(after a 300-year hiatus) After discovering that their predecessors had been skilled ceramic craftsmen, Chu Dau villagers sought to revive the tradition. Pham Thanh Long reports on the villagers’ challenges and successes.

Villagers like Dang Van Chuyen face two main obstacles when trying to produce ceramics: lack of investment funds and limited access to bank loans.

Chuyen, 44, is among 60 other households in Chu Dau Village whose major income comes from weaving rattan, a tropical Asian climbing palm used for weaving furniture, to decorate flowerpots for export.

"It’s frustrating because I know that if we could start making ceramics like our ancestors once did, our village would be lifted out of poverty," Chuyen said, "and we could honour the traditions of our village’s history and be recognised on an international scale once again.

Archaeological research found that Chu Dau ceramic craft was a centre of refined ceramics beginning at the end of 14th century. The craft reached its pinacle in the 15th and 16th centuries and started to perish a century later. Historians believe that there were many reasons for the extinction, including the civil war between the Mac and Le dynasties. The destruction of Chu Dau Village in Hai Duong province’s Nam Sach District. forced the nebulus of skilled craftmen to flee to other regions.

The ceramic revival didn’t take shape until the 1980s when Makato Anabuki, the former secretary for the Japanese Embassy, identified a ceramic pot which was on display at Topkapi Saray Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. Anabuki, who was very knowledgable about Chinese and Vietnamese Nom characters, read the letters printed on the pot. He translated the written characters and discovered the pot was made by a Bui family villager who was living in Nam Sach District at the 8th year of the Thai Hoa Dynasty (1450).

He wrote to the head of Hai Duong Province, where Nam Sach District is located, to suggest a search for other artefacts.

Excavations lasted from 1986 until 1997. Vietnamese archaeologists, their local counterparts and the Museum of Hai Duong confirmed that a great many ceramics existed in Chu Dau Village. Pots, bowls, plates and jars dug up were dated back 500 to 600 years. Most of the artefacts were found in kilns that were burried one to two metres below homes in the village centre.

"Many people in the village had already found kilns full of bowls (both broken and whole), pots and plates, but none realised the historical significance of them," said Doan Duc Luan, chairman of Thai Tan Commune, which contains Chu Dau Village.

"It was striking news for the villagers and for us. We found our history and started to wonder what to do with it."