Longshan Culture, Shandong province, 3rd millennium B.C.
the very thinly potted and elaborately shaped beaker with a high hollow reel-shaped base and wide pear-shaped sides rising to a cylindrical neck, the solid rimless foot with splayed edge and the wide mouth with slightly flared lip, applied on opposite sides of the rounded belly with two loop handles, one projecting vertically and the other horizontally between engraved single line borders, the sloping shoulders decorated with two shallow concave bands and the neck decorated with twin narrow grooves, the exterior surface burnished to a high gloss all over, the interior and base with very fine shallow parallel lines on the unburnished surface, with remains of burial earth.
Height 71⁄2 inches (19 cm)
A similar Longshan Neolithic black pottery vessel of smaller size with a single handle is illustrated in Yanzhou Xiwusi (Xiwusi Site of Yanzhou County), Beijing, 1990, pl. 38, no. 1, with a line drawing on p. 83, pl. 74, no. 7.
A Longshan burnished black pottery cup of related form but with one handle, excavated in 1977 from Linyi, Shandong province, is illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan: Taocijuan (Compendium of Chinese Archaeological Treasures, Ceramics), Hong Kong, 1993, p. 23, no. 077. The same piece is illustrated again in Shandong wenwu jingcui (Highlights of Shandong Cultural Objects), Shandong, 1996, p. 55, no. 50, with description on p. 249.
Compare also the smaller Longshan black pottery jug of this type, but with a single handle, shown at the China Institute in America and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue by Krahl, Dawn of the Yellow Earth: Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, New York, 2000, p. 83, no. 29. The same vessel is illustrated again by Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume Three (I), London, 2006, p. 57, no. 1069.
新石器時代 山東 龍山文化 黑陶雙把盃 高 19 厘米