Uyghur Mould-Made Pottery Firing Technique

The Uyghur mould-made pottery technique arose with the opening of the Silk Road and has endured for more than two thousand years, among the oldest of Uyghur crafts. Yingjisha county (under Kashgar prefecture) is a key centre of Uyghur pottery, its wares long traded across southern Xinjiang. The craft entered the first national ICH list in May 2006, numbered Ⅷ-6.

The craft uses the local red clay, worked through treading, kneading, mould-forming, fettling and decorating, and fired as either plain or glazed wares. The forms are mostly vessels for daily use—pots, bowls, basins, lamps—plain and archaic in shape with decoration of typical Uyghur character, some given a soft green or yellow glaze.

Uyghur pottery records the spread and localising of Silk Road craft, a key material witness to the daily life of the Western Regions; masters such as Tursun Rostum still keep the craft alive today in Kashgar's Gaotai dwellings.