Introduction of Glazes into China 139 



written in the third century a.d., attributes to Ta Ts'in ten varieties 

 of liu-li, — carnation, white, black, green, yellow, blue, purple, azure, 

 red, and red-brown. 1 This extensive color-scale shows us that not a 

 precious stone is involved (and with reference to India pH-liu-li or 

 liu-li may well denote a variety of quartz or rock-crystal 2 ), but an 

 artificial, man-made product. This is clearly evidenced by other texts, 

 in which the peculiar utilization of liu-li in Ta Ts'in is specified. Thus 

 we are informed by the Tsin Annals that the people of Ta Ts'in use 

 liu-li in the making of walls, and rock-crystal in making the bases of 

 pillars. The Kiu T'ang shu reports that eaves, pillars, and window- 

 bars of the palaces there are frequently made of rock-crystal and liu-li. 3 

 Glazed faience for architectural purposes is doubtless alluded to in 

 these two cases; and we face here the same combination of murra and 

 crystal as we noticed in Pliny. 4 It was almost at the same time, or only 

 a little later, that the knowledge of glazed ware spread to the West 

 and the Far East alike from the same focus. It thus was the knowl- 

 edge of the highly-developed ceramic processes of the anterior Orient, 

 at their climax in the second century b.c. or earlier, which was trans- 

 mitted to China, and gave there the impetus to the production of glazes. 

 The conception of liu-li as a precious stone is chiefly upheld in 

 Buddhist texts; but in reading these with critical understanding it is 

 obvious that something else is hidden behind this alleged stone. The 

 Yi tsHe king yin i, 6 written by Yuan Ying about a.d. 649, states that 



Chinese Art, Vol. II, p. 17). Nothing of the kind, however, is to be found in the 

 ancient Chinese texts, which, with reference to the Roman Orient, never mention 

 any vessels of liu-li, but merely speak of a substance of that name, without any 

 reference to objects made from it. This clearly indicates that no vessels of any 

 sort were imported, but only pasty masses of various tinges which could be applied 

 to pottery bodies. That liu-li has nothing to do with the production of glass, 

 simply results from the fact that only as late as the fifth century a.d. did the Chinese 

 learn from foreigners how to make glass. If glazed ware makes its appearance 

 under the Han, it is obvious that it bears some relation to the liu-li originating from 

 the Roman-Hellenistic Orient. 



1 Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, p. 73. 



* See T'oung Pao, 1915, p. 198. In the dictionary Kuang ya of the third century 

 (Ch. 9, p. 5 b; ed. of Han Wei ts'ung shu) liu-li is classed with quartz (shui tsing 



*fit). 



* Hirth, /. c, pp. 44, 51. Hirth translates liu-li by "opaque glass;" but such 

 walls and pillars of glass have not yet been discovered. 



4 In Egypt, as early as 5500 B.C., glazing was applied on a large scale for the 

 lining of rooms. Tiles have been found about a foot long, stoutly made, with 

 dovetails on the back, and holes through them edgeways in order to tie them back 

 to the wall with copper wire. They are glazed all over with hard blue-green glaze 

 (W. M. Flinders Petrie, Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt, p. 108). 



6 Ch. 23, p. 12 b (see above, p. 115). This text has been adopted by the Fan 

 yi ming i tsi (Ch. 8, p. 12 b; edition of Nanking). 



