Porcelain Road

Chinese porcelain, along with silk and tea, became a significant part of international cultural exchange through land communication or by sea. These two land and sea routes are known as the “Silk Road” and also referred to as the “Porcelain Road”, which almost aligns with the current concept of the “Belt and Road Initiative”. From the Song dynasty to the Qing dynasty, for around a thousand years, porcelain served as a “messenger” for cultural exchange between China and foreign countries along the two routes. According to the trace of the historical evolution, the following part is divided into three periods: the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties, the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). A brief introduction of each period is as follows.