Heritage

90 heritage for peace and reconciliation | manual for teacherContentsStacked in the dhow, hundreds of tall stoneware jars each held more than a hundrednested bowls. Among them were three plates with floral lozenge motifs surroundedby sprigs of foliage. They are believed to be the earliest known complete Chineseblue-and-white ceramics. They demonstrate that the Chinese potters were already experimentingwith imported cobalt blue from Iraq, which they applied as underglazepainting decoration some 500 years earlier than the famous blue-and-white porcelainof the fourteenth century. Until the dhow’s discovery, cobalt-blue pigments had beenfound only in the Middle East.Interestingly enough, the wreck dates from the time when imported Chinese warestransformed Middle-Eastern ceramic traditions. White porcelain from China wasimported and imitated by Mesopotamian potters using pale calcareous earthenwarebodies, and glazes made from tin oxide. Green and white-glazed Chinese stonewarewas also copied. Chinese forms and ornaments influenced the Islamic ceramics, mostnotably the white-ware bowl-form with a bi-disc foot, and the broad and abstractstyles of glaze decoration used on polychrome stoneware from sites such as Changshain south China.Stoneware from the Changsha kilns made up the bulk of the ceramic cargo from theninth-century Belitung wreck – showing that while the Mesopotamian potters imitatedthis Chinese porcelain, the Chinese potters used the cobalt brought by the shipsfrom Mesopotamia.Clearly, the maritime world influenced both traditions and this underwater culturalheritage offers us a different window to that world.Peace is honesty and relaxation. It’s living in harmonyand grace with everything else around you.Laura, Denmark, 12Respect and connectednessBuilding block:We help children develop a profound feeling of respect for others and other culturesby creating various experiences of connectedness, as well as by stimulating the children’sability to empathize.