Longshan Black Pottery Craft

Longshan black pottery takes its name from the Longshan culture first unearthed at Chengziya near Longshan town in Zhangqiu, Jinan, over four thousand years ago. Today's potters there carry on and revive the ancient craft.

The work passes through more than ten steps — selecting and mixing clay, shaping, trimming, burnishing and firing — using a distinctive carbon-infusion firing to turn the ware jet black; the eggshell pottery is thin as paper and exacting to make.

Renowned as 'black as lacquer, thin as paper, bright as a mirror, hard as porcelain', Longshan black pottery is a key emblem of the Longshan culture and important for studying prehistoric Chinese ceramics and local Zhangqiu craft.