Jade dragons unearthed from various archaeological sites: a jade bracelet with dragon head design from Liangzhu in Zhejiang province. (GAO ERQIANG / CHINA DAILY)
Startlingly similar jade artifacts — unearthed thousands of kilometers apart and from different eras — have provided a key to understanding how the nation's earliest societies inspired and interacted with one another, Zhao Xu reports.
In the summer of 1983, 40-year-old Wang Mingda, from Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, came across a report written some 45 years ago by a young man named Shi Xingeng.
The first thing that revealed itself was the rim of a piece of pottery, which started to collapse almost the moment the archaeologists tried to clean up the dirt on its surface
Between December 1936 and March 1937, Shi conducted three excavations in his hometown Liangzhu, 16 kilometers from the center of Hangzhou, which, today, is the capital of East China's Zhejiang province.
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"While I take great comfort in the publication of this (archaeological) report, going through its pages filled me with mournfulness: The place that has given birth to my writing is now engulfed in the flames of war, the treasures cited dispersed, lost ..." wrote Shi in 1938, a few months after Hangzhou, together with a large part of China, was engulfed in Japanese gunfire.
On May 31, 1986, nearly three years after encountering the report, Wang and his team made a breakthrough during their digging at what's known today as Liangzhu's Fanshan Cemetery. The first thing that revealed itself was the rim of a piece of pottery, which started to collapse almost the moment the archaeologists tried to clean up the dirt on its surface. This was followed by patches of red lacquer and some tiny jade beads — from what was once a beautifully lacquered, jade-embedded wooden cup.
But the real surprise — one that would eventually help to establish Liangzhu as a splendid civilization — was the ritual jades: the cong (jade tubes), bi (jade discs), yue (jade axes) and huang (jade arches). Some of them, their elite owners had worn during ceremonies; all of them, they'd carried to their afterlife.
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"Liangzhu is considered today as one of the three prehistoric jadeware production centers of China," says Zhou Yun, curator of the ongoing exhibition, The Proof of Early China — The Civilizations of Songze and Liangzhu, at Shanghai Museum. "The other two are Lingjiatan and Hongshan."
Major archaeological sites. (PHOTO / CHINA DAILY)
All three prospered during the Neolithic period, but were separated by time and space. While both the archaeological sites of Liangzhu and Lingjiatan are located in eastern China, along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, they sit on the two different sides of the river, 250 km from each other. Hongshan, a dominating regional culture found in a vast area stretching from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region to Northeast China's Liaoning province, lay much further away, 1,500 km from Liangzhu and 1,200 km from Lingjiatan.
Chronologically, the Hongshan Culture got a head start, emerging around 4700 BC and lasting until 2900 BC. The Lingjiatan Culture, a case study for China's complex societies of its era, existed between 3800 BC and 3300 BC, with its entire time span falling within that of Hongshan. The last, and the youngest, is Liangzhu. Spanning a millennium between 3300 BC and 2300 BC, it is called a civilization for all the right reasons.
"Such differences belie an important fact that, through Lingjiatan, the Hongshan Culture had come to exert a visible influence on Liangzhu," says Zhou.
The connection between jadeware production in Lingjiatan and Liangzhu has long been proven by the large amount of jade cong, yue and huang — all typical Liangzhu jade types — unearthed from the sites of the former, where the tombs of those who formed the society's elite class were crammed with such items. One particular Lingjiatan tomb excavated in 2007 contained 200 pieces of jade, together with various stoneware items and pottery.
"Where the Lingjiatan Culture ended, the Liangzhu civilization began. This is by no means sheer coincidence," says Zhou.
A C-shaped jade dragon from Lingjiatan in Anhui province. (GAO ERQIANG / CHINA DAILY)
Roaming dragons
Here, another concept must be introduced: the Larger Songze Culture. Named after the Songze archaeological site on the far west of Shanghai, this culture encompassed many stand-alone sites with their own spheres of cultural influence that often overlapped and interacted, of which Lingjiatan is one. Collectively occupying the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the region surrounding Taihu Lake in the Yangtze River Delta, the Larger Songze Culture, dated to between 3800 BC and 3300 BC, is considered "father" to the civilization of Liangzhu, which presided over roughly the same area starting from 3300 BC.
However, to connect the dots, the links between Lingjiatan and Hongshan must also be established. So far, both places have yielded multiple types of jade with apparent similarities to each other, including slit rings (rings with a side opening), discs and figurines.
