H 8.8 cm, D 37 cm

Taosi Longshan Culture (c. 2500-1900 B.C.)

Excavated in 1980

The Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing

Longshan cultures predominated in China's Central Plains during the late Neolithic period, from about 3000 to 2000 B.C. First identified in 1928 at the Longshan site in Shandong province, different regional Longshan cultures have since been found in Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hubei, and Hunan. This pottery basin comes from a burial at Taosi in southern Shanxi, a late Longshan site.

Excavations of Longshan settlements, which were typically encircled with rammed-earth walls, have uncovered bronze tools, lacquered wooden objects, and pig and deer bones used for divination. Some objects contain pictographs that may be the earliest writing in China.

Studies of the massive cemetery at Taosi reveal evidence of increased social stratification. Of the excavated burials, only six (less than 1.5 percent) are large, eighty are medium, and some six hundred are small in size. The small burials have few or no burial goods, whereas the medium-size burials contain painted wooden coffins, pottery vessels, and a few wooden, stone, and jade objects. The six largest graves -- all apparently of adult men -- were more lavish, each with several hundred items, including unusual murals, tables, whole pig skeletons, lacquered goods, and musical instruments.

This basin was one of fourteen pottery vessels found in one of the large burials at Taosi. The interior is painted with a coiling serpent, extending a long spiky form (perhaps a tongue or flame) from its serrated teeth. The placement of the serpent image inside the basin suggests an association with water, one that the serpent would retain in later periods. It is tempting to see this serpent as a dragon, a creature long venerated in China. Its coiled form is reminiscent of both earlier dragonlike creatures on painted pottery and the graphs for dragon (long) found on later oracle bones. It is not known whether these images are directly related, or even if they carried the same or similar meanings.

The basin was fired at a low temperature, its decoration applied after firing. These factors suggest that it was made specifically for burial in the grave rather than for everyday use -- a further indication of the tomb occupant's high status.

The red pigment is applied over a black ground. The painted designs differ from other Longshan pottery, which was dominated by gray and black wares, and link the basin with older painted pottery traditions. The use of color on this later Longshan vessel may have been influenced by designs in lacquer.