Uyghur Mozhifatutao Firing Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Uyghur mold-method earthenware firing technique has a history of more than two thousand years. It rose with the opening of the Silk Road and, through continuous development and innovation, has been handed down to the present day. Before 1949, more than one hundred households of artisans in the Kuoziqi Ya'erbixi residential quarter of Kashgar City were engaged in the earthenware craft; today only 11 households remain, with just 17 craftsmen.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Kuoziqi Ya'erbixi residential quarter, under the Guze'er community of present-day Kashgar City, is a place where earthenware work has been carried on from generation to generation. The soil here is clay, an important raw material for pottery making. Earthenware makers use this clay directly, without any processing and without added ingredients: they mix it with water into a paste, shape it into vessels, coat them in different colors, and fire them into lustrous and attractive household items. Yengisar County is also an important area of Uyghur pottery making, and its wares have long been sold far afield throughout southern Xinjiang. Its products are finely shaped and of classical simplicity, with a typical Uyghur style. Yengisar earthenware falls into two categories: plain pottery and glazed pottery. Both are formed from yellow clay; plain pottery is fired directly, while glazed pottery is glazed after forming and then fired. Because the glaze materials contain different proportions of ingredients such as aluminum, black iron slag, quartz stone, and red earth, the fired pieces come in dark green, light green, brown, white, earth yellow, earth red, and milky yellow. The Uyghur mold-method earthenware firing of the Turpan region is equally long-standing. Turpan Uyghur earthenware can be divided into three types: plain pottery, plain-glazed pottery, and colored-glazed pottery. The production process includes soil preparation, mixing the clay, sealing the clay to rest, kneading the clay, shaping, glazing, firing, and finishing; the finished pieces are distinctive in both form and style. With the rapid development of the economy and culture, earthenware has been used less and less in daily life, causing the variety of wares to shrink sharply; in Turpan, for example, the number of types has fallen from a hundred to only a few, and the range of colors and patterns has gone from rich to simple. Apart from flowerpots and flower vats, earthenware has largely dropped out of people's lives. Under the impact of the market economy, most earthenware artisans have set aside their ancestral craft, and the younger generation has no interest in learning and transmitting the traditional firing technique.
Archival Records of the Production Process
The production process consists of soil preparation, mixing the clay, sealing the clay to rest, kneading the clay, shaping, glazing, firing, and finishing, among other steps; the finished pieces are distinctive in both form and style.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Yengisar County is an important area of Uyghur pottery making in southern Xinjiang, and its wares have long been sold far afield throughout the region. Together with the earthenware workshops of the Kuoziqi Ya'erbixi residential quarter under the Guze'er community of Kashgar, its mold-method earthenware constitutes one of the two concentrated production areas of southern Xinjiang earthenware. The Yengisar County Cultural Center is the project's protection unit; the technique is transmitted chiefly through family and master-apprentice lines, and vessels are made in a hurry during the agricultural slack season or ahead of festivals.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Uyghur Mozhifatutao Firing Craftsmanship · Uyghur Mozhifatutao Firing Craftsmanship · Uyghur Mozhifatutao Firing Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
It is transmitted by hand and by word of mouth, with no detailed written records. These earthenware vessels and the technique are material evidence of East-West exchange along the Silk Road. Many works bear clear traces of Buddhist culture while also displaying a distinctly Arab style; in-depth study of the Uyghur pottery-making technique can help us understand the cultural exchange between China and the West in those days. In the face of this situation, measures must be taken quickly to rescue and protect the Uyghur mold-method earthenware firing technique. Abdurahman Mamtimin (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, Uyghur, born in 1958, from Yengisar County, Xinjiang. Representative inheritor of the Uyghur mold-method earthenware firing technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the first batch. He is a third-generation successor of the master Mamtimin Sawur. He began learning earthenware making from his father at the age of fourteen; thanks to his natural intelligence, in less than six months his earthenware firing skill surpassed that of many adults. The earthenware he makes is distinctive in form and outstanding in craftsmanship, above all in the making of plain and glazed pottery. Plain pottery is finished through trimming, scraping, joining, and openwork pattern carving, achieving an effect that is plain yet not impoverished; glazed pottery is distinguished by glaze colors — dark green, light green, brown, earth yellow, earth red, milky yellow, and white — formed according to the different proportions in which mineral ores are compounded. His principal works include jars, washing pitchers, washing basins, vases, and bowls — fine and of classical simplicity, with a typical Uyghur style, and highly praised by many renowned masters. Among them, his making of the 'abduwa' (a pitcher for holding water for hand washing) is considered the finest in all of Xinjiang.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Abudoureheman Maimaitiming 01-0125
- Tuerxun Rousitamu 05-2722
- Yahefujiang Yusuying 05-2723
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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