CERAMICS. 457 



of firing-, can scarcely be ascertained, and is indifferent to our 

 purposes. The chief sources of information are the discoveries 

 in old tombs and other excavations. They show that the pottery 

 of Japan, during the third century, and before the Corean immigra- 

 tion,^ was still in swaddling clothes, and centuries later had not 

 distinguished itself above the accomplishments of many other 

 nations, until the introduction of the potter's wheel. The coarse, 

 round forms with rough surface and without decoration, corre- 

 sponded to the common material and its careless preparation. 

 They were brick red, brown and black, unglazed terra-cottas, whose 

 colour was often different on one side from that of the other, owing 

 to an unequal degree of heat to which they had been exposed. 



Brick roof tiles were burnt as early as 660 A.D. Flint-ware 

 seems also to have been early discovered by accident. Pieces of 

 this with a salt glazing are sometimes found.^ But all of these 

 probably originated after the introduction of the Rokuro or potter's 

 wheel. This happened in 724 A.D., and is attributed to the cele- 

 brated Buddhist priest Giogi (670-749 A.D.), with whose name 

 several of the oldest monuments of art in the temples and cloisters 

 at Nara are connected. That he must have exercised a great 

 influence on the clay-ware industry of his country may be seen in 

 the fact that its older products have the collective name, Giogi- 

 yaki. 



Among the treasures of the pagoda Todaiji at Nara, there 

 is a collection of black, 'hard, earthen articles, principally pots 

 and vases, which apparently were made in the time of Giogi, and 

 show distinct traces of the potter's wheel. One of the most 

 interesting antique pieces, indicating even at this time great skill 

 in using this important apparatus, is a vase, which was found in 

 a tomb at Hano, in Kotsuke, together with valuable stones, bronze 

 and iron. Plate XXXIII. at the beginning of the before-men- 

 tioned works of Ninegawa, gives a beautiful illustration of it. It 

 is hard burned, of a blackish blue colour on the outside, and 

 reddish in the fracture. Its form resembles that of the glass 

 chalices known as " Roman," if we conceive of a cover above its 

 vault, completing its spherical shape. This cover is formed to- 

 ward the top into a rather wide cylindrical throat. The pro- 

 portions are well chosen and the disposition of the simple curved 

 and line ornamentation shows a fine taste. 



The introduction of a glassy transparent glaze contributed in 

 the 8th century to the progress already obtained through the 

 potter's wheel. The salt glazing on stone-ware was evidently the 

 oldest employed, as it has been also in our German pottery, and 



^ This began with the conquest of a part of Corea by Jingu Kogo, in 202 

 A.D. (See vol. i. p. 217). 



' The Ethnographical Museum at BerHn possesses a piece said to come 

 from Awa, the gift of Dr. Hilgendorf. It is a cyhnder standing on broad leet 

 with three window-like openings in its walls. 



