Shanxi discovers earliest porcelain kiln

Archaeologists announced their latest discovery on April 19 that a porcelain kiln site from the Sui Dynasty (581-618) was excavated at the ruins of Jinyang Ancient City in Taiyuan, capital of North China's Shanxi province.

According to Han Binghua, leader of the archaeological team, the porcelain kiln site in the northwest of Jinyang Ancient City was discovered in 2021 and was the earliest porcelain kiln site found in Shanxi.

Three porcelain kiln remains, nine ash pits and nearly 10,000 pieces of porcelain were unearthed at the site.

Judging from the site and unearthed relics, the porcelain kiln was used for a very short amount of time, and there were not many kinds of fired products.

The discovery of this kiln site fills a gap in related research and is of great significance to the study of ancient Chinese ceramics.

Jinyang Ancient City, covering more than 20 square kilometers in Taiyuan's Jinyuan district, was first built in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC) and abandoned in the early Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).

Archaeological work has been carried out there since the 1960s. Due to the deep burial and well-preserved nature, the ruins of Jinyang Ancient City were designated as a major protected site in the national 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) to 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).

In October 2010, it was included in the first list of national archaeological site parks.