Jun Kiln
Jun kilns, with the main kiln site located in Yuxian County of
Central China's Henan
Province, constituted a famous school of porcelain manufacture that
flourished in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Various duplicates of the famous Jun
ware appeared throughout different dynasties.
The best (and also largest in scale) porcelain vessels were unearthed from
the Bagua
Cave kiln site. Kiln sites were fairly dense in the vicinity of Shenhou, while
various places in Yuxian County produced numerous ceramic products.
Jun ware porcelain kiln sites have been discovered in Jiaxian, Dengfeng,
Xinan, Tangyin, and Anyang
in Henan Province, while some of the porcelain-producing areas in North China's
Hebei and Shanxi
provinces also manufactured Jun ware porcelain.
Sites of large-scale porcelain kilns were excavated at Bagua Cave
in Yuxian County. The unearthed products and bronze
coins inscribed with the reigns of emperors have shown that after a long
development in the mid Northern Song period, Jun ware reached a production peak
in the late Northern
Song Dynasty, when excellent quality ware was produced, though this quality
was maintained for but a relatively short period.
After the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) conquered the Northern Song Dynasty
(960-1127), the manufacture of Jun ware continued in and around Henan. Wars
became less frequent after the Dading reign (1184) in the Jin Dynasty and
society was fairly stable, enabling the economy to recover to some degree from
the ravages of war. This development included Jun ware, whose production
expanded up until the Yuan
Dynasty (1271-1368).
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