While in Chungking in 1938，friends told me of some peculiar sherds that had been found across the Yanglse near the village of Huang Ko Ya 黄葛垇, where a new motor road had been built recently, and suggested that I go and look at them. On April 13th ,I crossed the river at Ch’u Ch’i Men, landed at Hai T’ang Ch’I 海棠溪,and thence climbed the hill to Huang Ko Ya. I soon discovered a Sung dynasty porcelain kilnsite which was the main source of the porcelain sherds. To my amazement I saw that the sherds were the typical chien yao or temmoku，and I was unable to find any typical Ming dynasty sherds in the kilnsite ,or any other kind of porcelain but the temmoku. In a short time, I secured from the kilnsite, besides numerous sherds，a fragment of a black vase, several unbroken red food bowls with unglazed circles inside on the bottom, and several dark glazed teabowls. A sherd of a teabowl was found with the well-known hare-fur streaks. These objects were made of a beautiful glossy porcelain varying in color from black to red, but with occasional mettled samples.

Chien yao or temmoku is a monochrome porcelain varying from black to red in color and generally very glossy. Some times there are fine alternate streaks of red and black, and this is called“hare fur”.At other times there is a mottled effect that is called“partridge feather”,Generally the outside at the bottom is unglazed. In Fukien the body is dark, nearly black, and where exposed has been turned red by the fire of the kiln. The name chien yao was given to this porcelain because it was made during the Sung dynasty at Chien An and at Chien Yang in Fukien Province. The name temmoku was given by the Japanese. Chien yao was also made in Honan and some other parts of China, where the body or biscuit was often white or a light yellow. A very much valued temmoku is a reddish brown with“oil spots”,or tiny spots that have no glaze.

The most common object, or at least the best known, is a round teacup with a small base. Those from Fukien and Honan have a depression on the bottom with a rim on the outer edge. Inside on the bottom the glaze is very thick and has been likened to a pool. Outside near the bottom the glaze ends in a thick rim or in drops of porcelain. This teacup has been famous in China, in Japan, and in foreign countries.

Besides the teacups there are black vases, black or red teapots or pitchers, jugs, and food bowls. The food bowls are generally red and have an unglazed circle inside on the bottom.

I had previously found typical teacups, vases, pitchers, and jugs in the old sung dynasty kilnsite at Liu Li Ch’ang, which is thirty li from the East Gate of Chengtu. Because it was unknown to archaeologists that temmoku was made in Szechwan I hesitated to assert. Although the samples were found in situ, that these temmoku were actually made in Szechwan, The fact is that they are too numerous in this kilnsite to have been made elsewhere and to have gotten into the kilnsite by accident. With the finding of the kilnsite at Huang Ko Ya the evidence is so conclusive that we can assert with confidence that chien yao or temmoku was made extensively in Szechwan. We have even collected samples of the“oil spot”temmoku at the Ch’iung Chow kilnsite, which is near the city of Chiungeow邛州.

There is a Sung and Ming dynasty grave jar that is found all over Szechwan. It was placed in the grave and contained offerings to the dead. It is generally ornamented by a dragon trying to cat the sun or the moon, but sometimes by small upturned or downturned knobs in vertical rows. The color varies from black to red, and always there is an unglazed portion at the bottom. This is evidently temmoku.

Moreover there are porcelain objects still made in Szechwan which are evidently the descendants of the temmoku. Some of the lustrous brown water pitchers that are extensively used in Szechwan so closely resemble the temmoku that there seems no question of the relationship. In Chinese shops food bowls can be seen that look very much like a temmoku food bowl, even with an unglazed circle in the bottom.

——《Journal of the West China Border Research Socie-ty》第10卷第193、194页 1938年