After the shape is completed, the pottery body needs to be beaten and rolled to make the clay strips stick to each other more closely and firmly.
In the Yangshao culture, slow wheel trimming technology appeared, leaving traces of wheel spins on the rims of some pottery vessels.
The pottery pots and gourd bottles unearthed from Dadiwan, Wangjiayinwa and other sites, as well as the positive swirl patterns produced during trimming on the bottoms, are sufficient to prove the existence of slow wheels.
The center scroll is a texture produced by turning the body upside down on the pottery wheel and using a tool to trim the bottom of the pot from the center to the edge, gradually moving.
It is different from the eccentric vortex produced when the fast wheel is used to make the bottom of the pottery divider.
Although the pottery wheel has not yet been found, a series of pottery turntables from the early Yangshao to the late Yangshao period have been discovered in Dadiwan.
The turntable is made of sand-filled pottery, which is thick and heavy, with a diameter of more than 30 centimeters.
In the early stage, the middle part of the turntable was raised to form a flat work surface, while in the later stage, a pottery basin was turned upside down in the center of the turntable.
A set of utensils from the late Yangshao period showed exactly how they were being made when they were unearthed.
The pottery basin is placed upside down on the turntable. There is a raised circular mud rib in the middle of the turntable, which just secures the pot inside the turntable.
During operation, the turntable is placed on the pottery wheel, and the bottom of the pottery basin with a diameter of 1 cm becomes the work surface for building pottery blanks.
Some turntables are also engraved with many concentric circles with the center as the center.
In this way, the round belly and bottom of the pottery can be made more regular.
Some turntables have multiple small holes on the edge to drain excess mud from the pottery making process.
This set of pottery tools and its exquisitely detailed design fully embodies the intelligence and creativity of our ancestors.
Also, in Qin'an and Gangu areas, some villagers still use slow wheels.
Generally, a pit is dug first, and the rotating shaft is buried in the pit. The pottery wheel is made of grass mud and placed flush with the pit mouth.
When making, step on the pottery wheel with your feet to make the wheel rotate.
Since there is no other power, the pottery wheel can only rotate slowly, and a clay workbench is placed in the middle of the pottery wheel.
From this kind of equipment and working scenes, it seems that we can capture the information of ancestors making pottery thousands of years ago.
The prosperity of painted pottery is closely related to the development of pottery craftsmanship.
After the rise of Kuailun, painted pottery declined rapidly.
Research has found that in any ancient culture with a tradition of making painted pottery, its pottery making technology must remain at the hand-made stage.
After mastering and using the fast-wheel pottery making, the art of painted pottery soon died out.
The painted pottery in Gansu Province up to the Xindian and Shajing Culture still used the clay strip building method.
The painted pottery in Xinjiang Province ended even later, because Kuaiwan pottery was not introduced until the Han Dynasty.
In the northwest region of my country, the main reason why the production of painted pottery was still very developed in the Bronze Age was the failure to master the fast-wheel pottery making method.
It is precisely because of this that the painted pottery in Gansu Province is rich and colorful.
These are actually borderland, or characteristic pottery of ethnic minorities.
So is there any good pottery in the Central Plains? There must have been in ancient times, and the civilization that developed was even more brilliant.
For example, Jieshou, located in the middle reaches of the Huaihe River, has always had simple folk customs and rich cultural heritage.
With their dexterous hands, people continue to create material civilization and at the same time create exquisite folk art.
The paper-cutting, New Year pictures, pottery and other folk crafts here exude the fragrance of earth and decorate the farmyards like a bustle.
Especially Jieshou painted pottery, with its unique art, has become a wonderful flower in the garden of Chinese folk art.
The invention of pottery can be traced back to the Neolithic Age, five or six thousand years ago.
The industrious and intelligent ancestors used soil as materials, dug holes as kilns, and fired exquisite low-temperature painted pottery.
The invention of pottery marked the beginning of Neolithic culture.
The pottery of this period has simple and full shapes, coordinated proportions, simple and generous decorative patterns, and bright colors, integrating practicality and beauty.
The pottery making skills are passed down from generation to generation, just like the water of the Yellow River.
By the Sui Dynasty, Jieshou had a history of making pottery in vertical kilns.
In the Tang Dynasty, because it was adjacent to Yangluo, the place where Tang Sancai was produced, Jieshou Sancai carved pottery came into being.
After nearly a thousand years of development, Jieshou three-color carved pottery has gradually evolved into three-color carved pottery.
However, its unique plastic arts and decorative arts still maintain its ancient charm.
There is an ancient legend about the birth of Jieshou painted pottery.
Initially, their family only made black pottery and produced some daily necessities.
One year, Li Yuan, the father of Emperor Taizong Li Shimin, passed by the "Liu Li Temple" in Jieshou and stayed nearby.
At night, he dreamed of a banner platform with green, yellow and white clay pots placed on it.
After waking up, he immediately ordered the nearby pottery to make three-color pottery.
However, due to the limited skills of the potters at that time, after three days and three nights of firing, they only produced yellow and white pots, and could not think of a way to make green pottery.
Just when everyone was at a loss, a coppersmith passed by the kiln.
Due to continuous rain for many days, the coppersmiths were forced to work in the kiln.
Because of this, some copper powder was blown into the kiln by the wind.
Unexpectedly, the copper powder actually changed the color of the pottery, and they produced green pottery.
Therefore, copper powder became one of the raw materials for their pottery making.
After the Lu family mastered the art of making three-colored pottery, it was passed down from generation to generation and gradually spread.
By the end of the Qing Dynasty, 13 nearby villages were producing painted pottery, forming the famous "Thirteen Kilns".
For hundreds of years, large quantities of Jieshou painted pottery were transported to all parts of the country through the nearby Grand Canal and were supplied to dignitaries as a luxury product.
There is actually no clear written record of the origin of Jieshou painted pottery craft.
In 1999, during the archaeological excavation of the Liuzi Ancient Canal Site in Huaibei, one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in the country, a large number of Jieshou painted pottery fragments and some complete painted pottery vessels were unearthed.
Especially the Jieshou carved three-color pottery sherds found in a Song Dynasty well.
This discovery provides us with precious physical information for studying the age of the first firing of Jieshou painted pottery;
At the Mingcheng site in Xu City, Jieshou-colored pottery objects and fragments were also unearthed.
Through these discoveries, it can be inferred that the production technology of Jieshou painted pottery dates back to the Song Dynasty at the latest.
In addition, according to the "Historical Atlas of China Sui and Tang Parts", less than a hundred miles north of Songshan Mountain, the birthplace of the Ying River, is Gong County, one of the three major producing areas of Tang Sancai.
Water transportation has always been an important method of transportation in ancient times.
Therefore, it can be inferred that the development of Jieshou painted pottery craftsmanship was most likely directly or indirectly influenced by the three-color pottery craftsmanship of the Tang Dynasty through the Yinghe River.
The clay used in Jieshou painted pottery is local yellow clay, which kiln workers also call "Yellow River Silt", which is the yellow clay deposited after the Yellow River overflowed.
According to "History of the Yuan Dynasty·Hequ Zhi", the flooding of the Yellow River affected the Ying River during the Yan period of Renzong of the Yuan Dynasty, that is, from 1314 to 130 AD.
According to local kiln workers, yellow clay is divided into large and small clay.
The clay before the Yellow River flooded was called small clay. It was hard and could only be used to make pottery with simple shapes such as basins, plates, and cups;
In places affected by the flooding of the Yellow River, the clay deposited is called clay. It is soft and highly malleable, and can make pottery with more complex shapes.