CHIPING BLACK POTTERY, A MAGIC ART SPANNING THOUSANDS OF YEARS

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 16 (Bernama) -- Over the last three decades, Chinese archaeologists have undertaken four excavations at the Longshan Culture Site in Jiaochangpu, Chiping, where a variety of almost 1,000 pieces of pottery, stone and bone relics have been unearthed.

Among them, the three pottery kilns excavated in 2001 remain the most complete cluster of Longshan Culture in China, constituting a valuable source of cultural relics for research into the socio-economic patterns of that period.

Research by archaeologists has found that the abundant black potteries treasured in the Chiping District Museum in Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, were produced some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago during the Longshan Culture Period.

“They are elegant in shape, simple in pattern and mysterious in origin,” according to the Information Office of the Chiping County People's Government in a statement.

The raw material of Chiping Black Pottery is the pure and delicate red clay soil beneath the unique riverbed of the Yellow River. 

Chiping Black Pottery is fired in an age-old Sealing-Smoking-Carburizing process after first undergoing numerous steps including manual washing, jiggering, drying, trimming, calendering, engraving and polishing. 

To inherit and develop such a Chinese treasure as black pottery, Chiping Black Pottery makers have, since the mid-1990s, dedicated themselves to examining the techniques of the black pottery craft, enabling the establishment of the Liaocheng Black Pottery Academy, followed by the Chiping Taoyuan Black Pottery Art Co Ltd.

-- BERNAMA