Glazing into history

The 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 from Cixi, Zhejiang province.

It is cloudy, drizzling and slightly chilly. The weather in early winter echoes the simple but elegant celadon pottery, for which Shanglin Lake in Cixi, Zhejiang province, is famous.

Taking a boat across the water, visitors stepping onto an island there will probably be astonished to find a landscape littered with layer upon layer of broken porcelain.

Top: Celadon items on display at the museum at the Shanglin Lake Archaeological Park, which is expected to open soon. Above: Housi'ao relics at Shanglin Lake, one of China's top 10 new archaeological discoveries in 2016. Bottom: Replica of a "dragon kiln" at the Shanglin Lake park. Photos by Wang Kaihao / China Daily

This is the location of the Housi'ao kiln, 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 one of the key porcelain production sites in Cixi and nearby regions - collectively known as the Yue Kiln - Shanglin Lake was a celadon production hub that operated for a millennium, according to Zheng Jianming, a researcher at the Zhejiang Provincial Research Institute for Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

More than 180 kiln sites have been unearthed so far around the lakeside.

"Many breakthroughs in the early stages of 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, the 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 show how celadon was produced in ancient times, and a new museum, designed in the shape of a dragon, is due to open to the public soon to give a panoramic introduction to the development of the 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 exclusively produced for emperors from the late Tang (618-907) to early Northern Song (960-1127) dynasties, was the finest of the Yue Kiln products.

It was once a mystery what mise porcelain referred to, although the term frequently appeared in ancient documents. That was until 13 porcelain items were unearthed in 1987 from an underground altar at the Famen Buddhist Temple in Baoji, Shaanxi province. The word "mise" was carved on the inventory of the altar items.

The discovery of the Housi'ao site in 2016 showed that this was the home of mise porcelain production. Zheng 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 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, inspired by scenes in the river towns of southern China.

Archaeological park

Apart from 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 in early December. "We're making efforts to better enable the site for the benefit of the public."

About 450 million yuan ($68 million; 58 million euros; ￡51 million) has been spent on improving the environment within the park. For example, more than 4,000 square meters of unauthorized buildings were demolished within the protected zone of the heritage site.

However, the large-scale project entails 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. It's also a place for leisure, the display of cultural heritage, education and cultural communication."

She says 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 for UNESCO World Heritage status. 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 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 has been a vexing 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 the Daminggong site in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. The site has remains of royal palaces from 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 to 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 says it is important to make academic research and protection a priority, and he warns 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 a 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 a 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."

Contact the writer at wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 12/22/2017 page22)