Lecture Details

Date:  Friday, 5 June 2026, 18:30–21:00

Venue:  Lecture Hall, First Floor, Zhejiang University Museum of Art and Archaeology

Organizer:  Zhejiang University Museum of Art and Archaeology

Host:  Jing Zhongwei — Vice Dean, School of Art and Archaeology; Deputy Director and Professor, Museum of Art and Archaeology, Zhejiang University

Speaker:  Zheng Jianming — Dean, Institute of Scientific Archaeology; Professor, Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology, Fudan University

About the Speaker

Zheng Jianming is a professor at Fudan University whose research centers on ceramic archaeology. In recent years he has led major research projects, including the National Social Science Fund major project “The Origins of Porcelain,” focusing on the origins and development of Chinese porcelain. He has published several monographs and large-scale archaeological excavation reports, along with more than 100 articles in journals in China and abroad.

About the Lecture

Proto-porcelain originated in the southeast of China—centered on the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Fujian—during the period corresponding to the Xia dynasty of the Central Plains. Its emergence was not only a major technical breakthrough but also reflected significant advances in the use of resources, social organization, cultural belief, and ways of life.

Under the technical conditions of the Xia and Shang periods, proto-porcelain was without doubt a major invention. It could be mastered only by a few: it demanded heavy investment, was difficult to produce, and was unrelated to everyday subsistence activities. The dou stemmed vessels and ge dagger-axes made from it belonged to the category of ritual objects, giving it all the essential features of a prestige good. Seen against the trajectory of social development in the southeast since prehistory, this period marks a renewed phase of rising social complexity. The firing of proto-porcelain in the Xia and Shang periods therefore emerged as a prestige good precisely as the region entered this new stage of growing social complexity.

Registration

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