Jar with flaring mouth

From the Zhou through Han periods, large storage jars suitable for a variety of utilitarian purposes increase considerably in number in the south. Most were made by the hand-coil method at private shops. Mass quantities of jars with a latticework design began to appear in the Changsha area of Hunan since the late Western Han. The shape of jars like this one, with a flaring mouth and a high shoulder tapering to a flat base was a special invention of Eastern Han craftsmen. The Changsha area, the center of the ceramic industry in Hunan, must have manufactured such jars.