Wuzhou Kiln Remains in Dukou, Yushan County, Jiangxi Province

Compiled By Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
                     Yushan County Museum

Abstract:
 Dukou Kiln in Yushan County was a commercial celadon kiln of the Tang and Song Dynasties in the northeast of present – day Jiangxi Province. Its remains, which was located in Dukou Village, Xiazhen Township in the east of Yushan County, was discovered during the second cultural relics survey in 1983. To coordinate with the construction of the double – track Hangzhou – Zhuzhou Railway, the remains of Dukou Kiln was double surveyed in 1992 and five localities including Dukou, Tangding, Jiudu, Xiafang and Tangnilong were confirmed. In May through July, 2004, an urgent excavation was conducted by Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Yushan County Museum to the Dukou Locality. This excavation, the discovery of which was elected as one of the ’04 National Archaeological Discoveries of Key Importance, uncovered an area of 1,000 square meters.
 The thickest part of the accumulation was more than five meters; because of environmental difficulties, only the top of the kiln remains was cleared up, in which two kilns, two house foundations and one pit were excavated. The kilns were “dragon kilns” built along a slope, one of which was 16.5 meters in length and inclined for 15 degrees. Remains of the kilns were kept well with the stacking floors and fireboxes preserved, while the vaulted roofs collapsed. The house foundations, one of which was in a quadruple plan, were not preserved well. Hundreds of thousands of ceramic shards and 1,323 intact or restorable wares were unearthed, which could be classified into daily – using utensils, tools, display porcelains, sculptures, funerary vessels and kiln furniture. Most of them were daily – using utensils, including pots, bowls, saucers, jars, basins, cups, deep bowls, casseroles, lids, “piggy banks”, vases, incense burners, cases and grinding wheels, among which bowls took the most number and could be sorted into three types: disc – footed bowls, convex – bottomed bowls and ring – footed bowls. Pots, which took the second number in the unearthed wares, were the most characteristic product of Dukou Kiln with diversified types, including pots with dish – shaped mouth, straight – necked pots, flared – mouthed pots, wide – mouthed pots with long necks, high – bellied pots, globular pots without handles and small pots with finger – made spouts, and so on. The best samples of sculptures were two brown – glazed fish figurines with dotted colors, which were molded vivid with true – to – life eyes and fins. The kiln furniture mainly included trumpet – shaped props, bucket – shaped props, bowl – shaped props, axle caps and washers.
 Dukou Wares’ bodies were mostly in grayish – white or iron – gray colors, with some cases of grayish – yellow, light brown and dark red colors. The wares with iron – gray bodies, sometimes those with grayish white bodies, were usually coated a white slip to reinforce and whiten the body. The glaze over the slip looked smoother and glossier than that over bare bodies. The bodies of Dukou Wares were thick and heavy and in hard textures and glazed in blue and dark reddish brown colors, of which singly glaze in blue color took the most portion, followed by those glazed singly in dark reddish brown color, and very few cases of products glazed in both colors. Some products, such as pots, bowls and cases, had strong, pure and shiny glazes and sometimes broken – ice crackles because they had bodies of fine textures and white color, or coated white slip. However, most of the products had bodies of unpurified colors and glaze colors: those blue – glazed wares, because of the variable body colors and firing temperatures and atmospheres, showed yellowish or pea green tints; those dark reddish brown – glazed wares, because of the various contents of iron oxide, showed dark brown, blackish or other colors. The products were generally glazed by immersion, while some of them were glazed by dripping for decoration. Most of the products were glazed both inside and outside, and the bottoms were not glazed; running glazes were very frequently seen on these products.
 All of the Dukou products were nude burned (without being put out into saggars) so they usually looked coarse and dusty. To increase the amount of pieces being burned, all of the wares could be piled up, such as bowls, plates and saucers, were all stacked up for many layers when they were placed into the kilns. To stand the weight of the high stacks, the bottoms of these wares were usually made very thick, and marks of spurs or stilts were left on insides and outsides of them. The temperatures were not effectively controlled, therefore many wares were deformed and stuck together because of over – firing while some others were under – fired. To counterbalance the visual sense of thickness and weightiness, the rims of bowls, plates and saucers were made very thin to show lightness. The body texture were rather rough because the clay for making these wares were not processed finely while the vitrifiction was not always completed in burning. Meanwhile, the glaze of the wares was not applied evenly, running glazes and crawling glazes into spots and other flaws, such as cracks, pinholes, bobbles and shivering, were often seen on the surfaces of the products; the surfaces of the products were not shiny enough, either.
 The shaping of the Dukou products were diversified; some were in stable shapes and some slender, but generally plain and durable. They were not made fine enough but practical while aesthetic factors were considered. The decorations of Dukou Wares were very simple, most of which were plain; the main skills were incising, stamping, openwork, embossing and color dotting. Incising and stamping were mainly applied on bowls, and incising was used more. The incised decorations were usually made on the inside of bowls, the patterns of which were mainly lotus – petal or stylized lotus – petal designs, chrysanthemum – petal designs or waterweed designs with simple and smooth lines; the stamped designs were mainly chrysanthemum designs on the inside bottoms of bowls. Openwork was seen on the case lids, embossed animals were seen on handles of loop – handled pots and embossed human figures were seen on funerary vase and brown – colored dots were sometimes seen on bowl rims.
 As mentioned above, this urgent excavation only uncovered the top stratum of the accumulations of the kiln remains, where coin of Yuanfeng Era (1078 – 1085) was unearthed; referring to burial data, the kiln remains would be dated into the early and middle periods of the Northern Song Dynasty. However, the latest date for the kiln to begin to light should not be after the later period of the Tang Dynasty. The accumulations under the second stratum were not cleared up, but some of the wares unearthed from the top remains still kept features of the later phase of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties. The Dukou Kiln was flourishing in the early and middle periods but began to decline since the later period of the Northern Song Dynasty because of the low quality of its products and the developing of Longquan, Jingdezhen Kilns and Jizhou and Qilizhen Kilns who seized its market.
 Located near the border of Jiangxi to Zhejiang, Dukou products’ style was strongly influenced by that of Yue Ware; however, the geographical distances, glaze colors, shaping and decorations of products all showed much closer relations to Wuzhou Ware, therefore Dukou Kiln should have belonged into Wuzhou Ware production system. The excavation to Dukou Kiln enriched the content of Wuzhou Ware and the database of ceramics history of Jiangxi Province; moreover, it also provided new evidence for researches on the technical communications and exchanges of porcelain industry between Jiangxi and Zhejiang Provinces.