Field Museum

History Colorado

As you observe the pottery items in this slideshow, explore the evolving role of pottery in Chinese culture and global trade networks throughout the history of China. Use disciplinary lenses and refer to object information and sources in the Additional Materials to conduct research about the significance of each of these pottery items. 

Pottery in China

A tapestry created by Emperor Qianlong to express his concern for people suffering famine and homelessness from floods in China.

How do we know about the past?

Explore the types of pottery in the slideshow below. What can the shape and certain features tell us about how they were used or why they were created? 

Ancestral Puebloan Pottery

Dozens of languages emerged throughout Chinese history. Evaluate the use of language on objects from across Chinese history and examine the role writing can play across time and context.

Changing Language in China

Pueblo people have been making pottery in the Southwest United States for hundreds of years. We can learn a lot from the traditions and knowledge that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Ways of Knowing Part 2 - Ancestors

In this activity, learn about five disciplinary lenses and how they can be applied to explore objects from the past. 

A tool: Using Disciplinary Lenses

Ways of Knowing Part 1 - Tree Rings

Use this annotation activity to collect answer to questions from one of the five disciplinary lenses introduced in the last activity. You will choose just one object from the pottery slideshows to apply disciplinary lenses, and compare your findings with classmates who have selected an alternative lens. 

Applying Disciplinary Lenses

Resource Kit Overview

Explore some of the ways we can know about the past. Practice and compare the many disciplinary lenses we can use to learn about the past while exploring the form, function, continuity and change of objects from across history.


Additional Resource for Using Disciplinary Lenses: 

Additional Information about Colorado's Pueblo People:

Rocky Mountain PBS Colorado Experience: Living West, Water

Colorado Encyclopedia Article on Mesa Verde National Park 

 Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners Region

Exploring Ways of Knowing

World History

Social Studies

Neolithic Pottery

Bronze Age

Pottery found at Xianrendong Cave, in Jiangxi Province, dates back to c. 20,000 years ago and may be the oldest in the world.

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Pottery sherds from Neolithic China

These Zhou period pots have markings that resemble fabric impressions, a practice that goes back to Neolithic times. The shapes show up in Neolithic pottery as well. Tripods were set in hearths and the hollow legs cooked food quickly, while round pots were used for cooking and storing food. These ceramics were fired at very high temperatures, making them particularly tough and strong, so scholars refer to these materials as proto-porcelains or hard wares

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Ceramic Vessels and Sherd

We do not know where this jar was excavated, but it has a distinctive shape matching many found at one of the most famous sites of Yangshao culture, called Banpo. Banpo gave archaeologists a picture of how people lived in larger groups. 

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Jar - China, probably Shaanxi Province

When people discovered bronze, they did not abandon clay. Ceramic bowls and ritual bronzes often sat together in ancient tombs. Although bronze was beautiful, it was harder to make and more expensive than pottery. Owning bronze showed status, so thousands of ornate vessels were buried in the graves of Zhou Dynasty (1046-221 BC) rulers. In contrast, common tomb ceramics looked more like this bowl: an everyday object. 

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Bowl - Western Zhou Dynasty

This Majiayao pot probably comes from a region to the north and west of the Yangshao culture area. Because the Majiayao period is later than Yangshao but shares some of its characteristics, scholars think the original Yangshao region grew so densely populated that people moved north and west in search of new farmland. The climate around Majiayao sites tends to be colder and drier than that of Yangshao, so archaeologists see more evidence of hunting, gathering, herding livestock, and farming.

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Painted Pottery Vessel - Majiayao

In the 1930s, archaeologists in China uncovered sites with black pottery like this. Different form the painted pottery found at most known sites at the time, this new black style clearly belonged to a different cultural tradition. For decades, every site with black pottery was considered "Longshan." By the 1950s, however, researchers realized that what seemed to be a single society was actually several regional ones. Different Longshan communities co-existed from c. 2600-1900 BC.

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Blackware vessel

This warped bowl is not an anomaly. More than half of the ceramics recovered from the Java Sea Shipwreck were simple dishes made for daily use and some were warped or poorly made. Huge kilns were capable of firing thousands of pieces. Often, villages where ceramics were made produced pieces ranging in form, function, and quality. Imperfections like grit in the clay or warping, unacceptable in more expensive pieces, were overlooked in a bowl like this. Both were loaded onto ships for export.

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Warped Bowl - Java Sea Shipwreck

This warped bowl is not an anomaly. More than half of the ceramics recovered from the Java Sea Shipwreck were simple dishes made for daily use. Some were warped or poorly made. Huge kilns were capable of firing thousands of pieces at once. Often villages where ceramics were made produced pieces ranging in form, function, and quality. Imperfections like grit in the clay or warping, unacceptable in more expensive pieces, were overlooked in a bowl like this. Both were loaded onto ships for export.

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Java Sea Shipwreck Bowls

These covered boxes were empty when shipped, but the symbols decorating each one may provide clues about the cosmetics, jewelry, or medicines they were made to hold. Because melons and gourds contain many seeds, they are often used in China to represent virility. Medicines associated with fertility could have been stored in melon-shaped boxes like this one.

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Melon Shaped Box

The end products look similar, but these Cizhou-style pieces were decorated using different methods. Floral patterns were painted directly on the unfired platter before it was put in the kiln. Green glaze was then added and the firing repeated. The ewer was made in a mold already carved with floral designs, then the area around the raised designs was painted black, giving the piece a carved look imitating true Cizhou ware. The mold would have been used to make thousands of duplicates.

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Dish and Ewer

This large Cizhou ware piece was probably once a storage jar that sat in someone's kitchen. Cizhou ware was widely used, less expensive, and more coarsely made compared to other, more labor-intensive ceramic styles. This jar is a typical Cizhou ware piece thoroughly covered with brown or black and white pigment, then carved. Cizhou kilns operated for centuries even as other once-fashionable Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279) ceramic styles were abandoned.

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Storage Jar

Workshops saved labor and costs by mass-producing ceramics. Low and high quality pieces, like this ewer, were made using molds. Covered boxes were molded in two pieces, the lid and base, while ewers had to be made using four or more separate molds. Workers poured or pressed clay into each mold, forming the ewer's body, handle, and spout. The separate pieces were then joined by hand.

Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

Exploring Ways of Knowing

Pottery in China

Background Knowledge

Neolithic Pottery