In July-November 2002, the Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology carried out a rescuing excavation of the wine-brewing workshop site at Lidu Town in Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province. They revealed the vestiges of wells, kitchen ranges, airing houses, wine cellars, distillers, wall-foundations, drainage ditches, pavements, ash-pits and brick pillars. The unearthed objects include stone articles, pottery, porcelain, bamboo and wooden wares, irons and bronzes, mostly wine vessels. The workshop began production in the Yuan period and continued to function in Ming and Qing times. It is early in date, long in duration, rich in remains and distinct in local character among the sites of this type. The discovery provides valuable data for studying the origin and development of ancient Chinese wine-distilling techniques.
The Zhuyuanxia site lies southwest of Xinlu village, Shashi town, Ganzhou city, Jiangxi province, and occupies an area of above 20,000sq m. It was excavated in October 1993-January 1994, which resulted in the revelation of 13 house-foundations, 10 tombs, 15 ash-pits, one ash-trench and two piles of pebbles, all belonging to the early phase of the site. The pottery consists mainly of sandy and clay grey wares fired at a rather low temperature and is largely decorated with chequer, meander, basket impression, double-lined rectangular and rhombic patterns. The vessel types include the fish-basket-shaped, carinate-bellied, round-bellied and carinate-shouldered jars, basin, zun vase, dou stemmed vessel, urn, vat, bo bowl, yu container and pot. These remains go back roughly to the late Shang and early Zhoup eriod, corresponding to the third phase of the Wucheng site in Qingjiang, Jiangxi, and the middle layers of the Shixia site in Qujiang, Guangdong.
A rescuing archaeological excavation in Area H of the Hutian kiln-site was carried out in July-October 1999 by the Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. The work covered an area of more than 1,300 sq m, revealed 11 spots of house-foundation, well, small yard,clay-refining pool and ash-pit remains, and discovered above 600 intact and restorable articles of greenish-white-glazed, egg-white-glazed, black-glazed and blue-and-white porcelain wares from the Song, Yuan and Ming periods. The excavation clarified relatively direct stratigraphic evidence on the typological evolution of the vessels typical of the Song and Yuan periods and threw light on a batch of egg-white-glazed “shu fu” porcelain objects of the early Yuan and some inscribed porcelain-making implements.
