Archaeology, Museums, Heritage Seminar
Dr Lusha Guo | Henan University
Uncover the Veil of the Secret Color Yue Ware
What happens when we take a step back and interrogate photographs of archaeology? Examining the production and use context of archaeological photography can provide us with important cues on how these images can be read.
This paper on secret color porcelain (秘色瓷/Me Se) will explore the zenith of Yue ware porcelain during the late Tang (618-907) and the
Five Dynasties (907-960), which were the most sophisticated ceramics in China. They have long been known from texts. However, no secret
color Yue porcelain matching textual descriptions had been discovered until 1987 when the crypt below the pagoda of the
Famensi (法门寺) was excavated. Fourteen pieces of ‘secret color’ porcelain together with the inventory of the crypt made the
identification possible. More importantly, the 2015 excavation in Cixi city revealed that Housiao (后司岙) was the major kiln used to
produce secret color Yue wares. This paper will review the secret color Yue ware recorded by historical documents and found at the
archaeological sites, uncovering the veil of this ‘secret’. The second part of this talk seeks to understand the production of secret color Yue
ware through the environmental, technological and social backgrounds, and tries to interpret how archaeological
………
The Department of Archaeology hosts a number of lively departmental research seminars. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Where
Online on Zoom
When
22 May 2020,
4:00-5:00 pm
Registration
- If you are already registered for the Archaeology, Museums and Heritage seminar series, you will receive an email containing the link to the Zoom meeting.
- Please fill in this form if you would like to be added to the Archaeology, Museums and Heritage seminar series email list,
Seminar Series convenors:
Agata Calbrese,Lorraine Leung, Kieran McGee, Simon Wyatt-Spratt, and Sareeta Zaid
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The Department of Archaeology is part of the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI).