Shipwreck reveals ancient market for knock-off consumer goods

To figure out which kiln complexes supplied the Java Sea Wreck’s cargo, University of Illinois archaeologist Wenpeng Xu and his colleagues needed to look at the chemical fingerprints of the thin bluish glazes of the ancient ceramics. In this case, Xu and his colleagues were interested in the glaze—the thin outer layer—of ceramics from the Java Sea shipwreck and four kiln complexes in southeastern China: Jingdezhen, Dehua, Huajiashan, and Minqing. It turns out that the ship destined to become the Java Sea Wreck had stocked its hold with not only a selection of real qingbai ceramics, bound for foreign ports, but also a wide array of knockoff wares of varying types and quantities, which Niziolek says came as a surprise to the archaeologists.

Source: arstechnica.com