Mantou kiln

The tradition & historical record

The mantou kiln (Chinese: 饅頭窯; pinyin: mántóu yáo; Wade–Giles: man-t'ou yao) or horseshoe-shaped kiln was the most common type of pottery kiln in north China, in historical periods when the dragon kiln dominated south China; both seem to have emerged in the Warring States period of approximately 475 to 221 BC. It is named (in both English and Chinese) after the Chinese mantou bun or roll, whose shape it (very approximately) resembles; the ground plan resembles a horseshoe. The kilns are roughly round, with a low dome covering the central firing area, and are generally only 2 to 3 metres (6.6 to 9.8 ft) across inside. However it is capable of reaching very high temperatures, up to about 1,370 °C (2,500 °F). There is a door or bricked-up opening at the front for loading and unloading, and one or two short chimneys at the rear. They are one type of "cross-draught" kilns, where the flames travel more or less horizontally, rather than up from or down to the floor. The kilns were normally made of brick; sometimes most of the structure was dug out below the loess soil, with only the dome and chimney protruding above ground. In either case the interior was normally lined with a refractory fireclay. In some cases, especially in later periods, the fire box was approached by a tunnel. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mantou kiln”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Mantou kiln is Ancient type of Chinese pottery kiln, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²