A small shard of jade-green pottery found at Great Zimbabwe has opened a window onto a journey that crossed continents and the Indian Ocean centuries ago. The fragment looks unlike the earth-brown pieces recovered from the same archaeological trench.Its smooth glaze led archaeologists to identify it as Longquan celadon, a prized type of Chinese pottery made in Longquan kilns in southeast China. According to the Secrets of the Dead PBS YouTube video, the discovery suggests goods reached the southern African city from a distant part of the world. The fragment is more than an unusual object. It offers a physical clue to the long-distance routes that connected Great Zimbabwe with traders and communities far beyond Africa.
A Chinese pottery shard found at Great Zimbabwe reveals its distant origins
The fragment caught archaeologists’ attention because its colour and finish differed from the Earth-Brown pottery found elsewhere in the trench. Shadreck Chirikure is an archaeologist and the Edward Hall Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford. He points to the pale body beneath the glaze and describes the surface as ‘apple green’.The broken edge looks rough under magnification, while the intact glazed area appears smooth. Muchen Zhou is a DPhil student in Archaeology at the University of Oxford, examines the piece under an ultra-high-resolution microscope. The close view reveals how even the glaze is across the surface. The video explains that producing a glaze this smooth required firing at very high temperatures. The shard’s appearance offered the team a way to investigate where it was made and how far it travelled.
Great Zimbabwe pottery fragment identified as Chinese Longquan celadon
The microscope examination helped the team identify the fragment as Longquan celadon, a Chinese pottery style recognised for its jade-green glaze. The video says this finish required firing at temperatures above 2,000°F.Muchen said, “Only China had the technology and then the engineering to fire at such a high temperature”. She identifies the piece as high-temperature pottery produced in southern China. The fragment is linked to the kilns of Longquan in southeast China. Its presence at Great Zimbabwe connects an object found in southern Africa to a pottery-making tradition.
The discovery reveals the connections between Africa, Asia and the Middle East
The pottery would have travelled a considerable distance before reaching Great Zimbabwe. The video describes how it could have passed through Southeast Asia and South Asia, then the Persian Gulf, before crossing the Indian Ocean.Longquan celadon was highly prized and traded in Europe and the Middle East, where it served as a sign of wealth and status. The shard offers a tangible reminder of the movement of goods between distant regions, linking a pottery-making centre in China with a settlement in southern Africa.
Glass beads and imported goods show how trade shaped Great Zimbabwe
The green pottery is not the only evidence of long-distance exchange emerging from the trench. As excavations continue, the team also finds large numbers of glass beads that were not made in southern Africa. The video describes glass items linked to Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and regions around Iran.Together, these objects suggest that Great Zimbabwe had contact with people and goods moving across continents and oceans. The video explains that trade brought wealth, attracted more people, and helped drive its expansion and population boom. The pottery fragment is part of a wider archaeological picture in which Great Zimbabwe was not an isolated settlement, but a place shaped by exchange with distant regions.
