Between the 16th and 18th century, Vietnamese ceramic products, including large storage jars, are found among the artefacts on board Chinese merchant ships. Whether these jars are meant to be traded or are used for daily life aboard ships, they travel in the hands of Chinese merchants and tell us about particular aspects of the maritime trading economy. By the end of the 15th century, Vietnamese productions, including storage jars, appeared alongside Chinese ceramics at Southeast Asian export sites, as well as along the routes of international maritime trade. Their production sites are now well known thanks to the many excavations carried out for the past twenty years, but the role of these jars and all the agents that led them from the production centres of the Red River Delta and the centre of Vietnam to distribution sites are yet to be determined. We present here some of the known production sites in the north and centre of Vietnam, and an analysis of the quasi-absence of signs of storage jar production at the kiln sites linked to international ceramic trade.
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