Jingdezhen of Jiangxi Province is most
famous porcelain-making city in China. The porcelain made in Jingdezhen has a
color as blue as the sky and as white as jade, and is as bright as mirror, as
thin as paper. When knocked, it gives out a sound like that of a chime stone. It
is a precious kind of porcelain among the early kinds that got a worldwide
reputation. Hence Jingdezhen is reputed as the City of Porcelain in China.
The Hutian Ancient Kiln Site is like a
shining pearl among the ancient kilns in Jingdezhen, covering an area of 400,000
square meters. Pottery making in kilns started from the Five Dynasties Period
(907-960), developed through the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) Dynasties,
and then ended in the mid Ming Dynasty. Relics of the Five Dynasties Period
scatter in the east part of the village, and relics of the Song and Yuan
Dynasties are distributed in the south, while the Ming relics spread in an area
with Pipa Mountain as its center.
Liujiawu and Pipa Mountain have the richest
deposit of tools used in making pottery and porcelain shatters, with deposit
layer of about a few dozen meters high at the center. Big stoves and workshop
sites scatter along both banks of the Tianmen Gouge . Among porcelain wares of
the Five Dynasties Period, the most delicate kind is the white glazed ware. The
crab-shell green bowl and white glazed plate, made into various shapes, were
thin and transparent, with light green glaze and delicate patterns. These were
the masterpieces of porcelain at that time. Porcelain wares of the Song Dynasty
(960-1279) were mainly decorated with fine patterns and made into beautiful
shapes. Wares of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) were mainly black and yellow ones
as well as some celadon wares. In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), porcelain wares
in the site were mainly celadon wares used by ordinary civilians.
The Hutian Ancient Kiln Site represents the
development of porcelain-making techniques, artistic quality and production
scale, and provides important concrete materials for the research into the
developing history of Chinese porcelain.