Wanpinglun Ancient Kiln Site

Wanpinglun Ancient Kiln Site

The Wanpinglun Kiln Site is located on a hill about 5 kilometers west of Dehua County. Within an area of approximately 1,500 square meters, there is a deposit about 2 meters thick consisting of kiln furniture and ceramic remnants. Excavations have uncovered the remains of two dragon kilns and thousands of pottery samples. According to expert research, the Wanpinglun Kiln Site is an ancient kiln site dating from the late Northern Song Dynasty to the early Yuan Dynasty.

The Wanpinglun Song Dynasty Kiln contains deposits from both the Northern and Southern Song periods.

Products from the Northern Song Dynasty include bowls, plates, cosmetic boxes, saucers, washbasins, ewers, bowls, and bottles, among which bowls, plates, and cosmetic boxes are the most numerous. These items feature elegant shapes. The body is thin at the mouth and thick at the base, with wide, low, and neatly formed ring feet that expose the clay near the base. The surface shows “bamboo fiber”-like throwing spirals. The clay body is white, fine, solid, dense, and fired at a high temperature. The successful firing of large bowls and plates indicates that Dehua ceramics had achieved a certain level of forming technology at the time. The glaze is mainly white, with a small amount of shadow blue and grayish-white glaze. The glaze is smooth and soft. There are more than twenty kinds of decorative patterns, including lotus, peony, cloud and water, scrolling vines, interlocking floral designs, chrysanthemum, sunflower, fish, and wild geese. Among these, stamped patterns are the most common, followed by incised designs. Stamped patterns were made using flower molds, mostly decorating ewers, boxes, and bottles. The decorative lines are smooth and delicate, with richly layered patterns that showcase a high level of decorative skill. Incised designs were made using bamboo-strip-like tools. The lines are simple, bold, vigorous, with crisp corners, giving an overall elegant and refined impression.

Among the numerous kiln furniture pieces used for stacking and firing, the “umbrella-shaped” cosmetic box supports are uniquely shaped and have a large capacity for loading pottery. They represent a new discovery in the method of loading pottery in Dehua ceramics.

Products from the Southern Song Dynasty include bowls, plates, bottles, saucers, and ewers. Among the new products, the lotus-mouth bottle and the junzhi ewer stand out for their attractive shapes and diverse forms. Stacked-fired items have outward-flaring ring feet, uniformly thick and thin bodies, unglazed rough circles in the center, and icy crackle glaze on the outer walls. Refired items have exposed clay at the mouth and base, with thicker mouths and neatly formed ring feet. The majority of the products have a grayish-white, coarse, hard clay body fired at a high temperature. The glaze colors are mostly bluish-gray, grayish-white, and bluish-green. The glaze is clean and flawless, transparent like a mirror. Decorative patterns are significantly fewer than in earlier periods, with only a small number of crude incised or molded lotus petals, cloud and water, and banana leaf motifs remaining, reflecting the Southern Song Dynasty’s emphasis on glaze color in ceramics. The use of brush-written inscriptions represents a new style of marking in Southern Song Dynasty Dehua ceramics.

Black-glazed and soy sauce-glazed ceramics have outward-folded rims, with the thinner glaze areas appearing light green and the thicker areas appearing brownish-green. The excavation of these ceramics provides new data for studying the production and distribution of black-glazed ceramics in the province during the Song Dynasty.

The increase in the variety of Southern Song Dynasty ceramics and the diversification of firing methods indicate that social division of labor in ceramic production had further expanded at the time. The stacking firing of celadon and soy sauce-glazed ceramics demonstrates that significant achievements had been made in the formulation of ceramic clay and glaze, as well as in the control of kiln temperature.