TUNG KWU ISLAND
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non-liquid food such as grain, nuts or fruit, or for holding food of some sort for the use of the dead, who would not be likely to find their food jars dissolving in their graves. The use of the net pattern with what were probably magic signs in each mesh may indicate that such jars were funerary vessels, covered with watching eyes or other patterns to repel demons from seizing and carrying off the food. (See R. Maglioni “Some Aspects of South China Archaeological Finds" in Proceedings, Third Congress of Far East Pre-historians). The variety of patterns is illustrated in Plate 8.
The distribution of ornamented sherds in depth and locality presents some interesting points. In my collection, there are 33 such pieces. 16 were picked off the beach at unrecorded spots; the others were found in known stretches of beach, indicated on the sketch-map, or in situ at measured depths in the sand. It was not always easy to decide either the nature or the purpose of the designs inside the meshes, but round raised studs were probably ‘eyes', and most other designs were perhaps 'life-giving' or occasionally 'phallic'. A few were indeterminable: these were raised ridges in meshes of rhombic shape, or so shapeless that no conclusion could be drawn.
Four designs of each type came from known depths, and four were found in the I, J, L, and M sectors. One, as well as four loose pieces with ‘eye' patterns, came from C sector. No real conclusion can be drawn from the recorded depths with so few specimens, except that the patterns seem to have been equally fashionable throughout the occupation of the site. From other sites, however, notably Sha Chau, a mile or two south of Tung Kwu, I got the impression that the raised stud in a single-line, square-net pattern was more popular when the upper layers of the sandbank formation were deposited.
The lines of the netting on the sherds differ in number from one to four, and the angles of the meshes are either right angles, enclosing squares, or obtuse and acute angles, enclosing rhombs. Of the square-meshed nets, only four are from known depths, none lower than 122 cm., and there are three with one line round the meshes and one with three. The rhombic net impressions are much commoner than the square in the pottery found at measured levels: 16 as against 4. Nets of one and three lines show average depths of 111 cm., those of two lines—much commoner—average 170 cm.