Discovery of the Ancient Ding-zhou Kiln By Dr. I-Chi HSU and Dufeng XU Farmers living east of the Fuping Pottery Art Village (FPAV) often find various types of shards when they work in the field. Some picked a few pieces and sold for a few yuan. I met one boy of six or seven years old telling me that he had picked a green one with carving and sold it for seven yuan. Then we learned that some better shape bowls could sell for much higher price. Anyway, those stories were not that surprising because finding Yao-zhou celadon pieces is common thing in Yao Xian area. But no one has ever thought about why such Yao-zhou Kiln shards have come all the way to Fuping and were buried nearby while Yao Xian is about 50 km. away. Probably this will become a major discovery! The location of the new discovery is about one to two km. east of the Fuping Pottery Art Village. FPAV has been promoting international ceramic art for more than six years. The FuLe International Ceramic Art Museums (FLICAM) was established in 2004 under the management of FPAV. In the last four years, FLICAM has built more than ten international ceramic art museums, and more than 150 international ceramic artists have spent two to four weeks in FLICAM as resident artists who have donated all their art works to the newly built museums. The chairman of FPAV, Mr. Dufeng Xu learned the existence of such shards through one of the Fuping City retired officers, Mr. Zhiqiang Fan. Immediately Mr. Xu led his colleague Mr. Xuhua Li and accompanied by Mr. Fan to visit the location and picked some shards to study them. By examining the types of pottery (including brick, roof-tile, pottery vessels, celadon and porcelain), the various colors of the glaze (black, yellow, celadon, white and milti-colored glazes), different forms of vessels; and in addition, the thin clay body, the right glaze color, and the exquisite carving, it is quite positive that this kiln site is a major one in Chinese history. Likely its productions exceeded Yao-zhou Kiln in quality and quantity, and likely earlier in age than Yao-zhou Kiln. Such kiln site should be one of the most important kilns in Chinese ceramic history. There has been an unsolved puzzle in Chinese ceramic history, which is: the exact location of Ding-zhou Kiln. The Cha Jing (Tea Bible) written by LU Yu (733-804 AD) commented firmly about the good quality of the Ding-zhou Kiln. He wrote: Bowl of Yue-zhou is the best, Ding-zhou next, Wu-zhou next, Yue-zhou, Shou-zhou and Hong-zhou even worse. Some one said Xing-zhou was better than Yue-zhou , I do not think so. So, the quality of the Ding-zhou celadon was a little inferior than the best Yue-zhou kiln, but where is the Ding-zhou Kiln? Chinese literature indicated that Ding-zhou kiln was situated in the Jin-yang, county, Shaanxi; but up to the present, there has been no discovery of any kiln site at all in Jin-yang or its nearby counties. Mr. Xu believes that there might be some errors in recordings. According to the second chapter of the Fuping County Records, in pages 6-7 of the Topography section: In Kaiyuan Year of Tang Dynasty (713-741), Fuping belonged to Yi-Ting City, and it was also called Yi county which is today Yang-Xien. In Zhen Yuan year four (788 AD) the name was changed to Chi Xian, and then to Sheng-zhou. In Tianyou year two (905 AD) it was called Ding-zhou. The year 905 AD was at the end of Tang Dynasty. Other records also indicated that 300 years before the end of Tang Dynasty, Fuping was already called Ding-zhou. Mr. LU Yu passed away around 804 AD, apparently by that time Ding-zhou kiln had already existed and produced good quality celadon bowls to earn LU Yu°Øs admiration. LU Yu never mentioned Yao-zhou Kiln and we know that the early part of the Yao-zhou kiln was the Huang-Pu Kiln which was at a primitive state at the end of Tang Dynasty. Therefore, the location near FPAV in Fuping is likely the site of the ancient famous Ding-zhou Kiln. Mr. Xu invited Yao-zhou Kiln expert, Mr. Meng Shufeng to come to FPAV and examined all shards. Mr. Meng was quite surprised and moved. He immediately classified all shards into different groups according to their ages, the types of the products and the different glazes. He firmly stated that all these shards are different from those in Yao-zhou Kiln, so they must have come from the Ding-zhou Kiln. DU Wen in 2005 presented a paper on the subject of The Celadon Vessels Unearthed from the Feng Hui Tomb. He wrote: There are many puzzles in the Yao-zhou Kiln issue such as the site of Ding-zhou Kiln mentioned by LU Yu as the no. 2 celadon kiln is never found. But from Ms. ZUO Zhenxi and my own study, it is very likely that Huang-Pu Kiln is the Ding-zhou Kiln. So, if the Ding-zhou Kiln is in Fuping, DU Wen may have to revise his view point. The British ceramic artist, Mr. Sebastian Blackie of the University of Derby in England was visiting Fuping as a resident artist to make art work for the British Museum in FLICAM. He carefully examined these shards and declared that the kiln which produced these shards was a high quality one, which could increase temperature very fast and the atmosphere of oxidization and reduction were very well controlled. He also found that they used slip techniques superbly. He also admired the celadon glaze color. He could not believe that such kiln was existed more than a thousand years ago. By looking at the shards from Ding-zhou Kiln, the celadon color is much better than the ones found in Yao-zhou Kiln. Based on record, in ancient time Fuping (Ding-zhou) always had better clay body stone and glaze stone. Yao-zhou Kiln used the local clay from the mud pond as the body of their products, but using Fuping glaze stone to make glaze. Because the quantity needed for glaze stone was much less than clay stone, and Yao-zhou Kiln could not afford to buy both and ship them in large quantities, so they only bought glaze stone from Ding Zhou. So, the Ding-zhou Kiln showed a better glaze color than Yao-zhou Kiln. This likely caused by the better clay stone Fuping had. Another saying is that Fuping also produces very good quality white slip, fine and pure. Many houses in Fuping use such slip to paint their wall and it is a clear white and strong. So the good celadon color may reflect that Ding-zhou used such good quality slip. However, there are other view points. Some believe the Yao-zhou Kiln never uses slip in ancient time. The white layer in between the body and the glaze was the reaction layer not the slip layer. So, more works are needed in the near future. Dr. Ichi-Hsu |
