The Mind of an Artisan in Early China: A Museum Collection Study

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Craft and Technology: Knowledge of the Ancient Chinese Artisans" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This study aims to investigate the different ways artisans in early China (up to the 3rd century) learned their crafts, in order to better understand how certain types of artifacts such as pottery and bronze were made, and how new styles and designs emerged. In early China, craftsmanship was usually inherited through familial traditions or learned inside state workshops, where skills and technologies were passed down in a relatively consistent and standardized way. However, new styles and designs also came into being. What might have motivated artisans to innovate or to follow convention, and where did they derive new inspiration? How did the style of a type of objects evolve over time? How were the skills and designs transferred among different mediums? What role did material agency play? This study intends to identify traces and types of learning of ancient artisans and to shed light on the interaction between artisans, material, and objects by examining artifacts from the Chinese collection at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Craft and Technology: Knowledge of the Ancient Chinese Artisans

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24138