An epic of earth, fire and dreams

Evolving wisdom

Since 2002, Wang Guangyao, an archaeologist at the Palace Museum in Beijing, has hosted excavations on the Imperial Kiln Factory and other key kiln sites in Jingdezhen.

Thanks to his team's efforts, the city's past glory has emerged not only from documentation but also from physical evidence.

"Based on studies of the strata, clear and accurate age information obtained from the sites presents authentic scenarios of porcelain production facilities and their environments over various periods," Wang says.

"Perhaps there is no other place in the world that yields such a perfect sample of the continuous evolution of porcelain production technology," Wang says.

The Luomaqiao kiln site, part of the World Heritage listing, has revealed a Ming Dynasty gourd-shaped kiln unique to Jingdezhen, which drew on features of northern China's dome-shaped kilns and southern China's dragon-shaped kilns.

This design was later refined into the egg-shaped kiln, which could efficiently fire various types of porcelain simultaneously.

Along with the upgrading of kilns came the evolution of products.

From the Song Dynasty bluish-white porcelain to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) blue-and-white ceramics, and from the Ming Dynasty painted porcelain to the Qing Dynasty famille rose and enamel porcelain, Jingdezhen provided a procession of porcelain varieties that delighted people worldwide.

Wang explains: "Normally, when speaking of famous kilns elsewhere, we consider the typical style of its products, but Jingdezhen has ceaselessly produced ceramics for nearly a millennium. So, when thinking of its typical style, the answers may vary."

According to him, the porcelain trade became highly profitable in the late Tang Dynasty (618–907), and Jingdezhen artisans then wanted to claim their share of the market. They studied the popular wares of each era, absorbed their strengths, and refined their own techniques accordingly.

"It is this spirit of tolerance and innovation that has kept Jingdezhen kilns burning," he says.

Archaeology also helps those buried shards complete their unfinished journey. From 2015 to 2020, Wang helped organize a series of comparative exhibitions in the Palace Museum. Also known as the Forbidden City, the museum was China's former imperial palace, where the royal-qualified products of the Imperial Kiln Factory were taken.

The unearthed Jingdezhen wares, restored from deliberately broken objects, and their long-separated brothers — the intact porcelains with identical patterns in the royal collection — were juxtaposed in the same gallery.

"Firing a kiln was very difficult. In some ways, it was like opening a blind box," Wang says.

Even when every procedure — 72 steps in total, according to ancient documents — was done successfully, only about one-third of the products from the kiln would be qualified for royal use.

"Thanks to the archaeological findings in Jingdezhen, people have a deeper understanding of the extant treasures in the Forbidden City and elsewhere," Wang says.

Archaeological efforts at civilian kilns, such as Guanyinge and Luomaqiao, have unearthed artifacts with features showing they were also made to exclusively serve the royal family, indicating the close interactions between imperial and civilian workshops.

Firing tasks that the Imperial Kiln Factory could not finish on schedule were allocated to civilian kilns, according to Weng Yanjun, director of the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Institute.

"Therefore, the formulas and techniques once strictly controlled by the imperial factory entered their civilian counterparts, boosting the overall production level in Jingdezhen," Weng says.

According to him, archaeological research over the past decades has helped establish "a gene bank" of various types of porcelain.