Niuheliang 牛河梁遗址

About Niuheliang

Its significance comes from the relationship between temple remains, stone cairns and an altar, rather than a single standing monument. The main museum supplies the archaeological context before a visit to the protective hall over the Goddess Temple and the second site's cairn-and-altar group. These are separate parts of a large park, so organise the internal connections instead of assuming one short walk.

Niuheliang is a group of late Hongshan-culture (红山文化) remains, dated to about 5,500 years ago, in the Nulu'erhu Mountains (努鲁儿虎山), covering about 50 square kilometers. It was discovered in 1981 during a survey of cultural relics, and repeated excavation recovered jade objects representative of the Hongshan culture.

The Goddess Temple (女神庙) is a semi-subterranean, multi-room structure with a main chamber, side rooms and front and back rooms, decorated with wall paintings and imitation-timber ornament, and once held large clay goddess figures, animal statues and painted pottery ritual vessels; an open platform of about 40,000 square meters lies to its north. The second site's cairn group covers 22,870 square meters and includes five cairns, one a 340-square-meter square tomb, with more than twenty jade pieces recovered from nearby stone-slab graves; two further cairn groups lie at Jiazishan (架子山) and Heishantou (黑山头).

In 1986 the site was named a Liaoning provincial cultural relics protection unit, and in 1988 it was listed as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (全国重点文物保护单位). It was designated a key large site by the National Cultural Heritage Administration (国家文物局) in 2004 and placed on China's Tentative List for World Heritage in 2006 and 2012. In 2014 the Niuheliang National Archaeological Site Park (牛河梁国家考古遗址公园) opened, covering about 8 square kilometers.

What to look for

• The protected remains of the Goddess Temple at Site 1.
• The stone-cairn and altar arrangement at Site 2, interpreted alongside the museum's Hongshan-culture displays.

Location & getting there

Getting to Niuheliang

Use the Niuheliang archaeological park's main museum on the northeastern side of the site between Lingyuan and Jianping as the arrival point. Confirm the day's connections to Sites 1 and 2.