Market Street Chinatown Rice Bowl

Archaeologists found this bowl in a trash pit lined with redwood. The trash pit was located near an adobe (mud brick) building that a Mexican-era family, the Bernals, built in the 1830s. Around 1873, the building was leased to Chinese business owners, most likely to the Tuck Wo grocery store. The bowl is made from a type of ceramic that archaeologists call porcelaneous stoneware. It can be decorated like fine porcelain, but it is not as brittle so it is stronger for everyday use. Potters made dishes like these in huge numbers in their workshops in southern China. These dishes were very popular in China in the 1800s, and they are found all over California and other places where Chinese immigrant laborers lived and worked. For more information, visit http://www.chinesemuseum.historysanjose.org/digital-exhibits/chinatownhere/object-gallery/rice-bowl/.