Glass appeared in China far later than in the Near East and has played a comparatively minor role in Chinese material culture. High-fired glazes were known in China by about the 14th century BC (see Wucheng), and a few pale green glass beads have reportedly been found in 9th-8th century bc contexts at Zhangjiapo and Luoyang Zhongzhoulu. When glass begins to occur at Chinese sites with some regularity, around the 5th century bc, it is mainly in the form of coloured beads that copy imports from Western Asia or Europe. The imports as well as the copies have been found in China, the latter being distinguished by their high lead and barium oxide content. Fine examples from Jincun (5th-3rd centuries bc) are of two types, beads of solid glass and cored beads with glazed exterior and quartz or clay interior; the cored variety is sometimes described as faience. Like jade, glass was occasionally used as a decorative inlay, for example on a mirror of Jincun style in the Fogg Art Museum and on a bronze Awfrom one of the Han tombs at Mancheng. In the Han period green glass served commonly as a cheap substitute for mortuary jades. In later times the high development of ceramics in China forestalled any extensive exploitation of glass for vessels.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983Copied