Page 112 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Two painted pottery hu vessels surface, as well as the slowed and more graceful
tempo of their clockwise progression around the
a. Height 19.2 (7 Viz) surface.
b. Height 28.2(11 Vs)
Black lines, fluctuating in width as they descend
Neolithic Period, Taosi Longshan Culture
from the top of one configuration to join the next
(c. 2500-2000 BCE)
from below, and the S-curved bands in ocher, which
From Taosi, Xiangfen, Shanxi Province
float free at the bottom, create the appearance of
The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Beijing scarves blown lightly back, suspended in air as the
progression of spirals moves steadily forward. To-
The spiraling designs on the shoulder of the first gether, they bring to the overall design a new sense
1
of these two vessels (a) carry echoes of the mono- of buoyancy. With a similar subtlety, faint black
chrome designs of a much earlier period (compare lines in the guise of additional spiral arms extend
cat. 7). Yet by comparison the effect of the designs upward at the front of each spiral. These seem to
is quite different, conditioned by the warm pastel define the contours of the S-shaped bands in red,
hues of pink and ocher now added to the design equal in width to those in ocher. In this way, an
and by the softer appearance of the unpolished element of ambiguity is introduced into the design,

111 T A O S I L O N C S H A N C U L T U R E