Niuheliang

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Niuheliang (牛河梁) is a Neolithic archaeological site in Liaoning, China, named after the Miangniu river. Discovered in 1983, Niuheliang is an exemplary site of the Hongshan culture.

Niuheliang features a unique temple, altar and cairn complex, covering an area of around 5 km². The altar at Niuheliang was made of stone platforms, supported by painted, clay cylinders. The subterranean ritual complex was built on a ridge and decorated with painted walls, referred to by Chinese archaeologists as the Goddess Temple, due to the discovery of a clay female head with jade inlaid eyes. Pig dragons and large, nude, clay figurines were also found at Niuheliang. Some of the figurines are up to three times the size of real-life humans; the interior of the figurines was structured from wood and straw. Six groups of cairns were discovered nearby, south and west of the temple site. The primary burial goods accompanying the graves were jade artifacts, although most of the excavated graves had already been looted. One year after the temple-cairns complex was discovered nearby a pyramidal structure "disguised" as a hill known as Zhuanshanzi (轉山子), which was included during the Han dynasty (-206~220) in a section of the Great Wall. Built with earth and imported stone, its structure is more elaborate than the cairns.

[edit] References

• Allan, Sarah (ed), The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective, ISBN 0-300-09382-9
• Nelson, Sarah Milledge (ed), The Archaeology of Northeast China: Beyond the Great Wall, ISBN 0-415-11755-0