Hongshanren 红山人 - An Asia Youth Media Website

A website devoted to presenting the neolithic culture of Hongshan 红山 in Northeastern China

broken pig-dragon collected by British Museum in the 70s, before Hongshan became famous; it was probably found in China by a diplomat or missionary and brought to UK many years ago, and his descendents, knowing little about its cultural significance, got rid of it by donating to a museum, to the benefit of all parties. Below I give several unbroken examples of the pig dragon and discuss its possible meanings in the Jade page



both were discovered in Niuheliang tombs and carbon dated to around 3000BC

First discovered by swedish geologist Jonah G. Andersson in 1921 (before his more celebrated discoveries of Yangshao culture and Peking Man), Hongshan came to world wide attention because of the Niuheliang 牛河梁 sites found in the 80s, with ancient tombs burying intriguing jade artifacts, in particular a number of pig-dragons, and a building site containing various fragments of human and animal statues, including a near-complete head of a female figure, giving rise to the characterization of the site as the Goddess Temple.

Archaeological discoveries have to be interpreted in light of our knowledge of history and mythology, e.g., the clay tablets and other middle eastern archeological evidence have confirmed as well as modified the information provided in the bible. To set things in perspective, I present an example from a neighbouring region of China in a similar time frame; the map shows a number of ancient sites, many with city walls and fortifications, aged around 2500BC, and an "egg shell pottery" wine cup from the era, most probably used in ritual ceremonies to present blessed fluid to the gods.

a number of local legends say that 仪狄 from the Fangfeng tribe presented his wine to Lord Yu (the irrigator that cured the floods and great conquerer who defeated the Miao tribe), who enjoyed it but overslept the next day; henceforth he kept his distance from 仪狄 and his wine, believing they were bad for government; the legends and the archaelogical discoveries match, something not always achieved in other ancient studies