Page 73 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Painted pottery pen basin everted rim is edged with fine diagonal lines, inter-
spersed with clusters oriented radially. The outer
Height 14.1 (5 Via), diam. at mouth 28 (n) wall of the vessel is encircled by three parallel lines
Neolithic Period, Majiayao Culture gathered together on one side into a single hook-
(c. 3900-3500 BCE) like flourish.
From Shangsunjiazhai, Datong, Qinghai Province
Recent excavations at Zongri, a second site in
The National Museum of Chinese History, Beijing eastern Qinghai province, located to the southwest
of Datong, near Tongde, provide new insight as
The interior of the basin is decorated with a frieze to the meaning of the vessel's decoration and
organized in three panels, each containing a line of also point to a need for a revised assessment of
dancing figures holding hands with one another. 1 the chronology of the Gansu Majiayao pottery
The figures are described in minimal detail, with tradition. 2
round heads, oval bodies and sticklike limbs. Short The representations of human figures on two
braids hang from the top of their heads. Despite the basins unearthed from separate burials at Zongri
simplicity of their treatment, a degree of motion is have direct bearing on the vessel exhibited here
conveyed by the slightly different positions of the from Shangsunjiazhai. The example from M 157
legs, while the figures at the end of the line seem to shows a row of comparable stick figures — thirteen
sway, or pull away from the three in the middle. The in all — holding hands in the same manner. The
figures are bordered above by a line along the inner chief difference is that these figures have round
edge of the rim, and by a series of circumferential abdomens, suggesting that they represent pregnant
lines below. The sides of the panels framing the fig- females. If the decoration on this Shangsunjiazhai
ures are formed by clusters of parallel vertical lines, vessel and the one from Zongri M 157 (see page 69)
whose bowed shapes owe to the curvature of the are indeed related in meaning, then the figures that
vessel wall. The spaces separating the panels are decorate it are probably those of ithyphallic males.
divided diagonally by a band of even width or by On the vessel from M 192, the figural panels are
one that tapers to both sides. The rounded, slightly narrower and contain only two figures, shown fac-

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