Note 17 — Chapter II

If geological arguments could be accepted at their face value, a vase found at Chi–ning Chou, in Shantung, would go far to prove the existence of a highly sophisticated glazed pottery at a date not less than 500 years B. C. The find is described and illustrated in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Jahrg. 43, 1911, p. 153, by Herr Ernst Börschmann. The vase, which is 10 cm. high, is of globular form, with a short straight neck and two loop handles. It is of hard buff ware, with a chocolate brown glaze with purplish reflexions of a metallic appearance, and the glaze covers only the upper part of the exterior and ends in an uneven line with drops. One would say Sung or possibly T'ang, and of the type associated with the name Chien yao. This pot was found not in a tomb, but in the undisturbed earth at a depth of seven metres, by a German architect, while sinking a well; and a reasoned case from the stratification of the soil is made out to prove that it must have at least an antiquity of twenty–four hundred years. It is, however, proverbial that geological arguments applied to relatively modern archæology lead to results more startling than correct; and I refuse to accept this solitary specimen as evidence to upset the whole theory of the evolution of Chinese pottery. For it must do nothing less. This piece is of a style which is at present unknown before the T'ang dynasty. It has nothing in common with Han pottery as we know it, still less with Chou, and to accept its Chou date would be to believe that an advanced style of manufacture was in use 500 years B. C., that it was forgotten again for some twelve centuries, and then reappeared in precisely the same form. Fukien white porcelain seals have been found in an Irish bog in positions from which geologists might infer a colossal antiquity, but the history of porcelain has not been disturbed on that account; and I cannot help thinking that this strange phenomenon at Chi–ning Chou must be regarded in much the same light.