Introduction of Glazes into China 141 



time of Sun K'uan $£ $6 (a.d. 181-252), while digging the ground, 

 found a copper or bronze chest two feet and seven inches long, the 

 cover of it being made of liu-li (lli&^iilSigllK-b-tfJiJllM 

 J$ ^je). This bronze vessel evidently was of Chinese make; and the 

 only reasonable supposition is that the cover was of glazed ware, the 

 whole affair coming down from the Former Han dynasty. Sun Liang 

 S ^, who died in a.d. 260, a son of the aforementioned Sun K'uan, 

 made a screen of liu-li} 



In the Han wu ku ski WL 1t£ $C ♦ (that is, "Old Affairs relating to 

 Wu of the Han Dynasty") it is on record that Wu was fond of the 

 gods and genii, and erected in their honor sanctuaries the doors of 

 which were coated with a white glaze (pai liu-li S *§? J&) that reflected 

 its light afar. The Emperor Ch'eng (32-7 B.C.) built the palace Fu- 

 t'ang M 51 M for Chao Fei-yen, and had the doors glazed green. 2 

 In the same manner, liu-li is combined with the names for pottery ves- 

 sels: thus we read about "glazed wine-cups" (liu-li chung SfE^ili) 3 

 and glazed bowls (liu-li wan #£). 4 The Chinese hardly ever made use 

 of glass for practical household purposes. Pottery was always the 

 article they preferred. Wine being taken hot, glass was prohibitive 

 for wine-cups. The same holds good for tea. Glass beads were the 

 only article of practical utility to the Chinese. Those who have 

 written on glass in ancient China, merely by consulting Chinese sources, 

 seem to have never seen antique glass or collections of Chinese glass. 

 When the making of glass became known to the Chinese, they began to 

 cut and polish it in its hard state; that is, they treated it in the same 

 manner as hard stone, and applied to it the principles of their glyptic 

 art. Glass became the domain of the carver, of a rather limited art- 

 industrial importance, but it never had any practical bearing upon the 



1 Ku kin chu -£j -^ ££ (Ch. c, p. 5 b; ed. of Han Wei ts'ung shu). A fantastic 

 description of this screen is given in the Shi i ki f^ jf£ |2 (Ch. 8, p. 6; ed. of Han 

 Wei ts'ung shu). There are several other allusions to such screens of liu-li, which 

 in my opinion were made of a thin wall of clay coated with a glaze. 



1 T'ai p'ing yii Ian, Ch. 808, p. 4. Several writers have conceived the windows 

 and doors of this palace as being made of glass (for instance, A. Forke, Mitt. Sent, 

 or. Spr., Vol. I, p. 113); but we do not know that window-glass existed at the same 

 time in the Western world. Scanty remains of window-glass have been found only 

 in Pompeii and Herculaneum, but no extensive use was ever made of it in the time 

 of the Roman empire. In western Asia no window-glass was made, and accordingly 

 no export to China could take place. Aside from this point, I would be disinclined 

 to believe in the possibility of transporting window-glass from the Orient to China 

 at that time. 



* Tsin shu, Ch. 45, p. 8. 



4 Yuan kien lei han, Ch. 364, p. 31 b; glazed dishes for eating in Tsin shu (T'ai 

 p'ing yii Ian, Ch. 808, p. 4 b). 



