Bird head-shaped object
Bird head-shaped object, also known as Bird's head shaped object or Bird head-shaped pottery, is a unique pottery artifact found in the Niaosung culture in southwestern Taiwan, which dates to the Iron Age. Its body is like a canister, while the top looks like the beak of a bird. On its side from the top, there is a vertical groove extending all the way to the bottom. The bottom is flat and hollow. In addition, these objects have at least one hole on them, some on the top and others on the sides near the top. The name derives from its special beak-like design.
Origin and related groups
Archaeological evidence indicates that the objects have existed from the Iron Age to the Siraya culture in the modern indigenous period. There were mentions of similar objects in earlier literature. The Notes of Anping Prefecture completed in the late period when Taiwan was under Japanese rule, have recorded the scenes that the Tawulung tribe set up the ancestral shrine :"People from each tribe and village must set up a shrine built with bamboo, with thatches on the top. Water outlets are to be installed on the front and back parts of the shrine. There should be a spine in the middle of the shrine, with three fake birds made of clay on both sides. The birds' bodies shall be adhered with bamboo, with their beaks picking the straws."
As such, scholars assumed that the fake birds here were made of fired clay. Thereafter, the Siraya people might have lost the technique of making pottery due to Sinicization and adopted woodcarving instead.