Study On Manufacturing Techniques Of Semi-cylindrical Tile,Plate Tile And Tile-end Blanks Unearthed From Xiangwangcheng Site, Xuyi County

XiangWangcheng Site was the county town of Xuyi in Qin and Han Dynasties, located now in Xuyi County, Huaian City, Jiangsu Province. In the summer of2011, it was excavated for the first time. The cultural layers of this site were thick and a lot of tiles were unearthed from the site. The tile is an important part of ancient Chinese wooden architecture. The most common tiles are semi-cylindrical tiles and plate tiles. They are important materials to study the ancient architecture and social outlook. A large number of tiles have been unearthed from Xiangwangcheng Site, aging from Six Dynasties to Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, including semi-cylindrical tiles, plate tiles and tile-ends. I have chosen some of these specimens to explore the production process of tiles in Six Dynasties, Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty. In this paper I totally use79tile specimens, including41semi-cylindrical tiles,23plate tiles,15tile-ends. The tile-ends are divided into two kinds, they are13tile-ends with lotus design and2tile-ends with cloud design.In Six Dynasties, Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, tiles were made by "removing cylinder off wooden mold". Thus some wooden mold information was left on the tiles. The tiles of XiangWangcheng Site were also manufactured in this way. I observe various parts of the tiles carefully, and try to extract all the information associated with the manufacturing crafts. The observation items of semi-cylindrical tiles and plate tiles are as follows:repairing traces on convex and concave surface, linen seams, creases, wood prints, line cutting traces, side, cutting surface, fracture surface, cutting direction, cutting frequency, cutting depth and so on.The observation item of semi-cylindrical tiles also includes the bonding way of tile tongue and tile body. According to the different ways tile tongue and tile body combined, I divide the semi-cylindrical tiles into three types in this paper. Class A:tile tongue is directly connected to the tile body concave; class B:tile tongue is connected to tile body, then pasting on convex surface of the tongue-body to stabilize them; class C:tile tongue is connected to the tile body, then paste some clay on both concave and convex surface to stabilize them. According to the damaging case, the plate tiles are divided into two kinds:fragments and slightly integrated ones. The observation items of the plate tiles also include cutting dimples marks and clay pasting marks. Ornamentation on semi-cylindrical tiles and plate tiles are cord mark. Main observation focus are their clarity, shape, direction and smoothness. The observation focus of tile-ends are: tile-end’s face ornamentation, round edge, the engaging way among tile-end’s face, round edge, and semi-cylindrical tile. According to the ornamentation, tile-ends are divided into two categories:tile-ends with lotus design and tile-ends with cloud design. I focus on analyzing the way that tile-ends and semi-cylindrical tiles combined. Tile-ends are molded. There are pottery mold and wood mold. Tile-ends made by wood mold will leave straight grain on the tile-end surface. Tile-ends and semi-cylindrical tiles were made respectively, and then combined. Some round edges were molded together with the tile-end’s face. The majority of round edges were clay tablets posted on tile-end’s face to be formed.Because tile is an important part of Chinese ancient architecture, the production and use of tiles both have a strict hierarchy limitation. The study of tiles can reflect the development of ancient Chinese architecture and pottery firing level, so I determine to research the tiles of Xiangwangcheng Site. Tile manufacturing techniques were relatively stable during the same period. Tile’s overall shapes were similar. This reflected the standardization of production. The observation on detailed traces of the tiles reveal the differences among artisan groups, but also the stability of its technique heritage. If we can find some tiles made of the same manufacturing techniques in different places, then we can speculate the factor of potter migration, or the spread of tile-making method. Although tile material in this study is just from one site and the time span is short, the reconstruction of tile manufacturing techniques is still representative. The research methods used in this paper also help me deepen the study of ancient tiles.