Compositional characteristics of proto‐porcelain wares of the Wuyishan cluster in Southeast China

Abstract The enduring mystery of the production, trade, and consumption of the prestigious proto‐porcelain wares across northern and southern China has abated in the wake of discovery of kilns for such products in the recent decades. A new cluster of such kilns recently discovered in the Wuyishan Mountain, in particular, supplies a promising candidate for provenancing those of the Western Zhou (1045‐771 BCE). To test this possibility, however, it is indispensable to investigate a priori the compositional characteristics of the products of this cluster. To this end, the authors analyzed a number of samples of proto‐porcelain wares from three sites and porcelain stone near them with ICP‐OES and SEM‐EDS. They found that the bodies of the samples are made of porcelain stone available in the vicinity. The discrepancies in the bodies and glazes across different production sites are largely derived from deliberate choices of raw materials and firing technologies.