Niuheliang

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Niuheliang (牛河梁) is a Neolithic archaeological site in China, located in the northeastern province of Liaoning, Manchuria, along the middle and upper reaches of the Laoha River and the Yingjin River (presently on the board of Chaoyang and the Jianping County).[1][2] Discovered in 1983, Niuheliang is an exemplary site of the Hongshan culture. It includes evidence of religion, such as a temple, an altar and a cairn.[3]

Description

Niuheliang is a large burial site scattered over hill tops over a 50 square kilometer area. It features a unique temple on a loam platform, with an 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. A north-south axis connects this temple complex with a central peak of the Zhushan mountains, otherwise known as "Pig Mountain".[2] 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.

This site contains some of the essential elements, temples, cairns and platforms, present in later ancestor worship of the Chinese such as the Ming tombs 5000 years later.[2]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Barnes, Gina L. JSTOR: World Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Oct., 1996 ), pp. 209-219. JSTOR 125071. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ching et al., Francis D.K. (2007). A Global History of Architecture. New York: John Wiley and Sons. p. 10. ISBN 0-471-26892-5. 
  3. ↑ "Exploring Chinese History :: Culture :: Chinese Archaeology :: Archaeological Sites". www.ibiblio.org. Retrieved 2008-07-11. 

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

External links


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