Shifangtang Qionglai Kiln Site

Shifangtang Qionglai Kiln Site

The Shifangtang Qionglai Kiln Site is located in Groups 6 and 7 of Shifang Village, Linrong Town, Qionglai City. The site stretches 530 meters from east to west and 210 meters from north to south, covering a total area of 111,300 square meters. It is distributed in a strip along the southern bank of the Nan River, with a large number of production and firing tools such as spacer rings, spacer cakes, supports, and saggers scattered across the site. In 1983, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Archaeology and the Qionglai Cultural Relics Protection Management Office conducted multiple surveys of the Shifangtang Qionglai Kiln Site. From 1984 to 1988 and in 2005, with the approval of the State Council and the National Cultural Heritage Administration, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Archaeology, the Chengdu Institute of Archaeology, and the Qionglai Cultural Relics Protection Management Office carried out scientific archaeological excavations at kiln mounds Y1, Y3, Y5, and others at the Shifangtang Qionglai Kiln Site. These excavations uncovered dragon kilns, horseshoe-shaped kilns, residential building sites, and workshop ruins from the Tang Dynasty, as well as a large number of ceramic artifacts. The Shifangtang Kiln Site is the longest-used, largest in scale, and most influential kiln site discovered to date in southwestern China.