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Banpo people left us a large number of differently shaped pottery wares, which they used, in their daily life.
Interims of usage, they were divided into several kinds, including food and water containers and containers for storing things .The main kitchen utensils included bowls. Basins, etc. There were some containers looking like the present-day goblets. Different vessels served different ways of life of the ancient people.
One of the most important piece of the kitchen utensils wad the pottery steamer looking like a basin or a bowl bearing some square or round holes in its bottom. It was used with pot square or round holes in its bottom. It was used with pot and a cover as a whole set. When cooking, the steamer was first paced inside the pot water in it and then vested. After the water boiled for a specific period of time, the food would be well done. That very thing was the precursor of the present day steamer. (ͼright)

The bottle with pointed bade was use for getting water .It has a short neck, a big belly and a planted blade with two ears on both side, theory looking involved in making the bottle. The stream line on the surface of the bottle is clear .It never leaks, once filled with water no mater how violently it is shaken, because the rim was narrow enough to keep the water inside it. With a big belly it contains more water, the pointed base can decentralize the water pressure on the bade. You tie a rope to the two side ears. People can either carry it on the shoulder or on the back. It makes it easier for the old and young to catty water.

The way it works is interesting. When fetching, you put the bottle in water, it will take a horizontal position on the surface, the water goes into it naturally as it filled with water, it goes back to vertical position scientific appraisal has proved that the way by which the bottle was filled up with water was closely associated with the principle of the center fravity.(ͼleft)

The sight of the pottery container with a spout on its rim reminds us the present-day tea pot .The protruding part on the rim, which is called"Liu"in Chinese (meaning a thing from which liquids pours), is equivalent to today's spout of teapot. It makes the liquids pour raiser. The big pottery jars vats were used as food and water containers. The walls of the vessels were a solid, showing the high skill of the professional potters in pottery manufacturing.(ͼright)

During the cause of excavation, some 113 in 22 forms of simples signs were discovered, which were sculpted or painted below the rims of some pottery basins.
The painted potter ware of Banjo are of fine quality and have smooth surface .A part from the red and white colors, a lot of black color was used, which, with the meanness dioxides as coloring agent, could offer a sharp contrast. Dark colors painted on the smooth surface of the fine clay vessels look more on the smooth surface of the fine clay vessels look more on the smooth surface of the clay vessels look more attractive.(ͼ1.2.3.4.5.)

The imitative patterns of animals and plants are specially done with profound symbolic and mysterious meanings, including fish patterns, deer patterns and human face patterns etc, of which the fish patterns come first in number The fish patterns went through all the ages of the Yangshao Culture and were representative designs of the painted pottery utensils.

With a simple artistic style most of the fish designs are realistic and single ones, the head of the fish, including the gills, the fins, tail and the body was done in detail (its teeth are noticeable). The simple design gives you the sense of how smile, how na?ve it is.
In the later period of Banpo some artistic exaggeration was used when doing a fish. Instead of painting a fish to show it was fish. Hence the triangle served as fish head and the dot in the middle of it served as the eye. It shows the evolution of the artistic style of Banpo people -from true-to-to-life to abstract from realistic to freehand.
Only a few of the unearthed pottery utensils bear dear designs. In a basin four small deer found on the inner wall, standind there looking alert, getting ready to avoid catasterophe, as if the enemy were approaching.(ͼ6.7.8.9.10.11)

The pained pottery basin with mermaid design.
The design is a combination of a human head and a fish body. The round head with an ornamental piece on it, has long crescent brows, closed eyes looking like short segments of a line, a nose looking like an upside down "J", a big mouth indicated by a triangle and ears represented by toe small fish. The human face and the fish body were joined together with perfect artistic exaggeration.

Originally, the mermaid pattern didn't exit in the world later it came into being. What on earth this strange thing represent? It is estimated that Banpo people believed that the ancestors their clan originated from were fish, they were fond of fish and then fish became the totem of their clan. One ancient Chinese myth tells the story about how a fish transformed itself into a human being.

The yotifs of fish, deer in the pottery vessels of Banpo are probably associated with totems. It would be reasonable to think that the Banpo clan's totem was symbolized by the mermaid motif.

Up to this day, some minority people still worship animal's .For example, the people of the Bai Nationality took fish and conches as their burial objects. Undoutedly, this practice was derived from the worship of animals. Fish tail-shaped scarves have been always fashionable among the women of the Bai nationality .The scarabs were also derived from the ritual activities of worshiping fish.

In a word, the Banpo people probably believed hat their ancestors write fish or humanized creatures with the fish bodies and human faces.

The simple-ancient looking figurines made by the Banpo were beautifully modeled. They are usually praised as the treasures of the primitive arts.
Most of figurines were shaped according to the images of the most familiar domestic animals they raised in those days. The figurines of birds and animals of Banpo served mainly as the knobs of the lids of the pottery contaoners. The bird's outline is distinct. It's head and neck august that it looks like a pigeon.

(ͼa.b.c.d.e)

The other two attractive articles of Banpo are the clay whistles known as "magic flutes". They were the earliest melodious holed wind instrument. Each of the two was meticulously modeled, on which more than two notes could be played. The scale, tone and tomre sound very much like the music, in Qin Opera (the local opera of Shaanxi Province).

(ͼright)