Page 62 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Painted pottery ping flask

Height 31.8 (12.40), diam. at base 6.8 (2 Viz),
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diam. at mouth 4.5 (i /4)
Neolithic Period, Late Banpo Culture
(c. 4000-3500 BCE)
From Dadiwan, Qin'an, Gansu Province
Gansu Provincial Museum, Lanzhou

The head modeled from the vessel's short neck
is remarkable as an early testament to the interest
in human physiognomy and to the Neolithic art-
ist's ability to represent the human form in plastic
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terms. The face, described with broad cheeks and
a small chin, is probably intended to portray a boy
or young man. The slightly slanting plane of the
face shows three short horizontal incisions marking
the eyes and mouth. The carefully shaped nose
has two small holes indicating the nostrils, and
the protruding ears are pierced by a circular hole
at the center. The hair, shown by vertical grooves,
is combed forward over the brow and trimmed in
an even line across the forehead and around the
back of the neck. At the level of the vessel's mouth,
the head is abruptly cut off, but the full shape of
the crown may originally have been supplied by
a lid or stopper, possibly secured by cords tied
through the holes in the ears.
Vessels adorned with plastic renditions of hu-
man heads are a rare occurrence. They have been
found for the most part in Gansu and Qinghai
provinces in association with the Banshan and Ma-
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chang cultures of the late third millennium. One
other example datable to Banpo times was discov-
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ered at Luonan in eastern Shaanxi. The Luonan
head, apparently that of a young girl, is more com-
pletely and sensitively articulated than the one in
the exhibition, and counts as a small masterpiece
of its genre. Its discovery so far away from Dadiwan
suggests that heads such as these may have been a
subspecialty in pottery workshops across the entire
Banpo settlement area.
The designs painted on the red-slipped body
of the vessel are unrelated to the human head and
comply with the decorative conventions current in

61 I YANCSHAO CULTURE: BANPO