metal luster of the black pottery eggshell high handle cup has an intuitive visual impact and shock, which makes people involuntarily feel infinite awe. Therefore, it can only be a ceremonial vessel for nobles in sacrifice, funeral, conquest, and feasting, and use utensils with extreme craftsmanship to express the "ritual" revered in major occasions, which is a symbol of power and rank, and a manifestation of the status and status of your surname and power.
Human beings are keen to constantly push the limits and surpass themselves, and the eggshell black pottery high-handled cup has reached the peak of pottery making technology in prehistoric culture, leaving a brilliant black pearl for future generations. In the late Longshan culture, after hundreds of years of development, eggshell black pottery high-handled cups have become rare. At this time, the tribe was in turmoil, the culture changed, and in the eastern land, a new type of handicraft industry - copper smelting appeared, and the wheel of history rolled into the thick and atmospheric Bronze Age.