White Pottery Plate with Stamped Designs

　　———— Magical Implement Used in Early Human Sacrificial Rites
　　Neolithic Age
　　Height: 7.3cm; Diameter at Mouth: 19cm
　　Unearthed at Tangjiagang, Anxiang County, in 1978
This is a magical implement used in early human sacrificial rites and is the earliest white pottery utensil discovered up to now, dated at 6500-7000 years old. The pottery plate is made of clay with a relatively high magnesium content. The clay body is clean and pure, indicating that the process of selecting and rinsing clay had reached a fairly high level at that time. This plate has an inward mouth rim, a gradual diminutive body and an outwardly splaying base that corresponds to the shape of the main body. The surface of the body is covered with different designs, forming rings of X-shaped, circular, triangular or S-shaped designs. Between two rings of S-shaped designs on the base can be found fairly regular imprinted octagonal star designs, and in the square frames in the center of the octagonal star designs can be found imprinted rotary cross designs. This makes the whole round base appear like a radiantly shining picture that centers around the octagonal stars. 　　

　　Judging by its elaborate craftsmanship and decoration, this white pottery plate is not an ordinary daily utensil. The white pottery artifacts unearthed at the Tangjiagang Ruins, though limited in number, have very fine clay body that indicates a very careful production process from raw material selection to firing. The color white is one that contains all the colors in the spectrum and is usually considered as “colorless”. It symbolizes purity and sacredness. Using white pottery in sacrificial ceremonies not only shows one’s respect to gods but also enables one to acquire a supernatural power. The designs on this pottery plate are the symbols of reaching the supernatural, because octagonal stars are considered as the radiating sun. In the prehistoric age when everything had its divine power, the primitive people worshiped the sun to express their worship of light. Artifacts from the mid and late Neolithic age all have such octagonal star-sun designs. Examples are the pottery ewer unearthed in Songze, Zhejiang, the pottery dou unearthed from the Dawenkou Ruins in Shandong, the pottery plate unearthed from the Dadunzi Ruins in Jiangsu, and the pottery ewer unearthed from the ancient well in Lake Cheng of Jiangsu Province. This design also appears in the Neolithic jade artifacts unearthed from Lingjiatan, Hanshan, Anhui Province and Liangzhu Culture in Zhejiang. This shows a widespread pursuit of light at that time. The inward mouth rim can hold more food during sacrificial ceremonies. A careful study of the decorative part of the designs shows that one can have a full view of this white pottery plate only when it is raised above one’s eye-level. This can also be interpreted as that during the sacrificial ceremonies one had to hold up this white pottery plate above his head before he could see the octagonal stars, show his piety and reach the supernatural.