JOMON OF JAPAN: THE WORLD'S OLDEST POTTERY - Erstausgabe

The unique beauty of the ancient Jomon pottery of Japan is the subject of this book. A hunting, gathering and fishing culture of great vitality, the Jomon inhabitants of Japan produced pottery from around 10,000 BC, at least two thousand years before pottery was produced elsewhere in the world. Jomon pots were unglazed, open-fired earthenware pieces, in a range of natural colours depending on the different clays from which they were made, some 90 percent bearing surface decoration. It is only since the 1950s that scientific testing of the age of Jomon pottery has become accepted worldwide. The first carbon-14 dates for Jomon pottery hit the world of Japanese archaeology in 1960. Their antiquity was met with almost total disbelief in Japan because of the traditional and centuries-old view that cultural innovations were Chinese-inspired and no older dates for Chinese ceramics were known, and elsewhere because the whole idea of a small, peripheral area contributing a major invention to the world's ancient cultures was virtually unthinkable. Even today, although modern communications have brought Japan very close to Europe and America, the Far East of antiquity remains remote from the thinking of much of the world. Although museums in many countries have a few specimens, the West knows little about the early unglazed earthenware of Japan, and very little has recently been written in English on the subject. This book aims to make a valuable contribution to the field of art history in general, and to early Japanese art and archaeology in particular, by giving a comprehensive and illustrated overview of Jomon pottery, and its relation to the ancient pottery of other countries.