"Some leading archaeologists in China have speculated on the existence of a transregional network maintained by the elite members of both societies in Hongshan and Lingjiatan, which had allowed for such exchanges," says Fang Xiangming, who today heads the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, an organization behind the excavation of Liangzhu in recent decades.
"Never underestimate the ability of our ancestors to travel long distances, or to pass on materials and ideas. The examination of any regional culture or civilization that had prospered on this land, or any imagery produced by them, must be carried out with a full awareness of that level of fluidity," he says.
One particular image the archaeologist has in mind is that of a dragon, the mythical creature that's most associated with China and, perhaps, the one most representative of Hongshan Culture. Containing within their streamlined design a distinct gracefulness and dynamism, the jade dragons of Hongshan, dubbed C-shaped dragons today, are characterized by big eyes, a long snout and flowing mane that collectively provide a prototype for the Chinese dragon as we know it today.
Hongshan Culture's C-shaped dragon in Northeast China. (GAO ERQIANG / CHINA DAILY)
But there is an offshoot: It has the same coiled body, but the snout is further emphasized with wrinkles. The eyes are bigger, rounder, highlighted with circular incised lines. There are also a pair of pricked ears which were to evolve into dragon horns. More adorable than aristocratic, this particular type is aptly dubbed the "pig dragon" and is believed to have a lot to do with pigs being not only an important farm animal, but also associated with the rituals and belief system of Hongshan.
The same circular eyes, long snout and pricked ears would later find their way onto jade dragons or dragon heads from the Lingjiatan and Songze sites — three are on view at the ongoing Shanghai exhibition — and further down the timeline from Liangzhu, where pork had joined fish and rice to form the menu of its ancient people, who built their homes in the watery lowlands.
In the case of the latter, multiple dragon heads also appear on the jade bracelets.
With all that being said, it must be noted that, in reality, this process of transmission was more than complicated, and is anything but linear. To verify all the links along the way — some relatively concrete, others tenuous — researchers, searching for hidden clues, have to be extremely attentive to tiny details, such as the traces left by jadeware craftsmen from different cultures who worked with wood sticks, leather strips and silicon sand, for example.
One inevitable question remains: Had this process somehow come to influence the formation of the ultimate Liangzhu symbol — a manlike figure on top of a mythical beast, carved into a jade cong? The answer, from both Zhou and Fang, is yes.
Both pointed to the jade cong on view at the Shanghai exhibition. A greenish-brownish color, the piece was unearthed 130 km to the northeast of the Liangzhu Ruins, from an archaeological layer of the site believed to have formed during the Liangzhu civilization. (While the Liangzhu civilization covered a large area circling Taihu Lake, the actual Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City — the spiritual and political center of this civilization, occupied only a southernmost spot of its territory.)
Two things are noteworthy. First, this particular cong is bracelet shaped, without the edges typical of the Liangzhu-era cong found in a relatively large quantity at the Fanshan Cemetery. Second, being dated to 3300 BC, it is, to this day, the earliest Liangzhu jade artifact that has been found to have borne an image of a beast similar to that of the iconic man-and-beast motif.
"The resemblance is striking: The big eyes are there, so is the wide mouth," says Zhou. "But there are still considerable differences, most notably to the nose, which is only indicated at here, but is articulated in the later versions.
"Many details are missing and the general presentation veers toward the primitive and immature. This is clearly a transitional piece between the definitive Liangzhu beast and some earlier prototype."
A line-drawing of Liangzhu's man-and-beast. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Fang believes that he has found that missing link. "From Hongshan to Songze, there had always been two-dimensional representations of the three-dimensional jade dragons. Of them, some amounted to frontal views," he says.
That's where the beast on the green-colored, bracelet-shaped cong fits into the narration: It is very likely to be a head-on view of a dragon, with the same big eyes defined by concentric circles. While the long snout has inevitably become less obvious, the same perspective serves to underscore the wide mouth, which eventually took its bar-like shape.
The direction this image was heading has been pointed out by another bracelet-shaped cong, this one with a pale grayish color, that is currently displayed side by side with the green one at the Shanghai exhibition. Here, it is clear that the beast had gone through certain changes, which allowed it to move further away from the dragon it once was and nudge closer to the beast it were to become.
Compared with the green one, this grayish cong, although still dated to early phase of the Liangzhu civilization, was unearthed in the Yaoshan Altar at the Liangzhu Ruins, that is, much closer to the heart of the civilization.
It would take roughly another 300 years for the Fanshan Cemetery and the palatial compound to be built, 5 km southwest of Yaoshan, in around 3000 BC, and for Liangzhu jadeware production to reach its pinnacle.
