Much of the inhabited area of china is covered in porous loess, which produces scant mineral deposits on the pottery surface.

Distinguishing between excavated and recent objects is therefore sometimes very difficult and often thermoluminescence is the only scientific method permitting the recognition of fakes.

But it must be borne in mind that it is impossible to date items on the market with certainty unless their exact provenance is known together with the measurement of the radiation emitted by the soil in which they were found.

Authentic figures generally have characteristics which, if examined at least under a microscope, can permit a reliable distinction between recent and antique items.

For example the petrified or fossilized remains of tiny animals which live in loess leave no doubts, under the base snail shells can be seen, together with fossilized slime trails. These organic residues do not permit dating but attest to a long period of time spent in the soil.

Visible traces of the damp earth, not noticeable on the painted and glazed areas, must instead be expected in the unprotected areas of the porous ceramic surface, such as on the face and in the interior of a figure. If for example, the inside surface of a figure is clean without any marks, then it is right to be sceptical.

Valid proof that an item is faked is offered by stylistic deviation from the norm. It is easy to detect fakes on the basis of mythological and iconographic errors, given that the Chinese have been very sensitive up to our day about the exact representation of these themes.

Greek female figures can present the most disparate variety of heads of goddesses and dancers on similar bodies. This was unthinkable for Chinese figures. Clothes, bodies, facial features and attributes were the symbols that served to identify a specific entity.

Enormous treasures must still be lying buried in the vast territory of China. If we think of the huge amount of archeological finds made in tiny Greece relating to only three of four hundred years of its history, enough to fill museums and collections the world over, we can imagine what the ten times bigger China must have produced in almost three thousand years of uninterrupted art creation.

Excavation began but a few decades ago and in only a few selected localities. It is presumable that in the future the antiques market will be swamped with finds from official and unofficial excavation sites