White pottery is a kind of pottery whose outside and inside are all white.The greenware is mostly made by hand. It uses porcelain clay or kao-linite, which contains less iron than figuline, and is fired at a temperature of about 1000 0C.In the late Shang Dynasty, the emergence and application of white pottery with carved patterns marked the new achievement in the history of Chinese po竹ery.The hardness, fire resistance and water-absorbing capacity saw much improve-ment, so we consider the white pottery the indication of the leap from pottery to china.

A white pottery vase with ge-ometrical patterns of the Shang Dynasty was excavated from the Yin Ruinsin Anyang of Henan Province, and it is the representa-tive of white potfery with carved patterns in the Shang Dynasty. It is 20 centimeters tall in total with a caliber of 18. 5 centimeters,and was made by imitating the pattern of bronze ware. The body of the vase is spherical, the mouth becomes narrow, and the pitch at the shoulder part is large.The bottom is round with a ring foot.The whole work looks rounded and stately. The body of the vase is covered with pcrtterns.The main patterns in relief and the detailed shadings form a florid design. The con-cave and protuberant, the distant and dense patterns were naturally combined to create a clear gradation. Now the vase is in the Palace Museum.

Due to the hardness, lustration, and fine craftsmanship, white potteries be-came the objects used exclusively by slaveholders. In the later period of the Shang Dynasty, white potteries tended to be more and more fussy and refined, so the top-notch white potteries were mostly from this period. After the Western Zhou Dy-nasty, white pottery was in decline due to the emergence of hard pottery with prin-ted pcrttems and primitive china.