During the Song and Yuan dynasties, Chinese porcelain, tea, silk, etc. were continuously transported to countries around the world along the Maritime Silk Road. When people focus on the 10th and 14th centuries and explore the story of Quanzhou's porcelain industry and overseas trade, they cannot help but wonder: going back to when Did Chinese porcelain originate, and how was the porcelain industry that flourished in Quanzhou today?
These questions, with the archaeological excavation of the original celadon kiln site group in Yongchun Kuzhai Pit in 2016, have new answers, and are also exciting progress - as early as about 3800-3400 years ago, equivalent to the middle of the Xia Dynasty to the middle of the Shang Dynasty in the Central Plains, Quanzhou had a primitive celadon dragon kiln, which pushed forward the history of china's firing of primitive celadon for more than 200 years.
At the beginning of 2016, the expert group inspected the kiln site of Kuzhaikeng. (Photo by Kang Qingping)
Ancient kiln sites have been discovered one after another
Yongchun Kuzhaikeng original celadon kiln site group, located in the southwest of Zimei Village, Jiefu Township, Yongchun County. In the eyes of archaeologists, the geographical position of the pit is superior: porcelain clay, fuel (wood), and water sources are three major material conditions necessary for porcelain making.
The area where the original celadon kiln site of Kuzhaikeng is located has become the "cradle" of the original celadon porcelain. In 2007, local residents found broken ceramic pieces in a citrus grove on the mountain, which was identified by experts as original celadon porcelain. In the third national cultural relics census, the information of ancient kiln sites was entered into the national cultural relics database.
In 2014, the institute of cultural relics and archaeology of the former Fujian Museum and the Quanzhou Museum formed an archaeological team of the original celadon kiln site, and with the cooperation of the relevant departments of Yongchun and Dehua, exploratory archaeological excavations were carried out on the surrounding area of the ancient kiln site.
Yang Zelin, the project leader at the time and a researcher at the Fujian Institute of Archaeology, recalled that in 2015, when the archaeological excavation of the original celadon kiln site in Jianshan Mountain, Liaotian, everyone learned that there was a mountain called "Bitter Zhai Pit" nearby, and there were also ancient kiln sites. In January 2016 and November-December 2016, archaeologists conducted two formal excavations with an area of about 350 square meters – a primitive celadon kiln site larger than the Ancient Kiln Site in Jianshan, Liaotian.
Yang Zelin said that archaeological excavations have revealed a total of 9 kiln remains with overlapping and breaking relationships, all of which are typical early dragon kilns; kilns are built on the mountain, digging caves up the hillside, densely distributed, and the upper kiln is stacked to break the lower kiln. "The way the early kilns were built on the lower slopes of the hill and the late kilns were built along the hillside, shows that the firing here has been used for a long time and on a large scale." In other sites such as Fengze, Nan'an, Yongchun and Anxi in Quanzhou, which also belong to the Jinjiang River Basin, a large number of ceramic specimens with the same products as the Kiln Site of Kuzhaikeng have been found, and the Jinjiang River Basin should be the main consumption destination for the products of the two kiln sites of Kuzhaikeng and LiaotianJianshan.
The excavated artifacts are mainly ceramics and kiln tools. Among the ceramics, the proportion of original celadon is about 25%, the proportion of printed hard pottery is about 60%, and the proportion of kiln tools is about 15%. Ceramics are mainly shaped such as zuns, pots, bowls, pots and so on.
Previously, the earliest original celadon kiln site found in China was the Oushan kiln site in Huzhou, Zhejiang, the era can be traced back to the end of the Xia Dynasty, and the discovery of the kiln site in Kuzhai Pit has pushed forward the history of China's firing of primitive celadon by 200 years.
"The test results of carbon samples collected from the kiln show that the kiln site dates back to 1749 BC and latest to 1497 BC, that is, the earliest equivalent to the middle Xia Dynasty in the Central Plains, and the latest to the middle Shang Dynasty. This is the earliest original celadon kiln site found in China. Yang Zelin said that a large number of broken porcelain pieces were unearthed in the kiln site, and there were traces of artificial processing on the porcelain pieces, indicating that these fragments or had been used as tools for production and life, and in the era of stone tools as the main production tools, the porcelain pieces that were easier to process became an important supplement to people's daily production and living utensils.
Awarded "2016 Year
Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries in China"
In April 2017, the Kiln Site of Kuzhaikeng was awarded the "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China in 2016".
Experts commented that the origin of primitive porcelain used to focus mainly on the production area of the Dongyuanxi River Basin in Zhejiang. In fact, the vast printed hard pottery production areas along the southeast coast are technically possible to create glazed original porcelain. The Yongchun Kuzhai kiln site and the Liaotian Jianshan kiln site excavated two years ago confirm this.
In 2019, the Kiln Site of Kuzhai Pit was listed as the eighth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
Archaeological excavations at the site of the Kuzhaikeng kiln are only the beginning of understanding the history of quanzhou's original porcelain. In the follow-up investigation, archaeologists found more than 10 large-scale kiln sites in the Xia and Shang periods within a range of 2 kilometers. The Kuzhaikeng kiln site provides new materials for the study of the origin of china's original celadon and dragon kilns. Yang Zelin said that in the territory of Dehua, the remains of the residential area of the porcelain firing personnel - the pillar hole were also found, and it is speculated that there was a dry column architectural form.
Yao Hailan, deputy director of the Yongchun County Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, introduced that after the excavation of the kiln site in Kuzhaikeng, the relevant protection and utilization work is also being carried out in an orderly manner. In 2018, Yongchun County formulated and issued the "Fujian Yongchun Kuzhaikeng Archaeological Site Park - Planning Outline (2018-2030)". In order to protect the original appearance and integrity of the ancient kiln site as much as possible, nearly 1,000 square meters of steel structure protection sheds have been built locally. In January 2019, Yongchun Kuzhaikeng Archaeological Site Park was included in the first batch of provincial archaeological site parks. Last year, the kuzhai pit kiln site protection and reinforcement project was approved by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. In October this year, the "Kuzhai Pit Kiln Site Protection Plan" was completed and reported to the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, and before the end of the year, the "Kuzhai Pit Kiln Site Park Planning" is also expected to be completed. Next year, Yongchun will invest in the construction of the Ceramic Museum to do the preliminary work for the declaration of the National Archaeological Site Park.
Source 丨Quanzhou Evening News (Reporter 丨Cai Zimin)
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