Ancient Yiyao porcelain kilns of Song and Yuan dynasties were
excavated illegally after CCTV (China Central Television) did a
story on them this past September.?
?
"Mr. Reporter, every day people come to dig up the ancient kilns
around the mountains near our village. The mountains have been
seriously damaged due to their constant digging," one Yiyao
villager of Dongqiao Town, Minqing County told the Fuzhou Daily via
the paper's hotline.
A Fuzhou Daily reporter went to Yiyao Village of Minqing County
immediately after learning of the illegal excavations. Along the
mountain road he found many signs of digging around the ancient
kilns: broken pieces of porcelain were strewn around the
mountainsides; while some parts of the road were covered with
porcelain shards; vegetation in some places was seriously damaged;
shallow holes could be seen everywhere around the mountainside, a
product of unsuccessful
excavations.??????
Villager Lin Side told the reporter that Yiyao Village and
nearby Qingyao Village have numerous ancient porcelain kilns but no
local villagers disturb them. After CCTV broadcast a documentary
called: Entering Fuzhou and Disclosing Mysteries of Yiyao this
September, many illegal excavators arrived. "They came and dug
almost everyday, sometimes five to six and sometimes two to three.
They came from Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhejiang and Guangdong.
They dug around the mountainside with picks and hoes, and took away
unbroken pottery while abandoning the broken ones here and there,
Lin said.?
According to another villager, previously some people came to
excavate the ancient kilns but they were not so well organized as
the present diggers. "Some of them brought professional tools to do
explorations and very good excavating tools. Even worse, they don't
refill the holes they have dug but simply leave many shards of
porcelain piled up along the road. I go to the mountains to pick
oranges everyday and my motorcycle tires have been ripped up by
these shards several
times.????????????
?
Lin Yaoguang, curator of the Minqing Museum, explained that Minqing
County has long been dubbed as the "porcelain capital". Over one
hundred ancient kilns are located around twenty mountains in Yiyao,
Qingyao, Da'an and Anrenxi of Dongqiao Town, extending for more
than ten kilometers.
These ancient kiln sites were designated as cultural relic
sites; they have been under provincial protection since 1991. Many
porcelain articles in excellent condition still lie inside these
kilns. They tempt many smugglers of cultural
relics.?????
???
Lin said that excavating cultural relics is illegal. Villagers and
local village cadres reported this problem to the cultural relic
protection department as well as other related departments inside
the local government. Authorities have already come to investigate
this problem. However, protection of these kilns has proved to be
very difficult due to the large area they occupy. Currently
authorities are preparing to organize Qingyao and Yiyao villagers
into protection groups so that they may inspect the region
regularly and inspect the kilns daily, then leaving the police
handle the illegal
excavators.??????
(China.org.cn by Zhang Ming'ai, November 27, 2007)