If you are fortunate to find this in your attic, you might be quite wealthy.  It’s a white pottery “Bu” with carved geometric pattern Shang Dynasty, 1600-1100 B.C.

White pottery with carved patterns, which appeared in the late Shang peroid, were made with a low content of ferric oxide (Fe2O3) and fired at temperature about 1000C. Mainly found in Shang dynasty tombs at Anyang, Henan, white pottery was exclusively used by the royal family, and very few pieces survived. The popularity of white pottery in Shang dynasty was closely related to the people’s preference for white among all colors.

In Shang dynasty, apart from white pottery, there are also pots of gray, red and black with imprinted patterns. The major utensils for every people are gray pottery, which has the largest production and is most abundant in archaeological sites.

The Palace Museum holds 340,000 pieces of ceramics and porcelain, including the imperial collections from the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, as well as pieces commissioned by the Palace, and, sometimes by the Emperor personally, thus represents the best of porcelain production in China.

The ceramic collection of the Palace Museum represents a comprehensive record of Chinese ceramic production over the past 8,000 years, as well as one of the largest such collections in the world.