Page 63 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

such as the combination of the crescent and bowed
line. The chief distinction between them is that
the patterns on the flask retain no allusions to the
images of the fish, which had so long informed the
Banpo designs. While the balance of painted and
unpainted forms within a given design, which is
intrinsic to the earlier Banpo patterns, was main-
tained, the designs themselves are transformed by
the late Banpo painters into ones that are entirely
geometric. This vessel thus combines a new venture
in realistic sculptural form with a style of painted
decoration that had become virtually abstract. LF-H

1 Excavated in 1973; published: Gansu 19830, color pi. 1:2;
Yang Xiaoneng 1988, pi. 2; Yang 1991, no. 17; Jin 1988, no. 8;
Zhang 1990!}, color pi. 12; Murowchick 1995, 45, figure at
lower right; Wu 1996, pi. 26.
2 Examples of Banshan and Machang heads are illustrated
in Andersson 1943, pis. 186-187; Qinghai 1980, no. 43.
3 See Hao 1984,103; Yang Xiaoneng 1989, color pi. 1:1. The
Luonan jar is analogous in shape to examples from
Jiangzhai Period II at Lintong.

eastern Gansu at the end of the fourth millennium.
The patterns, repeated in each of the three regis-
ters, consist of large oval shapes seen in red reserve,
outlined by the converging arcs of two segmental
triangles, one of which extends to the lower edge
of the register, and the other toward the upper
edge. Bisecting each oval horizontally is a crescent
shape with a narrow, bowed line above it. The space
between one oval and the next is filled by a series
of diagonal lines bordered on either side by two
crescent shapes, alternately painted and left in
reserve.
This complex and formulaic decorative scheme
is associated with the final phase of the Banpo
culture at sites in the upper Wei River valley. The
general conformity between this design and the one
on cat. 2 is recognizable in the curvilinear quality
of the lines, contrasting with the deep red color
of the ground, and in specific design elements,

62 I LATE P R E H I S T O R I C CHIN A