06 September 2021, Monday, 08:58 138

8,000-Year-Old Lacquerware Dug Up in Eastern China is Oldest Ever Found

Редактор: Тимофій Борзенко

Archaeological finds in Chinaю Photo by Xinhua.

Archaeologists working in China’s Zhejiang Province recently unearthed something ancient and extraordinary, informed The Xinhua News Agency.

While performing excavations at a site near the city of Ningbo on Hangzhou Bay, they found two pieces of wood that had been painted over with a thin layer of a slick, shiny, hard substance. They immediately recognized this as an early example of lacquerware, a form of decorative artwork that was invented in China at some time in the distant past.

What made this discovery so noteworthy is the age of the items found.

Archaeological finds in Chinaю Photo by Xinhua.

They were excavated in a site known as the Jingtoushan ruins, which were occupied by a previously undiscovered culture more than 8,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating tests proved that the two wooden items are artifacts from that culture, which makes them the oldest examples of lacquerware ever found in China. They predate the previous record holder (a red wooden bowl unearthed at an excavation at a Hemudu culture site) by about 1,500 years.

The two lacquered items were quite simple in design. One was a rounded stick with somewhat crudely sharpened ends. The other was a wedge-shaped object with two ridges carved into it at the top.

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