The Introduction of Celadon Production in North China: Technological Characteristics and Diversity of the Earliest Wares Shan Huang*1, Ian C. Freestone1, Yanshi Zhu2, Lihua Shen2 * Corresponding Author:
[email protected] 1 Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PY, London, UK 2 Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 27 Wangfujing Avenue, 100710, Beijing, China Abstract Celadon, technically a stoneware with a lime-rich glaze, had been produced in South China for more than two millennia before it was first made in the North in the second half of the sixth century. It appears to have been an immediate precursor to white porcelain, which was first produced by northern kilns. The compositions and microstructures of early northern celadons from kilns, residential sites and tombs in Shandong, Hebei and Henan provinces, and dated 550s-618 CE, have been determined by SEM-EDS. The majority of the vessels were made using a low-iron kaolinitic clay, with high alumina (20-29%), as anticipated for northern clays. A small number of celadon vessels from a kiln at Caocun, which produced mainly lead-glazed wares, have lower alumina contents and appear to have originated in the South. It seems possible that these imported vessels were being used by the potters as models on which Caocun wares were based. Consistent differences in major element composition are observed between the products of kilns at Anyang, Xing, Luoyang and Zhaili. Unlike southern celadon glazes, which were prepared as two-component mixtures of vegetal ash and body clay, the northern celadon glazes are three-component, and typically contained an additional siliceous component, probably loess.