Center of ceramics
Major ancient white porcelain site provides important link to past, Sun Ruisheng and Cai Hong report.
The white-glazed porcelain shards including bowls, plates, dishes, vases, pots and stem-cups were retrieved from the kiln site in Chencun. The wares are for the most part plain and undecorated, with a small quantity displaying impressive designs.
Ming Dynasty records already point to white-glazed porcelain being fired in Huozhou.
Many ancient ruins and tombs were found at construction sites in various parts of China in the 1950s, with a nationwide survey of cultural relics carried out in 1956 in an attempt to learn about the conditions of immovable cultural relics.
Liu said that when Chinese ceramic specialists including Chen Wanli and Feng Xianming from the Palace Museum began searching for places where ancient porcelain wares were produced, they spurred cultural heritage authorities across the country to launch archaeological surveys of ancient kilns in the 1960s and 1970s.
