High Middle Ages · East Asia · Technology
1004
Jingdezhen named for Emperor Zhenzong's porcelain
1004
So impressed was Emperor Zhenzong by the translucent white ceramics produced in a Jiangxi kiln town that he decreed its wares should bear his reign title, Jingde, and supply the imperial court. The town, renamed Jingdezhen, would become the porcelain capital of the world for a millennium, its kilns eventually shipping celadon and blue-and-white to every continent.