In the meantime, the bracelet cong, whose shape evokes those wide bracelets unearthed from Lingjiatan, would evolve into a much more sophisticated shape, made up of a cylindrical tube encased in a square prism. For its part, the man-and-beast pattern appears on the prism's four vertical sides, as well as its four vertical edges. In the case of the latter, the edges serve as an axis to the symmetrical patterns.
Wang Ningyuan, a leading archaeologist working at the Liangzhu site, serves up his own analysis. "There's a possibility that the edge represents the imaginary line that runs through a person's face, from the middle of the forehead to the chin," he says. "This line, which coincides with the nose ridge, can be emphasized to a degree where it becomes an edge, and a divider."
The divided halves, miraculously, present two side views of the same beast, pointing archaeologists in new directions.
"It has long been suggested that Liangzhu's beast may have given rise to the image of taotie, a demonic creature commonly emblazoned on the ritual bronzes of the Shang (c. 16th century-11th century BC) and Zhou (c. 11th century-256 BC) dynasties," says Fang. "Although any direct link has yet to be established, or is unlikely to be found in the near future, one thing stands up to bridge these two images.
"The taotie, being frontal and bilaterally symmetrical, could have been made up of the two side views of one creature. This opinion is supported, among other things, by how the creature positions its legs and claws," he continues. "And if you look at the Liangzhu beast really closely, you'll notice the same arrangement with its crouched legs and claws."
In the stone carvings found at the Neolithic site of Shimao in Shaanxi province, the frontal view of a beast is flanked by two side views which, put together, form the same frontal view. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Rippling outward
In 1958, 20 years after Shi penned his archaeological report on Liangzhu, the Neolithic site of Shimao was discovered in Northwest China's Shaanxi province. Dated to between 2200 BC and 1900 BC, the site sits chronologically between the Liangzhu civilization and the Bronze Age. There, the stone carvings have clearly shown how the side view of a mythical beast could either appear alone or, by joining the other side, form a whole.
Back in 1936, Shi, fully aware of the devastation to be wreaked upon his country, went ahead with his excavations against all odds. "From our splendid cultural heritage faith in the eventual victory should be drawn. ... I'll be waiting for my next round of excavations, to be conducted under the debris of war," he wrote toward the end of his foreword to the Liangzhu report.
Shi never lived to see that day. He died of scarlet fever in May 1939, merely a few months after the report's publication. But his words didn't go unheard.
"My wife always recalls the night I stormed into our home like a madman, right after our major discovery on May 31, 1986. I was shouting 'We found it, we found it!' My hair was long and I looked emaciated," says Wang Mingda, who led the Fanshan excavation for the next hundred days, at the end of which he had lost 6.5 kilograms.
In the years that followed, the beast-bearing cong, as well as other typical examples of Liangzhu jade, have been discovered at archaeological sites all over China. These range from the coastal area of Guangdong province in southern China, to the equally renowned Sanxingdui archaeological site in Sichuan province, a Bronze-Age settlement located some 1,500 km upriver on the Yangtze from Liangzhu.
Rubbings of the taotie beast featured on ancient bronzeware from the Shang (c. 16th century-11th century BC) and Zhou (c. 11th century-256 BC) dynasties. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
"They were probably taken there by travelers during long journeys, the end of which was often the beginning of another," says Fang. In a sense, they were not unlike the jadeware craftsmen of Lingjiatan, who, seeing the twilight of their culture 5 millennia ago, chose to leave their homeland. They arrived in what would become the ancient city of Liangzhu via the area's ready waterways, bringing with them knowledge of their treasured art. Embedded in that knowledge was the distant memory of Hongshan, the frozen land that was home to a splendid jade culture.
In 1978, a Neolithic site dated to between 2300 BC and 1900 BC was discovered in Taosi village, North China's Shanxi province. There, from the Yellow River Basin, archaeologists unearthed jade cong.
"At one point, that region was seen as the sole origin of Chinese civilization," says Zhou. "Liangzhu, with the city it had built, the society it had developed, the jadeware it had produced, and the belief system it had conceived, proves that conclusion wrong," says Zhou.
"Moreover, it has demonstrated how one regional culture or civilization could draw inspiration from farther afield, while having its own influence ripple outward until it met with another, thousands of kilometers away or hundreds of years down the river of history.
"All those encounters between cultures, and the accumulation of memories of what had taken place on this land — if there's one word to sum it up, it's 'China'."
