The mysterious Hongshan culture disappeared thousands of years ago, but its creators left behind amazing works of art that still admire today. Only relatively recently did it become clear that this culture played a vital role in the history of ancient China.
For a long time, it was believed that the Chinese civilization originated in the Yellow River basin. Historical traditions have preserved the memory of the first dynasty of the Xia emperors, which ruled from approximately 2070 to 765 BC.
Hongshan culture jade dragon
However, long before the appearance of this legendary dynasty, cultures were even more ancient in other areas of China.
One of the earliest is the Hongshan Neolithic culture, which arose about 6,500 years ago on the lands lying between Inner Mongolia and the modern Chinese provinces of Liaoning and Hebei.
It flourished in the years 4700-2900. BC. Ultimately, it was the people of the Hongshan culture who are supposed to have created the first state entity in China. They were the first to start processing jade, carving out of it figurines and decorations of amazing perfection.
Apparently, they considered it a sacred stone, since jade products are often found in graves belonging to this culture. It is believed that it was during the Hongshan era that the dragon cult originated in China.
Promotional video:
The earliest extant image of a dragon, also carved from jade, dates from this period. The dragon motif is often present in the works of ancient masters of the Hongshan culture, which include not only carved jade items, but also painted ceramics.
Archaeological research in recent years has made it possible to learn a lot of interesting things about the life of this ancient people, but a lot of what concerns its spiritual and everyday life is still shrouded in mystery.
It is known, for example, that the Hongshan people, like some other peoples of antiquity, built pyramids. One of such pyramids was discovered by Chinese archaeologists in 2001 in the north of China, in the region of Inner Mongolia. Its age is over 1000 years.
At the top of this three-tiered structure were found the ruins of an altar, a stone statue of a goddess as tall as a man and seven burials. In the burials, as well as in the vicinity of the altar, many jade ornaments and figurines were found.
Some of the figures depict creatures that are completely different from any other modern inhabitant of our planet. In attempts to explain their symbolism, scientists simply broke their heads.
Someone believes that these are images of demons or spirits associated with shamanic rituals, someone sees them as stylized images of pigs (a pig in the Hongshan culture was a sacred animal), others believe that these are just people in terrible masks.
There are suggestions that we can talk here about some mythological creatures associated with the cult of abundance, and maybe in this form the people of the Hongshan culture imagined the sun god.
In the circles of adherents of the paranormal, there is an opinion that the jade figurines of the Hongshan culture depict space aliens, and the supporters of this hypothesis can be understood: the strange figurines look too “out of the ordinary”.
The meticulous workmanship that distinguishes these works of ancient carvers suggests that the figurines were intended for religious ceremonies and rituals. Interestingly, in no other Chinese culture such images are known.
Likewise, massive - taller than human - statues of mysterious deities found in the underground temple of Niuheliang, the most impressive monument of the ancient Hongshan civilization, have no analogues in the traditions of ancient China.
Discovered in 1983, this huge religious center is the most significant spiritual heritage site of Hongshan culture. The central point of the sanctuary, covering an area of 50 square kilometers, is an underground temple where the goddess of fertility and some unknown gods, of whom no memory has been preserved, was worshiped.
Archaeologists have found here a fragment of a clay sculpture depicting the head of a woman with eyes inlaid with jade, and massive figures of deities, three human heights, made of wood and straw and coated with clay. According to one version, the underground temple was dedicated to the goddess of fertility, but what these huge clay idols were meant to represent remains unclear.
The Nykhelyan ritual complex is sometimes compared with British Stonehenge, since a number of its structures are vertical stones, stone circles, etc. - clearly has an astronomical character. Perhaps these landmarks were used to fix the points of sunrise and sunset on the days of the solstice and equinox, as well as to observe other astronomical phenomena.
Obviously, complex rituals related to the cult of heaven and earth were performed in the Niuhelian sanctuary. Their nature is still unclear, as well as the system of religious beliefs of the Hongshan people, and only further research will possibly provide answers to all the questions and shed light on the mystery of the mysterious creatures whose images were so carefully captured in jade by the masters of the ancient people.