| What is it？

Name: Eggshell Black Pottery Cup

Historical Period: c. 5,000 years ago (The Qujialing Culture)

Height: 18.9 cm, Mouth Diameter: 9.9 cm

Excavation Site: Huanglianshu Village, Xichuan County, Henan Province

Housed in: Henan Museum

| What's the story？

As thin as eggshell, the pottery cup housed in Henan Museum was made on a fast potter's wheel. It marks a great technological revolution in the handicraft industry more than 5,000 years ago.

The eggshell cup is not only the peak of pottery art in the history of Chinese civilization, but also a miracle of handicraft technology in the Neolithic Period.

A masterpiece of human handicraft

The eggshell black pottery cup looks simple in shape, but embodies exquisite craftsmanship. It is a typical example of the Qujialing Culture about 5,000 years ago, and is earlier than the eggshell black pottery ware in the Longshan Culture in the Neolithic Period, with everlasting charm in human history.

The invention of pottery meant that for the first time humans voluntarily created a new type of artifact, thus ushering in the Neolithic Period. That is to say, in the Paleolithic Period, humans simply used natural materials such as stone, bone and wood, whereas in the Neolithic Period, they began to create with their wisdom and skills.

The earliest pottery vessel ever discovered in the world was unearthed in Xianren Cave, Jiangxi Province, China. The unearthed pottery pieces dated back to 20,000 years ago. More than 5,000 years ago or in the late stage of the Neolithic Period, at Qujialing in the Jianghan Plain (the middle reaches of the Yangtze River), the most advanced handicraft in the world was developed, and a kind of pottery with extremely thin inner walls was produced. The amazing technology undoubtedly heralded a new technological revolution in the handicraft industry.

How was the miracle created?

Archaeologists gasped at eggshell black pottery cup found in Longshan and commented: "Black as paint, shiny as a mirror, thin as paper, and hard as porcelain."

The exquisitely crafted black pottery cup with eggshell thinness unearthed from the Qujialing site had a body thickness of only 0.1 to 0.2 centimeters. By the time of the Longshan culture period, the lightest eggshell pottery weighed only about 10 grams. Even with today's advanced crafting techniques, achieving such extreme thinness and lightness is not easy. So, how did the ancient Chinese ancestors 5,000 years ago achieve this?

Archaeological identification confirmed that the eggshell pottery technology depended on the invention and use of the fast wheel technology, which used the centrifugal and inertial forces generated by the rapid rotation of objects to shape the pottery body. In general, the clay body was first placed in the center of the wheel. Then the wheel was spun rapidly, generating centrifugal force and inertial force to form various shapes. However, in the rapid rotation, the inner wall of the pottery was very easy to break. The eggshell black pottery cup epitomizes the fast wheel technology for the first time in the world.

Source: Becoming the Chinese Nation: The historical memories of multi-ethnic Chinese Nation in 100 cultural relics

Liu Xian /Editor    Chi Jianfeng /Translator

Yang Xinhua /Chief Editor    Ren Qiang /Coordinator

Liu Li /Reviewer

Zhang Weiwei /Copyeditor    Tan Yujie /Image Editor

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