The Niuheliang Site is located on the border of Lingyuan County and Jianping County, Liaoning Province.
The site, spreading over ten areas of more than 50 square kilometers, was discovered in 1981 and consists of the Temple of the Goddess and stone tombs. It belongs to the Neolithic Hongshan Culture that dates back 5,000 years.
The excavated Temple of the Goddess has two groups of wooden buildings: one containing many rooms and the other having only one room. The multi-room building is about 18 meters long from south to north and seven meters wide from east to west; the single-room building is about two meters long from south to north and over six meters wide from east to west. The buildings were constructed on earth and wooden structures with painted walls exhibiting triangular geometric patterns in reddish brown, interlaced with yellow and white. A large number of goddesses and animal statues are piled up in the temple. Although only a small section of the temple has been excavated, dozens of sculpture fragments of human busts and hands were unearthed together with jade dragons that resemble pig and huge bird sculptures that reflect high carving techniques. A life-sized colored bust of a goddess was also unearthed, measuring 22.5 centimeters in height and 16.5 centimeters in width with long, round ears, a low-bridged nose and large mouth. Two round, flat jades have been used as her eyes and her face was painted bright red. Also discovered in the temple was pottery used at sacrificial ceremonies, which indicates that grand sacrifices were commonly held at the temple.
The stone tombs were constructed by piling up chipped rocks, either square or round, measuring 40 x 20 x 30 centimeters. Each tomb covers an area of 300 to 400 square meters, with the largest stretching over 1,000 square meters. The rocks are arranged over one meter high. To date, the largest stone coffin found measures 3.5 meters in length and width — larger than the standard coffins found that do not exceed 1.5 meters in length and 0.5 meters in width.
In these large, stone tombs, dozens of pieces of sacrificial jade articles ware were found beneath the corpse’s head, on the chest or somewhere near the body. Among the exquisite items is the jade dragon, which resembles a pig. It has become one of the representative relics of the Hongshan Culture.
(Source: chinaculture.org)
