Jiaoshan Chestnut Mountain Site

Jiaoshan Chestnut Mountain Site

The Jiaoshan Chestnut Mountain Site is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Era: Shang Dynasty

The Jiaoshan Chestnut Mountain Site, located in Yuehu District, Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, is a kiln site dating from the middle to late Shang Dynasty, approximately 3,500–3,100 years ago. Through archaeological surveys and drilling, the area of the Jiaoshan Kiln Complex has been found to exceed 70,000 square meters, making it the largest kiln site discovered from the Xia and Shang periods across China to date. Within the kiln complex, ceramic kilns are clustered together, and nearly 20 kilns—including firing pits, horseshoe-shaped round kilns, and dragon kilns—have been discovered in small-scale excavations. A wealth of cultural relics has been unearthed, including over 3,000 intact and restorable ceramic pieces and hundreds of thousands of ceramic fragments. The pottery fragments are piled up in large heaps; despite millennia of weathering and human alteration, some mounds still stand as high as four to five meters. The abundance of artifacts at the site indicates that the Jiaoshan Kiln Complex was a massive production hub that operated continuously for three to four hundred years. It stands as the largest and most unique kiln site of the Shang Dynasty. In May 2013, it was officially designated as part of the seventh group of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units by the State Council.

Further Reading:

· Seventh Group of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units