Pottery making in Tibet has ancient roots. Artifacts unearthed from the Karub Ruins in Qamdo, a New Stone Age site, include more than 20,000 pottery shards.

About 1,234 are identifiable, mostly containers, although a small number bear signs of smoke, showing they might be cooking utensils.

Bowls: Small in size, with an open mouth and flat bottom. In terms of shape, they come in two types: vertical mouth and multiple mouths.

Jars: Great variations in size. Commanding great workmanship, they could be used to fetch water, cook food or store grain. In terms of shape, there are those with a small mouth, bulging body, long neck, large mouth, single ear, or a body composed of two hugging animals. Judging from color and other signs, they were burned in open-air fires, instead baked in kilns.

Pottery shards excavated from the New Stone Age ruins in Qoigung Village north of Lhasa show they were made manually, a small numbering being polished. A larger portion are of a grayish brown color, with others being black, brown and reddish brown. Black pottery objects, obviously the best of these, are small in size with thin walls. Carved lines are found generally on polished objects, mostly in the bodies but also partly in the necks or ears. Carved lines are mostly in the shape of triangle, curved line, crossing lines, and or in the shape of snakes.Other lines were created obviously using chisels, saws and other tools.The pottery is comparatively advanced in terms of production technique.



Pottery Making

Ancient pottery making sites are also found in Lhunzhub, Darze, Nyimo, Meizhugongka, Gungjor, Yikang, Lholung, Denqen, Sangri, Zhanang, Nedong, Qoingyi, Gunggar, Tinggyi, Tingri, Xietongmoin, Renbo and Gyangze. The procedures used in pottery making are roughly the same.

Tools Used

(1) Models. Some were used to make jars holding qingke barley wine; others were flowerpots or butter containers.

(2) Polishing wheels, which are complete with bearings.

(3) Pottery club used to solidify the clay objects.

(4) Brushes made of 15-cm pig bristles.

(5) Wooden knives, wooden sticks used to make holes, and wooden knives used to carve patterns.

Fuels

The fuel used was mainly firewood in southeastern Tibet, which is rich in forest resources, and cow dung and dried grass in northwestern Tibet.

Raw Materials

This refers to pottery clay and aluminum ore powder. Both are of good quality and products made using them as raw materials rarely crack.

Pottery clay comes of two kinds: white and red.

Aluminum ore. Mined from Jiangma Township in Meizhogkongka County, such ore is powdered using a rounded rock.

Production Technique

(1) Tamping clay. This constituted the first step to make potter and was generally done at home in the courtyard. Sitting on the ground, the potters would tamp the pottery clay using stones.

(2) Mixing clay. Before doing this, they rinsed the screened pottery clay to remove impurities. No additives were used when making flowerpots. Sand, charcoal and mica are added when making cooking utensils.

(3) Making the base. This was done on the basis of households. Workshops were created in front of their houses, and the workers worked in the open-air, whether in summer or winter. When making the pots for buttered tea, the workers cut off a piece of clay dough. While turning the wheel with their left hand, they beat the dough with the right using a piece of wood. Very often, they would spread white power mixed with mica over the body. Dried cow dung was added and the base left to cool and dry.

(4) Making body walls. The Tibetans molded a clay cake into the shape of a plate, into which a hole was made with a finger. While rotating the wheel with the left foot, the clay plate was added onto the inner side of the clay body.

(5) Fixing a pot mouth. A piece of pottery clay was molded into the shape of the mouth of the pottery piece. A pig bristle brush was used to sprinkle water over the top so as to fix the mouth. Generally, the Tibetan workers used their right hands or wooden knives to press the mouth.

(6) Fixing a pot spout. A pointed piece of clay dough around a cow horn was fixed with the clay teapot body, after which the horn was removed.

(7) Fixing a pot handle. A rectangular shaped piece of clay dough was fixed with the clay pot body, workers using their hands to create patterns on it.

(8) Drying the clay body. Some did this in an underground cell; others placed them on a high shelf for fear that they would be destroyed by domestic animals. Generally, clay bodies would be dried for three days.

(9) Firing. When a kiln was not available, the Tibetans made pottery by burning it in a fire fueled with firewood. Generally, they used three pieces of stone to make a kiln; small products were stacked between layers of firewood; on top layer was a larger pottery jar, which was also supported with three large pieces of stone. Wheat straw was used to light the fire, and the firing lasted from noon until night. The pottery was not removed until the following morning.

(10) Second firing. This was indispensable. Except for pots and butter lamps which themselves were used to cook or light a fire, pottery such as qingke wine jar and water kettles, prone to cracking, needed a second round of firing.

(11) Glazing. Water was added to aluminum ore powder in a bowl. The liquid was brushed onto the pottery with a pig bristle brush. Butter lamps and flower pots, which did not need a second firing, were glazed and fired directly. Qingke wine containers and others, which needed a second firing, were glazed only after this.

Potters did not own land and they sold their products in return for daily necessities.

In old Tibet, potters were not regarded as being as lowly as blacksmiths, hair dressers and celestial burial masters, but they were still not allowed to eat around the same table with others.

Sale and Use of Pottery Wares

Pottery wares were generally brought to Lhasa for sale. The market was by the Dragon King Pool behind the Potala Palace.

Pottery was classified according to usage: daily life, religious purpose, and construction.

Pottery for daily life: This included butter jars, cooking pots, buttered teapots, tea makers, sour milk jars, tsatsa figures of Buddha, barley wine pots, flower pots, night pots and others.

Pottery for religious purpose: This included butter lamps, cleaning bottles, stoves for burning aromatic plants, and incense burners. In monasteries, butter lamps are burnt all the year round. Generally speaking, butter lamps were cast with gold, silver and bronze in various shapes.

A cleaning bottle is much used for religious rituals. It contains qingke barley plucked with two phoenix feathers.

A tsatsa figure of Buddha has a lotus base.

Pottery for construction purpose included glazed tiles complete with patterns such as lions, tigers and heavenly maids. Most of the glazed tiles were used to build pavilions and bridges. A case in point is the Lhasa Glazed Bridge. The bridge top is covered with green glazed tiles, and the four corners are complete with upturned dragonhead eaves. They are of a style much found in inland China.

China Tibet Magazine
ZHANG XIANZHONG