Study on the pottery production in the ancient times: focus on the Bizen-Oku old kiln complex

Scenery of the excavation at Sayama-Higashiyama old kiln.
In this picture we were getting ready to take photographs for the record. The gray part is the floor of the kiln which was severely baked over 1000C.

Since 2010, we have done the excavation of the old buried kilns, which were operated during the 8th and the 10th centuries at Sayama area of Bizen city, Okayama prefecture. There we have brought out the structure of the kilns, the composition of the types of potteries, and the expansion of the distributed productions. Many pieces of ceramics with some texts engraved were discovered from the kilns. The texts indicates an evidence of the operation year, the name of sponsor, and other important information.
Archaeometric studies, geochemical analyses and paleomagnetism, have been done also as well as the archaeological researches. Our goal is to reveal the complete picture of the Oku old kiln complex including Sayama kilns, with integration of cutting edge method of the archaeology, archaeometry, and other sciences.
In the 2016, we had an excavating investigation at Sayama-Higashiyama old kiln, which was probably one of the largest kilns in Nara era, with length of 15.5m and width of 2.5m. We have a plan to excavate it to obtain more details in the next financial year.