The Year 1000: When Globalization Began

by Valerie Hansen

The ceramics industry absorbed the largest share of the labor force. Entrepreneurs built dragon kilns that stretched over 300 feet (100 m) up the sides of hills. Producing between 10,000 and 30,000 vessels in a single firing, such kilns employed hundreds, if not thousands, of laborers. Attaining the highest temperatures anywhere in the world, these kilns produced shiny, easy-to-clean ceramics treasured in Africa, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia. We don’t think of these kilns as industrial simply because they didn’t use steam or electric power (they burned wood or charcoal), but these enterprises were just as large and complex as the first factories of the Industrial Revolution. Fully 7.5 percent of Fujian’s population of five million—some 375,000 people—were involved in making export ceramics in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.