THE POTTERY KILN OF THE PETROVKA-5 SETTLEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FAR EAST ARCHAEOLOGY

In Primorye, a kiln for firing ceramic material was excavated at the Petrovka-5 monument near the town of Bolshoy Kamen. The furnace occupied the northeastern cape-shaped tip of the hollow slope. The height difference at its location was 1,35 m. The furnace was erected on a flat area paved with broken bricks and baked clay. The furnace had the shape of a truncated circle with a straight end wall on the south side and a furnace on the north. The dimensions of the structure at the base are 2 × 2,3 m, the long side is oriented Northwest–Southeast. The ceiling is made of arched masonry in the shape of a dome. Ceramic vessels and tiles were loaded into the firing chamber through the southern wall. The furnace and the firing chamber were connected by a channel. The walls of the furnace are laid with a horizontal masonry of rectangular bricks 15–20 cm long, 5–6 cm thick. Clay mortar was used as a bundle for laying bricks. By type, the oven belongs to the round one. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, furnaces of this form were widely used in the North of China. Ceramics deposited in the firing chamber are represented by pots, vases, frying pan lids, tiles. The surface color of the vessels is gray, often specially blackened. The blackening of circular vessels is recorded on the handicraft ceramics of Yin, Wei, the culture of the Amur and Primorye Jurchens, on the monuments of the state of Eastern Xia. Modeling of vessels was carried out on a circle using a bottom-capacitive filling. In shape, the vessels do not find complete analogies among the ceramics of the medieval cultures of Primorye and the Amur region. The technical and technological characteristics of the vessels correspond to the handicraft production of the Far Eastern pottery province, dating back to the traditions of the Han era. Chinese archaeologists correlated the tile material with the periods of the Eastern Jin (317–420) and Eastern Wei (534–550) dynasties. According to radiocarbon analysis of coal from the fire-chamber of the furnace, the monument Petrovka-5 is dated 600–760.