Qualla: Niuheliang https://qualla.com/niuheliang en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:39 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/x/k/g/niuheliang-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Niuheliang https://qualla.com/niuheliang Niuheliang: Introduction https://qualla.com/niuheliang/ Photo credit Prof. Gary Lee Todd, CC BY-SA 4.0. She stares across five and a half millennia with eyes made of jade. The clay head of the Goddess of Niuheliang -- unearthed from a subterranean temple decorated with painted walls -- is one of the oldest known representations of a deity in East Asia. Discovered in 1983 on a chain of hilltops in western Liaoning Province, the Niuheliang archaeological site belongs to the Hongshan culture, a Neolithic civilization that flourished between 4700 and 2900 BC. What archaeologists found here -- temples, altars, cairns, jade burial goods, and figurines three times life-size -- upended assumptions about when complex religious societies first emerged in what is now China.

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Image: Prof. Gary Lee Todd | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/x/k/g/niuheliang-wp/wxkg-niuheliang-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Niuheliang: A Landscape of the Sacred https://qualla.com/niuheliang/ Photo credit Prof. Gary Lee Todd, CC BY-SA 4.0. Niuheliang is not a single site but a vast ritual landscape scattered across hilltops spanning 50 square kilometers, at elevations between 550 and 680 meters above sea level. Dating to roughly 3500-3000 BCE, it served as a burial and sacrificial center during the late Hongshan pe...

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Image: Prof. Gary Lee Todd | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/x/k/g/niuheliang-wp/wxkg-niuheliang-a-landscape-of-the-sacred.mp3 0:06 2 full Niuheliang: The Goddess Temple https://qualla.com/niuheliang/ Photo credit Prof. Gary Lee Todd, CC BY-SA 4.0. The most striking discovery is the subterranean ritual complex that Chinese archaeologists named the Goddess Temple. Built on a ridge and decorated with painted walls, it sits on a loam platform alongside an altar and cairn complex covering roughly five square kilometers. Inside,...

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Image: Prof. Gary Lee Todd | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/x/k/g/niuheliang-wp/wxkg-niuheliang-the-goddess-temple.mp3 0:06 3 full Niuheliang: Boars, Bears, and a Wider World https://qualla.com/niuheliang/ Photo credit Prof. Gary Lee Todd, CC BY-SA 4.0. Archaeologist Guo Dashun, who led the excavation, identified two distinct animals in the jade carvings: boars, with narrow eyes and flat snouts, and bears, with round eyes and short perky ears. He found similar symbolism at the nearby Xiaoheyan site, and noted that bear worship w...

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Image: Prof. Gary Lee Todd | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/x/k/g/niuheliang-wp/wxkg-niuheliang-boars-bears-and-a-wider-world.mp3 0:06 4 full Niuheliang: The Hidden Pyramid https://qualla.com/niuheliang/ Photo credit Prof. Gary Lee Todd, CC BY-SA 4.0. A year after the temple complex was identified, researchers realized that a nearby hill called Zhuanshanzi was not entirely natural. Beneath its slopes lay a pyramidal structure built with earth and imported stone, more elaborate than the surrounding cairns. During the Han Dynast...

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Image: Prof. Gary Lee Todd | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/x/k/g/niuheliang-wp/wxkg-niuheliang-the-hidden-pyramid.mp3 0:06 5 full