中国的早期玻璃器皿

EARLY GLASS VESSELS OF CHINA

近几年来,人们对我国玻璃制造史越来越感兴趣,国内外学术界以春秋战国的玻璃珠璧为对象,对中国玻璃起源问题进行了多方面的探讨,也对中国晚期玻璃(清代)进行过一些研究,但是对西汉——北宋的中国早期玻璃器皿,还停留在对个别器物的孤立描述分析上,缺乏综合研究。玻璃发展史上的几个很重要的问题,如我国最早的玻璃器皿始于何时?我国什么时候开始掌握吹制技术?我国历史上存在不存在钠钙玻璃等问题,都有待进一步研讨。解放后各地陆续出土了一批西汉——北宋的玻璃器皿,初步具备了从考古实物上研究这段时期的玻璃器皿的条件。

About 187 glass vessels and some fragments excavated from 48 sites dating from theWest Han Dynasty to the North Song Dynasty(206BC—1127AD)after liberation are col-lected in this paper.Their places and dates are rather trusty.Having compared them withtheir counterpart of the Western glassmaking centres in type,decoration,technique andcomposition,the early glass vessels of China have been investigated and grouped carefully.The majority of them were made in China.Some others were imported from abroad,includ-ing 20 pieces of Roman glass,3 pieces of Sassanian glass and 12 pieces of Islamic glass.Theorigins of some of them have not yet been found out up to now.According to the archaeological data,the earliest glass vessels are two double-handledcups and a plate excavated from the tomb of Liu Sheng,the Prince Jing of Zhong Shanof the West Han Dynasty.The technique and composition of these glass vessels inheritedthe tradition of Warring States Period i.e.lead-barium glass,casting,and as imitations ofjade.The earliest blown glass vessels of China are those bottles,gourd-shaped bottles and amonk's alms-bowl discovered from a Northern Wei stupa foundation at Dingxian,HebeiProvince.Blown technique in glassmaking in China has been adopted ever since.The Sui Dynasty saw an important period of glassmaking.A lot of fine glass vesselshave been discovered.Some of them are made of high lead glass.The others are made ofsodalime glass.For example,a box made of high lead glass and the cups and bottles madeof soda-lime glass were all excavated from the tomb of Li Jingxun of the Sui Dynasty,inXian,Shaanxi Province.This proves that soda-lime glass vessels came into being in Chinaas early as in the Sui Dynasty.Many more vessels of the North Song Dynasty were exca-vated.A number of them were discovered from stupas foundation,and the gourd-shapedbottles were very popular during the time.Although glassmaking failed to become a main handicraft in ancientChina,it had a longhistory of slow but steadily development.The early glass vessels made in China are charac-terized by small size,thin wall,most of them being used as sarira bottles and works of art,afew as dinner-set.The early Chinese glassmaking retained its own traditions in raw materialsand shaping,in the meanwhile,influence from the West is also suggested.Blown glass andsoadalime glass and soda lime glass might have been introduced through the silk road.The places where the early imported glasswares were dug out has provided the evidenceof the trade route between the East and the West.In the Han Dynasty the imported glas-svessels were mostly distributed along the coast of Southeast China.In the Southern andthe Northern Dynasties,China was in a state of split.The imported glass vessels weredistributed widely.Beijiao in North China and Nanjing in South China which may repre-sent two different trade routes.The glass vessels imported during Sui and Tang Dynasties,having been excavated from Xian and Luoyang show the two capitals'important positionin the trade between the West and the East.These places indicate that the import route ofglass vessels as commodities is coincident with that of other goods.