Elizabeth Childs-Johnson
Jades of the Hongshan culture : the dragon and fertility cult worship
The connection between Hongshan and Yangshao cultures is illustrated primarily by certain shared pottery shapes and painted motifs. When Hongshanhou was first excavated archaeologists labelled the early Hongshan phase "Painted Ware" after the similarly painted pottery of Yangshao in central and northen Henan.9 Sun ShoudaoP) and Guo Dashun(10) recently amplified this relationship in noting that there were two successive ceramic phases corresponding to the Hou- gangt11) Yangshao and later Longshan(12) cultural periods.10 Almost all C-14 dates from Hongshan sites are concentrated in the middle of the 4th millennium: one from Dongshanzui t13), Liaoning dates to 5485 ±110, calibrated to 3490 ± 110 BC;11 and three from Niuheliang (14), Liaoning dating to 3020 ± 80, 3625 ±110 and 3630 ± 110 BC, respectively.12 Excavators have dated Hongshan cultural remains at Xishuiquan (15), Chifeng(16) to before ca. 2600 BC and within the range of the Hougang phase of the Yangshao Neolithic.13 A working timetable for the Hongshan culture is ca. 4000-2500 BC.
The art of working jade in ancient China appears as early as 3500 BC with the Hongshan t1) culture. This cultural settlement of ca. 4000-2500 BC once occupied the Liao River area of southeastern Inner Mongolia, northeastern Hebei, Liaoning and south central and western Jilin (Manchuria) provinces. During the 1920's and 30's two Japanese archaeologists, Kosaku Hamada and Seiichi Mizuno, spent three seasons excavating at Hongshanhou (2), the site in Liaoning province after which the culture takes its name.1 In the 1970's, excavations in the same area produced unprecedented finds of jade sculptures worked into dragon and cloud shapes. These works were discovered in tombs and on the surfaces of outdoor altars at several major sites. Stylistically they appear as mature and sophisticated works of art. It is suggested that they were symbolically potent in relationship to their excavated context of elaborate ceremonial centers and to another art form, unique life-size clay sculptures of female fertility figures. The jades images, and in particular one the archaeologists label "pig-dragon", appear singularly important. As a way of explaining the special position of these jades in the early cultural setting of ancient China, I shall initially identify the jades according to type, style and archaeological context.
Hongshan cultural remains are geographically distributed in the territory of Liaoxi and Liaodong peninsulas and the fertile upper and lower valleys of the Liao River. This area of settlement is familiar in Chinese history through archaeological finds of bronzes of Shang,2 Western and Eastern Zhou date3 and through the establishment of the Liaoxi (3) commandery in Han times.4 This is also the area that Fu Siniant4) once hypothesized was part of the early settlement belonging to the Yi (5) peoples of pre-Xia and Shang dynastic eras.5 There is however nothing in the archaeological remains to make this connection.6 Rather, the settlement of Hongshan seems closely in part allied with the cultures of the Neolithic Yangshao (6) in northern Henan and southern Hebei, and therefore possibly with the other historic group of early settlers Fu identified as Xia (7) 7 or with the Hu (8) as suggested by Jao Tsung-i (Rao Zongyi).8
Hongshan jades according to type, style and material
The jades unearthed from Hongshan burials and ceremonial centers are distinguished as ornaments for attachment or suspension. Each usually has one or more small holes, pierced either as a perforation at the top of the jade or as an eye slit at the back. Major jade types include the so-called "pig-dragon" (zhulong) t17) and related forms (fig. 1 C, D); the "horse hoof- shape" (matixing) (18) (fig. 1 B); the shape called "cloud with hooks" (gouyunxing)i19) (fig. 1 A); the "falcon with cat head" (maotouyingxing)^20) (fig. IF); and the disk with perforated attachment holes (fig. IE). .Fu(21)-axe types with and without perforation holes for hafting also appear (fig. 1 L). Less common but also perforated with an attachment hole are shapes in the form of fish (fig. 1 H), cicadas (fig. 1 G), and tortoises (fig. 1 1). Other ornamental shapes include the ring-shaped bracelet (fig. 1 O), various beads (fig. 1 N), a long pencil-shape (fig. 1 P), an awl-shaped pendant (fig. 1 Q), and a linked disk-shape with perforated holes for attachment (fig. 1 M).14 The small awl-shaped pendants, the ring bracelets and the beads are types prevalent in burials of other cultures belonging to coastal northeast and south China, called Dawenkou(22) and Songze(23)/ Hemudut24), respectively.15 The formerly listed shapes, on the other hand, specifically characterize the Hongshan culture.
The most outstanding of these native Hongshan jade types is the so-called "pig-dragon". This name is derived from features of the face that suggest the wild boar (the excavators use pig), and from the feature of the curling body that suggests the mythical dragon of Chinese legend. Facial features in their most complete form are represented by the double fist-sized jade, around 15 cm. tall, that was unearthed at Jianpingt25) county, Liaoning (fig. 1 D left, 2). In the drawing large U-shaped ears in profile fold in two or three layers around completely circular pupil or eye sockets. At the top these ear shapes rise in sloping, split peaks. The remainder of the face is limited to the snout with two teardrop-shaped nostrils and a mouth open at the sides where a set of upward and downward-turning tusks are symmetrically rendered. The C-shaped body is an emphatic thick, softly rounded curl that ends in a flat surface parallel to the snout. To create this C-shaped body tube the center is pierced by a large circular hole. A small perforation created by drilling from two sides lies as a rule at the top of the body curl,
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