Archaeologists discover mysterious jade dragon artifact in a 5,000-year-old tomb in China

Archaeologists have discovered a 5,000-year-old jade dragon artifact while excavating a burial mound in northeastern China.

The object is approximately 6 inches long, 4 inches wide and 1 inch thick, making it the “largest jade dragon ever discovered in nature.” Hongshan culture,” the official state news agency said Xinhua.

The excavation site is located in the city of Chifeng in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of China. The burial mound, containing a round grave north of a square altar, is between 5,000 and 5,100 years old.

It was built by the Hongshan culture, a large Neolithic group known for delicately carved objects that flourished in the region. Experts believe that Hongshan craftsmen made some of the products earliest known jade artifacts in history.

In April, researchers began a four-month excavation at the site Archaeological newsDario Radley reports. Since then, they have uncovered human remains, fire pits, an assortment of pottery and more than 100 jade artifacts.

The scientists were particularly intrigued by the jade dragon, which they said is remarkable for its size. However, not all researchers are impressed by the newly discovered artifact.

Although the jade dragon is “very beautiful,” it is also “not that unique.” Gideon Shelach-Lavisays a researcher in East Asian studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Living Science‘S Owen Jarus.

Shelach-Lavi, who has excavated in the area but was not involved in the recent excavation, says similar jade dragon artifacts have been unearthed from other tombs from the Hongshan culture. Furthermore, historians cannot say for certain that they were made to resemble dragons.

“We don’t really know what their significance was during the Neolithic period, so it’s anachronistic to call them ‘dragons,’” ​​he adds.

Still, officials say the objects shed new light on the history of Neolithic groups in the region.

“This is the largest stone burial mound of the Late Hongshan culture ever found in Inner Mongolia,” he said Sun Jinsongthe director of the Inner Mongolia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, during a press conference, per Archaeological news. “The variety of jade artifacts discovered fills important gaps in our understanding of this ancient civilization’s jade use.”

Research at the site, including radiocarbon dating and topographical mapping, is still ongoing.

A ritual complex with a similar layout was previously discovered at a site called Niuheliang, about 150 kilometers from Chifeng, as Jia Xiaobing, a researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tells China daily‘s Fang Aiqing and Yuan Hui.

“Such consistency over a larger area proves that there was a shared belief system among the Hongshan ancestors,” he says.