A small earthenware jar with a rounded body, a flared neck and a thick everted rim. The body is covered in vertical cord or comb impressions, and the neck is left smooth. The grey-brown surface has fire clouding and burial deposits.
The Qijia culture lived along the upper Yellow River in Gansu and Qinghai about 4,000 years ago, right at the turn from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age: they made some of China's earliest copper and bronze objects. Potters pressed cords or combs into the wet clay to give the pot grip and strength. Jars like this were everyday storage and cooking pots.
