Page 262 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

134 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

gory of Kuan and Ko wares, the former naming it with the Hsiin

and Yu-hang wares, which were inferior to the Kuan, and the

latter adding to the passage deahng with Kuan wares the follow-

ing note : " There are black wares which are called wu-ni yao,

all of which were imitated at Lung-ch'iian. They have no crackle."
The Po wu yao Ian, however, explains that these wares " were

admitted by confusion into the category of Kuan and Ko wares,"

and that the " error has been handed down to this day." Probably

it was the green variety which caused the confusion, as there seems

no reason why the black glazes should have been associated with
the Kuan class, though the dark red clay of the Phoenix Hill from
which the Hang Chou Kuan ware was made may have had some

resemblance to the dark red brown body of the Chien yao. As
for the Lung-ch'iian imitations, we can only imagine that the state-

ment refers to the later Ko wares, which are said to have been made

with material brought from Hang Chou,^ and that their glaze,

too, was of the green variety, as would be expected in the Lung-

ch'iian district, the home of the green celadons. At the same
time it will be remembered that zvii-ni yao means simply " black

clay ware," and might have been fairly applied to any dark-bodied
ware wheresoever made.

As already mentioned, many fragments of pottery were in-
cluded in the important finds made by Sir Aurel Stein in his excava-
tions in Turfan. Unfortunately, many of the sites have little

evidential value, because they have clearly been revisited at com-
paratively late periods ; but there are a few localities which ceased
to be inhabited as early as the Sung dj^iasty, and which furnished
fragments of glazed pottery and porcellanous wares. I only men-

tion those sites which, as far as these finds are concerned, were

not vitiated by the occurrence of obviously recent wares. On
one site named Ushaktal, supposed to have been abandoned in

the Sung dynasty, if not before, were fragments of greenish brown
celadon with combed ornament on the body, such as was certainly
made in Corea and probably in China as well. The same site pro-
duced opalescent glazes of the Chiin and Yiian type. The site of
Vash-shahri, which was "occupied probably down to the eleventh
or twelfth century," produced a number of interesting fragments
(1) with buff and grey stoneware bodies and glazes of the opalescent
Chiin and Yiian kinds, (2) the same body with emerald green crackled

^ See p. 72.