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Stylish stem cup from Neolithic age
June 28, 2009, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THIS stem cup with tiny holes aligned on its tubular stem is a beautiful piece of "modern art" befitting avant-garde museums around the world. Yet it was made more than 5,000 years ago by craftsmen in eastern China.
Even more amazing, the cup, 21.75 centimeters high and 7.25 centimeters in rim diameter, was made of black pottery. It has a polished wall as thin (0.5-1 millimeter) as egg shell and looks like it was cut on a lathe.
The cup, discovered in the ruins of Dawenkou Culture in today's Shandong Province, holds many clues to life in Neolithic China when a highly developed society lived in the alluvial plains of the Yellow River.
Fine loess soil deposited by the river provided mineral-rich clay for pottery making. The clay, after sifting and straining, was thrown on a potter's wheel to mould into round, hollow shapes. Decorative engraving and polishing were then applied to dried clay wares before they were fired at high temperature. To achieve a black surface, charcoal fire was doused in the final stage of kiln firing to smoulder earthenware pitch black.
Due to the purity of the clay and sophisticated firing techniques, black pottery was able to yield thin-walled hollowware and give a metallic clink when gently struck.
This beautiful cup, as exhibited in the Shanghai Museum, is similar to wine glasses of modern times, and was used to drink liquor, indicating there was already surplus grain for making alcoholic beverages. Its very high stem suggests people at the time sat on the floor with food utensils elevated from the ground for hygiene reasons.
This type of thin-walled and polished black pottery has also been discovered in the Yangtze River delta and in other Neolithic cultures, most notably the Longshan Culture. The unique craft had disappeared, however, by the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) and it was not until the early 1980s that it was revived by ceramic artists in Dezhou in Shandong Province.
Even more amazing, the cup, 21.75 centimeters high and 7.25 centimeters in rim diameter, was made of black pottery. It has a polished wall as thin (0.5-1 millimeter) as egg shell and looks like it was cut on a lathe.
The cup, discovered in the ruins of Dawenkou Culture in today's Shandong Province, holds many clues to life in Neolithic China when a highly developed society lived in the alluvial plains of the Yellow River.
Fine loess soil deposited by the river provided mineral-rich clay for pottery making. The clay, after sifting and straining, was thrown on a potter's wheel to mould into round, hollow shapes. Decorative engraving and polishing were then applied to dried clay wares before they were fired at high temperature. To achieve a black surface, charcoal fire was doused in the final stage of kiln firing to smoulder earthenware pitch black.
Due to the purity of the clay and sophisticated firing techniques, black pottery was able to yield thin-walled hollowware and give a metallic clink when gently struck.
This beautiful cup, as exhibited in the Shanghai Museum, is similar to wine glasses of modern times, and was used to drink liquor, indicating there was already surplus grain for making alcoholic beverages. Its very high stem suggests people at the time sat on the floor with food utensils elevated from the ground for hygiene reasons.
This type of thin-walled and polished black pottery has also been discovered in the Yangtze River delta and in other Neolithic cultures, most notably the Longshan Culture. The unique craft had disappeared, however, by the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) and it was not until the early 1980s that it was revived by ceramic artists in Dezhou in Shandong Province.
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