Jade Artifact of Hongshan Culture in China - Zhulong Pendant

Nephrite Jade/PigDragon (amazing green when backlit) China. From about 3800 to 2700 BC a group of Neolithic peoples known now as the Hongshan culture lived in the far northeast, in what is today Liaoning province and Inner Mongolia. The Hongshan were a sophisticated society that built impressive ceremonial sites. A pig dragon or zhūlóng is a type of jade artifactfrom the Hongshan culture of neolithic China. Pig dragons are zoomorphic forms with a pig-like head and elongated limbless body coiled around to the head and described as "suggestively fetal". Early pig dragons are thick and stubby, and later examples have more graceful, snakelike bodies. There is some speculation that the pig dragon is the first representation of the Chinese dragon.