Mantou kiln

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Cizhou ware fired in a mantou kiln: meiping vase with slip-painted peony foliage, Jin dynasty, 12th or 13th century Vase with peony branch, Cizhou ware, China, Jin dynasty, 12th or 13th century, stoneware - Cincinnati Art Museum - DSC03192.JPG
Cizhou ware fired in a mantou kiln: meiping vase with slip-painted peony foliage, Jin dynasty, 12th or 13th century

The mantou kiln (Chinese :饅頭窯; pinyin :mántóu yáo; Wade–Giles :man-t'ou yao) or horseshoe-shaped kiln was the most common type of pottery kiln in north China, in historical periods when the dragon kiln dominated south China; both seem to have emerged in the Warring States period of approximately 475 to 221 BC. [1] It is named (in both English and Chinese) after the Chinese mantou bun or roll, whose shape it (very approximately) resembles; the ground plan resembles a horseshoe. [2] The kilns are roughly round, with a low dome covering the central firing area, and are generally only 2 to 3 metres across inside. However it is capable of reaching very high temperatures, up to about 1370°C. There is a door or bricked-up opening at the front for loading and unloading, and one or two short chimneys at the rear. [2]

Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters

Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong and Macau. The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han Dynasty, and have been more or less stable since the 5th century.

Pinyin Chinese romanization scheme for Mandarin

Hanyu Pinyin, often abbreviated to pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China and to some extent in Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Mandarin Chinese, which is normally written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones. Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters.

Wade–Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade, during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert A. Giles's Chinese–English Dictionary of 1892.

Contents

They are one type of "cross-draught" kilns, where the flames travel more or less horizontally, rather than up from or down to the floor. [3] The kilns were normally made of brick; sometimes most of the structure was dug out below the loess soil, with only the dome and chimney protruding above ground. In either case the interior was normally lined with a refractory fireclay. In some cases, especially in later periods, the fire box was approached by a tunnel. Initially the kilns were fired with wood, but during the Northern Song period (960–1127) there was a general switch to coal, easily found in north China, which required a smaller fire box, but the introduction of saggars to protect the pieces from gritty coal ash. This changed the reducing quality of the atmosphere during firing, which affected the colours of various wares, [1] wood giving a reducing atmosphere and coal an oxidizing one. [4] A firing might take as long as two weeks, including the cooling time. [5]

Loess A predominantly silt-sized clastic sediment of accumulated wind-blown dust

Loess is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of the Earth's land area is covered by loess or similar deposits.

Refractory

A refractory material or refractory is a heat-resistant material: that is, a mineral that is resistant to decomposition by heat, pressure, or chemical attack, most commonly applied to a mineral that retains strength and form at high temperatures..

Coal A combustible sedimentary rock composed primarily of carbon

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements; chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed if dead plant matter decays into peat and over millions of years the heat and pressure of deep burial converts the peat into coal. Vast deposits of coal originates in former wetlands—called coal forests—that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times.

The details of the design could be very variable. A temporary "bag wall" might be built at the front of the kiln, once loaded, to protect the wares from the direct flames, and enclose the fire. The back interior wall might be straight, giving a semi-circular shape to the chamber. Various different arrangements for controlling the airflow at front and back by vents and stone doors are found. [6] Generally the firing was even across the various parts of the chamber compared to the dragon kiln, but the load far smaller, with saggars perhaps only hundreds of pieces, rather than the tens of thousands a large dragon kiln could take for a single firing. [7]

Wares fired in mantou kilns include Ding ware, Yaozhou ware and other Northern Celadons, Jun, Ru, and Cizhou wares. [1] The zhenyao "egg-shaped kiln", developed for Jingdezhen ware in the late Ming dynasty, [8] is in some ways a compromise between mantou and dragon kilns, like a stretched mantou kiln. Official Guan ware had been made at Jingdezhen in a northern-style mantou kiln, rare this far south. [9]

Ding ware type of Chinese ceramics

Ding ware, Ting ware or Dingyao were Chinese ceramics, mostly porcelain, produced in the prefecture of Dingzhou in Hebei in northern China. The main kilns were at Jiancicun or Jianci in Quyang County. They were produced between the Tang and Yuan dynasties of imperial China, though their finest period was in the 11th century, under the Northern Song. The kilns "were in almost constant operation from the early eighth until the mid-fourteenth century."

Yaozhou ware

Yaozhou ware is a type of celadon or greenware in Chinese pottery, which was at its height during the Northern Song dynasty. It is the largest and typically the best of the wares in the group of Northern Celadon wares. It is especially famous for the rich effects achieved by decoration in shallow carving under a green celadon glaze which sinks into the depressions of the carving giving contrasts of light and dark shades.

Jun ware archaeological site

Jun ware is a type of Chinese pottery, one of the Five Great Kilns of Song dynasty ceramics. Despite its fame, much about Jun ware remains unclear, and the subject of arguments among experts. Several different types of pottery are covered by the term, produced over several centuries and in several places, during the Northern Song dynasty (960–1126), Jin dynasty (1115–1234) and Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), and lasting into the early Ming dynasty.

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Wood
  2. 1 2 Rawson, 365, diagram, 370; Wood
  3. ↑ Rawson, 364; Wood. However, references can be found referring to them as up-draught, and also down-draught
  4. ↑ Vainker, 124
  5. ↑ "Mantou kiln, in Song greenwares", Ashmolean Museum
  6. ↑ Medley, 117–118
  7. ↑ Kerr, 348
  8. ↑ Rawson, 370
  9. ↑ Kerr, 260–262

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References

Rose Kerr (art historian)

Rose Kerr is an English art historian specializing in Chinese art, especially Chinese ceramics, on which she has written a number of books. She was the Keeper of the Far Eastern Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London until 2003. In 2015, she was made an honorary citizen of Jingdezhen, China, the historic centre of Chinese porcelain production, in recognition of her academic research on Jingdezhen ceramics, and her promotion of cultural exchange between the United Kingdom and China. She was the first non-Chinese citizen to be so honoured.

Joseph Needham British biochemist

Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham was a British biochemist, historian and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1941, and a fellow of the British Academy in 1971. In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II conferred on him the Companionship of Honour, and the Royal Society noted he was the only living person to hold these three titles.

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