China Daily Global Edition (USA)
CELEBRATING CELADON
Shanglin Lake area was once a production hub for fine mise porcelain. Now it’s an archaeological park firmly on the tourist trail. Wang Kaihao reports in Cixi, Zhejiang province.
It is cloudy, drizzling and slightly chilly. The weather here in early winter echoes with the simple but elegant celadon, a symbol of Shanglin Lake in Cixi city, East China’s Zhejiang province.
Taking a boat across the water, visitors stepping onto an island there will probably be astonished to find a landscape littered with layers upon layers of broken porcelain.
This is the location of the Housi’ao kiln in Cixi, part of the Shanglin Lake relic site. Unearthed in 2016, Housi’ao was included in the annual list of “China’s top 10 new archaeological discoveries” that year.
As a key component of the porcelain production sites in Cixi and nearby regions, collectively known as the Yue Kiln, Shanglin Lake was a celadon production hub that was in operation for a millennium, according to Zheng Jianming, a researcher at Zhejiang Provincial Research Institute for Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
More than 180 kiln spots have been unearthed so far around the lakeside.
“Many breakthroughs in earlystage porcelain making, which dates back 2,000 years, took place in Zhejiang,” Zheng says. “There was a huge amount of production and the skills used were cutting edge at that time.”
Earlier this month, Shanglin Lake Yue Kiln Site became one of the 12 new entries to China’s national archaeological park list, released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
A replica kiln has now been set up by the lake to portray how celadon was produced during ancient times, and a new museum, designed in the shape of a dragon, is also due to open to the public soon to give a panoramic introduction on the development of Yue Kiln. The dragon shape was a typical style used in kilns of the area.
Zheng explains that mise (literally, “mystical-colored”) porcelain, created using a closely guarded formula and was exclusively provided to emperors from the late Tang (618907) to early Northern Song (9601127) dynasties, represented the finest of Yue Kiln products.
People rarely understood what mise porcelain meant, although the term frequently appeared in ancient documents, until 13 such porcelain articles were unearthed in 1987 from an underground altar at the Famen Buddhist Temple in Baoji, Northwest China’s Shaanxi province. The word “mise” was carved on the inventory of the altar items.
The archaeological discovery of the Housi’ao site in 2016 showed that this was the home of mise porcelain production.
He explains that after the Anshi Rebellion, an eight-year-long nationwide war ensued that sparked a period of social upheaval in the mid-8th century, China’s land trade routes linking it with West and Central Asia were blockaded.
“Consequently, the flamboyant artistic styles coming from the West were replaced with the plain but exquisite styles from southern China,” Zheng says. “People were in search of inner peace, and such aesthetics pushed the subtle work of the Yue Kiln to its peak.”
For instance, lotus flower petals are commonly seen in the shapes of Yue Kiln products of the time that were inspired by scenes in the river towns of southern China.
Archaeological park
Other than the museum, some archaeological fieldwork areas around the lake are now accessible to visitors for free. With so many places for the public to visit, the park area at Shanglin Lake, which covers about 15 square kilometers, will be developed as a site combining archaeology with tourism.
“The whole area is more like an outdoor museum of celadon,” Shen Xiaoxian, deputy mayor of Cixi, said at a national conference in the city about the archaeological park in early December. “We’re making efforts to better enable the site for the benefit of the public.”
About 450 million yuan ($68 million) has been spent on improving the environment within the park. For example, more than 4,000-squaremeters of unauthorized buildings were demolished within the protected zone of the heritage site.
However, the large-scale project is more than just building up the landscape of a park.
“We have a supervision system and regular patrols to guard the relics at the kilns, to comply with heritage protection rules,” the deputy mayor says.
“And, the park is not only for sightseers and pedestrians,” she says. “It’s also a place for leisure, the display of cultural heritage, education and cultural communication.”
According to her, porcelain-making workshops will be reintroduced at the park, and more lectures promoting celadon culture will be organized in local schools. The park will also cooperate with international porcelain museums to organize exchange programs.
Wider ambition
Shanglin Lake, as a relic site as part of the Maritime Silk Road, has been named as a candidate seeking UNESCO World Heritage status in the future. This is because many Yue Kiln products were traded in the rest of Asia, the Middle East and even in East Africa during ancient times.
For example, in Fustat, an ancient city in Egypt, myriad works of Chinese celadon from the 9th and 10th centuries were found, and are believed to have been produced in Shanglin.
“As a representative of creativity and high art, celadon played an important role consolidating China as a hub for ancient maritime trade,” says Zhao Yun, a researcher from the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage.
Celadon used to be the dominant form of Chinese porcelain, before it was replaced by blue-and-white porcelain after the 14th century.
“If the site can be listed,” she says, “it will be an outstanding example reflecting the historical and cultural significance of Chinese civilization for the whole world.”
New challenges
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage first released the national archaeological park list in 2010, which now includes 36 sites. In China, how to balance urban construction and archaeology was once a bothering question, but such parks seem to offer a new solution.
“Archaeological sites play an important role in urban development as cultural symbols,” says Wu Chun, a director in charge of management of Daminggong site in Xi’an, Shaanxi province. The site has remains of royal palaces of the Tang Dynasty.
“The parks are places to make full use of social efforts to promote knowledge about cultural relics among members of the public, and better protect such sites,” she says.
For Song Xinchao, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the archaeological park is a way to echo President Xi Jinping’s initiative to revitalize China’s “sleeping cultural heritage”, which he has reiterated in speeches over the past few years.
“The protection of archaeological sites is not an obstacle but a helpful way to promote tourism and lift the economy as a whole,” Song says.
However, he pointed out the importance of making academic research and protection a priority and warned of a potential trend of overwhelming tourism development.
“The park doesn’t have to be huge, but it must be well-planned and have its own characteristics,” he says. “Archaeology should always be regular activity in the park, no matter how it’s applied.”
Yuanmingyuan Park (the Old Summer Palace) in Beijing, one of the 36 listed national-level parks, opened some of its ongoing archaeological works to visitors earlier this year, which was widely hailed as good practice. At the Shanglin Lake site, an area will also be reserved for follow-up excavations.
“Still, an archaeological park is a new concept for the public,” says Zheng, the researcher from Zhejiang. “We’d better get more people involved.”