Painted pottery ping (flask) Late Banpo Culture (c. 4000-3500 B.C.) Height: 31.8 cm (12 1/2 inches); diameter of mouth: 4.5 cm (1 3/4 inches) Gansu Provincial Museum, Lanzhou

This wide vessel with a narrow neck, which may have included a lid or stopper, was excavated in Gansu Province in 1973. The piece can be attributed to the work of the Banpo people who settled across northern China along the fertile land bordering the Yellow and Wei rivers during the Neolithic Period. Vessels adorned with sculpted renditions of human heads are rare in Chinese archaeological finds. Heretofore they have been found in Gansu and Qinghai provinces associated with cultures of the late 3rd millennium B.C.