CHINESE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
CHAPTER I
THE PRIMITIVE PERIODS
POTTERY, as one of the first necessities of mankind, is among the earliest of human inventions. In a rude form it is found with the implements of the late Stone Age, before there is any evidence of the use of metals, and all attempts to reconstruct the first stages of its discovery are based on conjecture alone.
We have no knowledge of a Stone Age in China, but it may be safely assumed that pottery there, as elsewhere, goes back far into prehistoric times. Its invention is ascribed to the mythical Shên–nung, the Triptolemus of China, who is supposed to have initiated the people in the cultivation of the soil and other necessary arts of life. Huang Ti, the semi–legendary yellow emperor, in whose reign the cyclical system of chronology began (2697 B. C.), is said to have appointed "a superintendent of pottery, K´un–wu, who made pottery," and it was a commonplace in the oldest Chinese literature[6] that the great and good emperor Yü Ti Shun (2317–2208 B. C.) "highly esteemed pottery." Indeed, the Han historian Ssŭ–ma Ch´ien (163–85 B. C.) assures us that Shun himself, before ascending the throne, "fashioned pottery at Ho–pin," and, needless to say, the vessels made at Ho–pin were "without flaw."
According to the description given in the T´ao shuo, the evolution of the potter's art in China took the usual course. The first articles made were cooking vessels; then, "coming to the time of Yü (i.e. Yü Ti Shun), the different kinds of wine vessels are distinguished by name, and the sacrificial vessels are gradually becoming complete."[7]