made first at Pien-chow and afterwards at Hang-chow; the _Ko-Yao_, made
at Liu-t'ien; and the _Ting-Yao_, made at Tung-chow in Chih-li.

This was the period when Chinese porcelain became known beyond its
native country, for the first mention of porcelain outside China appears
in the writings of a Mahommedan traveller, Sulaiman, who visited China
in the 9th century and wrote: "They have in China a very fine clay with
which they make vases which are as transparent as glass; water is seen
through them";[31] and its first appearance in the west is always given
as A.D. 1171 (or 1188), when Saladin sent a present of forty pieces to
the sultan of Damascus. From this time onwards an export trade was
developed, particularly in the _celadon_ wares of Lung-chuan, a city in
the south-west of the province of Chehkiang. This famous ware, the
"green porcelain" of the Chinese, probably made as an imitation of jade,
exists mostly in the form of thick heavy dishes, bowls and jars, bearing
incised or fluted patterns, and coated with a remarkable thick green
glaze of indescribable softness of tone. Though the body of the ware is
white when it is broken through, any parts not covered by the glaze have
a reddish-brown colour due to the unrefined paste, and when the ware was
reproduced in later times this reddish-brown tint had to be imitated
artificially. The ware was highly prized both in China and Japan, in the
islands of the East Indies, and in all Mahommedan countries. In Persia
it was largely used, and specimens of it have been recovered during the
last century from the east coast of Africa and as far west as Morocco.
"Archbishop Warham's cup" at New College, Oxford, which is the first
specimen of Chinese porcelain to reach England that we can now produce,
is a _celadon_ bowl with a silver-gilt mount of the time of Henry
VIII.[32]

The Sung dynasty was overthrown by the Tatars under Kublai Khan
(grandson of Jenghiz Khan), and the power remained in Tatar hands until
1368, when the great native dynasty of the Mings was established. During
this period (Yuan dynasty), roughly a century, one can say little of
ceramic progress, for the wares of the period are singularly like those
of Sung times. But two important changes took place which had a marked
influence on the subsequent development of Chinese porcelain--(1) the
concentration of the industry at King-te-chen, which was consummated in
the early years of the Ming dynasty; (2) the introd