Recent excavations at the Suyukou site in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region have unveiled porcelain wares produced nearly 1,000 years ago during the Western Xia Dynasty (1038–1227), bearing a high resemblance to those made in Jingdezhen, the renowned porcelain capital in east China.
From 2021 to 2024, archaeologists from the Ningxia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Fudan University excavated around 2,400 square meters at the Suyukou site. Remnants of the Suyukou kiln were first discovered in 2017 in Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia, covering an area of roughly 40,000 square meters. The excavations at the Suyukou site revealed remnants of workshops featuring six furnaces. The site is believed to be the earliest Western Xia Dynasty kiln site found to date in China.
The excavations also uncovered pits where workers used to mine porcelain clay, coal, quartz, lime, and other raw materials and fuels needed to make porcelain. Judging from its production scale and saggars marked with the character "guan" (which literally means "official"), archaeologists believe that the Suyukou kiln was an official kiln. The kiln produced bowls, cups, plates, and other daily utensils mainly for the royal family during the Western Xia Dynasty.
According to archaeologists, the white ceramics discovered at the Suyukou site exhibit delicate textures, warm glaze, and glittering and translucent effects. These characteristics of the ceramics are very similar to those found in Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province.
Based on their studies of the porcelain discovered at the Suyukou site, archaeologists concluded that the quartz content and performance parameters were near to or even reached the technical standards of modern "high quartz porcelain." This makes the wares from the Suyukou site the earliest discovery of "high quartz porcelain" in China. Thus, this technology did not originate during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) as previously believed. These findings show that China's porcelain "dual formula" technology can be traced back to the earlier Western Xia Dynasty.
"The Suyukou porcelain kiln site, integrating the high-end kiln industry technologies of both south and north China at that time, is an important demonstration of the official technical and cultural exchanges between the Western Xia and Northern Song dynasties, and a reflection of the integration of multi-ethnic exchanges in ancient China," said Li Zheng, a researcher with the National Cultural Heritage Administration, according to People's Daily.
"Such white ceramics were popular among aristocrats and scholars during the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127)," said Qin Dashu, a professor with the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University, according to People's Daily. "Song and Western Xia used to be on good terms and had close technological and cultural exchanges," he added. "It is likely that the Northern Song officials sent excellent craftsmen to the Western Xia and helped them produce this fine white porcelain."
According to Zhu Cunshi, head of the Ningxia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, porcelain clay mined near Suyukou features high aluminum oxide content. "The craftsmen creatively added quartz to the clay to increase the proportion of silicon dioxide and reduce the proportion of aluminum oxide, so as to create products similar to the ceramics from Jingdezhen," explained Zhu, according to People's Daily.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.