This near-stoneware porcelain bowl, deposited in Pit 3 around 1610, was made in Swatow, southern China. It is a coarse provincial ware that was imported into Europe by the Dutch. Although the Chinese would not consider this ware very high quality porcelain, it was very popular in Europe. Chinese porcelain was quite rare in England until the mid-seventeenth century. It was highly prized for its cool, hard, luminescent quality as well as for the stark white background it provided for hand-painted decoration. Much of the early European tin-glazed earthenware is decorated in imitation of Chinese porcelain.