Colorful Patterns Across Mountains and Rivers

A Land of Colorful Mountains and Rivers

Hao Tiandi had spent thirty years studying ancient pottery in museums. A shard of pottery cut his fingertip, and blood seeped into it. His head spun. When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in Dadiwan, eight thousand years in the past.

Back then, winter in the upper reaches of the Yellow River could freeze a person solid. The tribes made pottery, but seven out of every ten kilns cracked. They couldn't even make enough jars to hold water.

He said just one thing: "The clay is too fine. Add sand."

Fifteen pots went into the kiln. Only one cracked.

But that wasn't the end. It was only the beginning. The Wild Boar Tribe came to seize their people, and three hundred torches from the Blackstripe Tribe pressed down the slope. They gave him only twenty days: fire a kiln of good pottery and the whole village would be spared. If he failed, the village would be slaughtered.

He had nothing, only eyes that could see through the clay, the firing temperature, and the age of a finished vessel. And there was the girl by the kiln. In front of the entire tribe, she grabbed his hand and said, "Stay. This kiln is yours to run."

From one pot, to one kiln, then a ravine, a tribe, and an entire land.

He didn't know that what he was doing would be called civilization eight thousand years later.