Mount Wudang glazed tile kiln site unveiled

( chinadaily.com.cn )

Updated: 2012-05-22

As a result of 20 days of archaeological excavation, archaeologists of the Palace Museum have finally unveiled that the famous Mount Wudang glazed tiles of 600 years history that stem from the local kilns popularly known as "72 official kilns".

On April 11, Wang Guangyao, an archaeologist of Palace Museum, and his team entered Qingtang village to excavate the relics of Mount Wudang glazed tiles. They made rapid progress. In only two weeks, they unearthed a large amount of glazed components and remnants, including triangle-shaped edges of tiles, semicircle-shaped tiles, plate tiles, caskets, glazed bricks, support pins and back up plates. As shown in the Heji stamps in the glazed tiles, and the tile sizes, embryos and glaze colors, the tiles conform to the extant tiles of the Wulong Temple and the Yuxu Temple of Mount Wudang.

To confirm the archaeological discovery, Wang Guangyao invited senior experts Ren Xinyu and Zhao Xiaochun from Beijing, who specialize in ancient pottery studies. The two experts found through observations that the mass of white clays of Mount Wudang matched the clays selected for firing glazed tiles in official kilns. Comparing the clays with existing Mount Wudang glazed tiles with instruments; they concluded that the kiln to produce Mount Wudang glazed tiles is based in the Qingtang village.