JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Artibus Asiae Publishers is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Artibus Asiae. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Max Loehr for his excellent advice and criticism. I also wish to thank Katherine Tsiang, who helped with the reading and correcting of my manuscript. Y. M. T he knowledge of high-fired glazed ceramics began in China in the Shang dynasty. Excavations of Shang sites at Cheng-chou, Honan Province, have yielded very early examples covered with a thin brownish-green glazeI (P1. I). When first discovered, these glazes were suspected to be isolated accidents. It had been commonly believed that glazes were first used in China in the Warring States period.2 Increasing numbers of examples have disproved this assumption, however, and now it can be said with certainty that glazed stonewares were produced in the Shang dynasty in sizable numbers. Close examination of the uniform application of glaze excludes the possibility that they might have formed accidentally. It is possible, however, that a primal glaze was produced by felicitous accident. Ash falling on vessels in the kiln during firing would have produced a glossy coating making the vessel less permeable to liquids and more pleasing to the touch and eye. With the discovery of the advantages of this outer covering, craftsmen sought consciously to reproduce it. The technique of glazing presupposes the knowledge of applying an outer coating to the body of a clay vessel to produce a desired effect. Precedents for the use of glazing techniques were set in Neolithic times. Yang-shao type pottery shows the use of white slip applied to vessels and painted over with red and black pigments. The successful production of a glaze would also have required skill in controlling the temperature and atmosphere of the kiln during firing. The black and grey color of Lung-shan pottery and the pure white pottery of the Shang dynasty are the products of such skill. Shang and Western Chou glazed ceramics have been discovered at a number of sites in lower Huang Ho region. Li Chi first identified Shang examples in I929 which were found with oracle bones and white carved pottery at Hsiao-t'un, An-yang, the last capital of Shang dynasty.3 Among the glazed pieces were found tsun, lei and tou.4 (P1. 2). Li Wen-hsin, New documents of Chinese ceramics, Wen Wu, I 954, no. I0, p. 5 8. Cheng-chou Erh-li-kang, Report on excavations at Erh-li-kang, Cheng-chou, Peking, Academia Sinica, Institute of Archaeology, 195 9, p. 3o, P1. I o :6 and fig.; 2I: 5.
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