78
W. SCHOFIELD
bears glaze, mostly gray, yellow, brown or blue, and was made on the potter's wheel. The levels of seven pieces are recorded: the rest were picked up loose.
Most of the pieces found, both loose and in situ, can be fairly safely ascribed to the Sung dynasty. Two of those from known levels are more doubtful; one jar fragment, with a band of four shallow grooves, horizontal, round the exterior, which is covered by worn black glaze, may be older, and was found at 122 cm., the other, found in two pieces at 97 and 107 cm., has been ascribed to the Yuan dynasty. It is part of the lip and body of a brown-glazed vessel with rounded lip and one loop just below the junction of the lip and body, rising vertically in the centre, intended to hold a cord for keeping in place a stopper dish covering the mouth. Three shallow grooves decorate the neck, and three go round the body below the undecorated zone in which the loop is attached. The whole piece is glazed brown outside, and this extends to half way down the inside of the neck.
All but these two fragments were found at an average depth of 60 cm. in the bank. One of them was believed to be of Ming date by Professor Shellshear, who found and kept it; and the small fragment of a bowl lip from 41 cm. may well be from the large piece of a Sung tea bowl with wave ornament under the glaze inside, found loose on the beach, although they cannot be precisely fitted together. The depths of all these pieces cannot be fully relied on as indicating the time of their original deposition in the bank, as the upper levels down to about one metre have often been disturbed by later burials of bodies by boat people. Of the other pieces found loose, one had a flat unglazed foot, a kiln mark inside, at the bottom, and dark brown glaze and was undecorated: it was a small shallow dish about 10 cm. across the rim, and might well be of Tang date. Another bore typical Sung type underglaze flower ornament, made partly with a 16-tooth comb; it may have been a large tea-bowl, and its glaze was of the celadon shade. One large yellow-glazed rice bowl, its foot and foot-rim fully glazed, was undecorated and could be almost any date between Sung and early Ming.
Finally there are three pieces which may well be considered modern. Two were picked up loose; one a complete small duck-egg blue wine or spirits bowl; another the bottom of a rice bowl