NIP Chapter 320 Statues and Export Porcelain
Chapter 320 Statues and Export Porcelain
Chapter 320 Statues and Export Porcelain
Although the white porcelain statue can't be taken out of the water for a short time, everyone can still roughly see the contents inside through the transparent container wall.
The whole statue of Avalokitesvara is more than 20 centimeters high, and the whole body is covered with green and white glaze. Although the glaze surface has become rough due to soaking in seawater for too long, it can still be seen that it was crystal clear and clean, like ice and jade.
Avalokitesvara has a strong body, a large forehead, and a rich face. The shape of the face is extremely vivid. The drape of the carcass, the long skirt and other clothes have smooth lines, which set off the graceful figure.
As for recognizing that this is Guanyin Bodhisattva and not some other god, it is also very simple, because the crown on the head of this statue is very distinctive, so the professionals here can tell at a glance which god this statue belongs to.
The five dynasties and the two song dynasties were the period when the secularization of Buddha statues was popular, and it was also the climax of sculpture art. The most representative one was the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva, which was the most worshiped at that time.
From the current statue, it can be seen that although the technique of making the figure is more realistic, it is not vulgar at all, paying special attention to the depiction of details, which can better reflect a standard literati aesthetic taste.
As for the firing year, it depends purely on the judgment of the professional. After all, the Chinese tradition does not leave year marks on the statues, so the appraisal must be judged purely from the style.
Fortunately, the style of this statue is not unpopular, so after a brief discussion with several other experts who saw photos and videos through the Internet, several experts on board confirmed that this statue of Guanyin came from the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty.
From this point of view, they have to thank Huaxia for its infrastructure construction. At least because of the nearby island building project, the wireless base stations arranged nearby help them communicate with the land, which can greatly speed up their research.
It is a pity that after confirming the production time of this Guanyin statue, we can only confirm that this boat should come from a dynasty after the Northern Song Dynasty, and we cannot know more information.
The main reason for this is that the Chinese people's attitude towards statues has always been that the older the better, so it is normal to put a statue with decades or even hundreds of years of history on a boat.
To give the simplest example, Liang En's family has the same beliefs as ordinary Chinese people. They may burn incense sticks when they go to the temple, but they basically don't care about it.
But after Liang En brought back the old Longquan kiln cloth bag monk statue last time, his mother specially set aside a place at home to burn three sticks of incense every day.
The reason for doing this is also very simple, that is because this Buddha statue has been around for a long time, so it will be a very effective statue in the eyes of traditional Chinese people.
Fortunately, as the debris covering the wreck of the sunken ship was cleaned up, and as the contents of the sunken ship were continuously sent to the salvage ship, more and more clues could be found.
This is also thanks to the Chinese people's habit of using porcelain as tableware after the Song Dynasty, unlike those Southeast Asians or Indians who directly used leaves as tableware.
Although the poor in that era may not be able to afford all kinds of porcelain, the sailors on the ship must be able to afford it, and these porcelains that can withstand immersion in seawater have provided great convenience for later researchers.
"These things are blue and white porcelain from folk kilns in the early to mid-Yuan Dynasty." After looking at the occasional pieces of porcelain with patterns in them, an expert quickly judged the origin of these things.
Different from the god statue just now, this kind of folk porcelain used on the ship is the best comparison for judging the sinking time of the ship. Because of the turbulence on the ship, these fragile items basically need to be replenished every time they go to sea.
Therefore, as long as the approximate age of these porcelains is determined, the approximate age of the ship's sinking can be easily deduced.
"This thing will not be earlier than the middle of the Yuan Dynasty." After further discussion, everyone had a basic judgment on these porcelains based on the shape and style of these blue and white porcelains.
As for the inability to be detailed, it is because the porcelain fired by these folk kilns during the entire Yuan Dynasty not only did not change much in style, but also did not have a unified standard. Unless scientific testing is carried out, it is impossible to determine the specific time.
Due to the fact that the ship was smashed by the waves on the reef, it was much less difficult to organize than imagined. At least you can start removing the silt at multiple points at the same time without worrying about the structure of the ship.
As the cleaning work progressed, the remaining part of the ship gradually emerged from the bottom of the sea. Judging from the wreckage scattered at the bottom of the ship, it was a traditional Chinese sailing ship with watertight compartments.
Judging from the wreckage divided into two sections and the situation on the nearby reefs, there is a high probability that this unlucky ship was directly photographed on the reef during the storm, and then broke directly from it, so that the wreckage is now mainly concentrated on the two sides. place.
Soon, large boxes filled with seawater were sent up one after another, inside were neatly arranged bowls and plates, occasionally mixed with some jars.
The colors of these things are mainly blue and white. After a few days of temporary study with several experts, Liang En found that these things are all blue and white porcelain from JDZ, white porcelain from Dehua Kiln and celadon porcelain from Longquan Kiln.
After simple sorting, it was found that these porcelains belonged to the most common export porcelain produced in the Song and Yuan Dynasties in southern China, and were unearthed throughout Nanyang, India, the Middle East and Africa.
However, after careful inventory, they found that the number of white porcelain from Dehua kiln and bluish-white porcelain from JDZ was not much, and the celadon porcelain from Longquan kiln accounted for the majority.
Judging from the output and the location of the kiln mouth, although JDZ has a high output, it is too far away from the coastline.In the Yuan Dynasty, due to the population and economic level of the location where the kiln was located, the output of Dehua kiln was far inferior to that of Longquan kiln, which relied on the entire south of the Yangtze River as its backing.
Especially due to the rapid surrender of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Longquan Kiln and its surrounding areas located in the core area of the Southern Song Dynasty naturally did not suffer much damage. Therefore, in the Yuan Dynasty, it naturally became the most common variety of export porcelain in the Yuan Dynasty.
As we all know, due to long-term seawater immersion and corrosion, Hailao porcelain is considered the worst among similar porcelains, and the price is naturally the cheapest.
In particular, sea fishing porcelain is often some export porcelain, and there are few top-level goods, but usually once it appears, the price of one type of porcelain will be suppressed once.
After all, the biggest feature of this kind of porcelain fished out of the ship is that the quantity is large enough, tens of thousands at a time, 10,000+ or even hundreds of thousands are possible.
It's just that this time Liang En and the others are archaeologists, not the kind of commercial treasure hunting, so whether the amount is large or small has little effect on them.
Even from an archaeological point of view, everyone hopes to find more porcelain, because there will be more samples for everyone to check.
When everyone checked these hundreds of cups and plates, another boat was dispatched from the excavation site to temporarily deliver a small plastic box containing a dozen small black cups.
"We found these things in the stern of the ship just now, and they should be placed in a small box alone." The crew member explained to Liang En who came out to fetch the things.
"Because these things are placed separately, we think these things should be very important, so we bring them to you as soon as the water comes out."
(End of this chapter)