Chinese Ceramics in Africa

Mr. Ma Wenkuan wrote in his "Finding Ancient Chinese Porcelain in Africa" that ancient Chinese porcelain was found at more than 200 sites in seven African countries, such as Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and so on.

At the Foster site in Egypt a great amount of porcelain wares from the Yuan dynasty were found-the Changsha underglaze wares, the Yue celadon wares, the Xing white wares and three-color glazed Tang sancai wares, crabapple-decorated cups from Dingzhou, plates with prickles-shaped mouthrims and inscriptions of "Guan", Longquan bowls decorated with intertwining flowers and branches, big dishes with designs of Phoenix, lotus petal-shaped bowls and dishes, double fish-shaped washers, bamboo hat Douli-shaped bluish white wares with carved designs, bowls with peony decoration, the Yuan celadon bottles with metamorphosed peony rim and lotus petal designs, big dishes with white designs on blue grounding, Fujian celadon, Guangdong celadon, Dehua white porcelain and the north Cizhou wares, and so on. The Ming celadon ware with peony designs and the Ming blue-and-white phoenix head ewer were collected In Egypt. In Kenya the Chinese porcelain wares from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries were unearthed, among which there were celadon wares from late Ming. And some market-oriented blue-and-white wares from the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries were unearthed in Nairobi. More than 20 tombs inlayed with Chinese porcelain-among them were the blue-and-white wares from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries-were found in Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania and other countries. In East Africa, the Malindi (of Kenya) Pillar is decorated with the Chinese porcelain after the fifteenth century.

More blue-and-white shards were found in the coastal ports, cities or islands of East Africa. The Yuan porcelain shards were found at forty-six sites in the Tanzanian coastal areas. And among the mass finds in the coastal areas of Lake Tanganyika, blue-and-white wares from the late Ming and early Qing dynasties were unearthed. All the evidences show that the Jingdezhen porcelain had been exported to Africa since the Yuan dynasty. It is recorded in "Xingcha Shenglan" and "Yingya Shenglan"-published in the Ming dynasty-that the Ming blue-and-white porcelain was spread to the various east coastal areas in Africa. And the Qing porcelain was widely found in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zaire, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Madagascar and South Africa.

Chinese Ceramics in Europe
Chinese Ceramics in Asia