Classic Work of Painted Pottery

Classic Work of Painted Pottery

Most painted pottery in China was made some 3000 to 5000 years ago in the Yellow River Valley in Southwest Qinghai, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces and northern Henan Province. The classic one is Human Face and Fish Body Design Colored Pottery Basin, which was made in the Neolithic age (5000 to 10000 years ago) and unearthed in the 1950s in Banpo Village in Xi'an of Shaanxi Province.

The basin, 16.5 cm in height with a diameter of 38.5 cm, is made of fine-mud red ceramics and has a

design of a human face holding fish at the corners of mouth . It is uniformly red in color and decorated with black pigment. At that time, the Banpo people had their potteries simply decorated, the most striking are the designs of fish that can be seen everywhere. The fish was finished in symbolic pattern. It is concluded that fish should be the totem of ancient Banpo people .