During the third millennium B.C. The Liangzhu culture, located in what is now Jiangsu province in western China, produced unique jade artifacts, the exact meaning and function of which are still unknown.
They are known as Bi (discs) and Cong (tubes) and their degree of sophistication amazes researchers, constituting the most impressive and at the same time enigmatic of all the jade objects found in ancient sites and tombs in China.
The bi They are flat discs of jade stone that have a small hole in the center. Its size varies, specimens have been found from just 1 centimeter to 1 meter in diameter, but the average size is around 25-30 centimeters.
The bi Neolithic do not have any decoration, although later geometric motifs were added, mainly hexagonal, and details that may represent deities associated with celestial bodies and elements.
For their part, the cong They have a rectangular or square outer shape that surrounds the circular inner tube, and their size also varies between a few centimeters and 1 meter in height. The oldest ones present geometric decorations, which became progressively more complicated until the culminating moment of their manufacture during the Han dynasty (202 BC-220 AD), when the ornamental motifs are increasingly complex.
But when it comes to Neolithic specimens, both types of objects seem to be strongly related and associated. The main hypothesis is that the cong symbolize the body or the Earth, while the bi they represent heaven, both spiritually and physically. Its purpose or function remains unresolved.
It is believed that they were indicative of a high social position and, indeed, the cost and time spent in their manufacture (jade is a difficult stone to work) seem to suggest that only the most powerful members of the community could afford them.
The vast majority of bi and cong they have been found in tombs at numerous archaeological sites. And in large numbers, so many that a single excavated tomb contained 25 bi and 33 cong . The bi they were placed on the stomach and chest of the deceased, on the back, the thorax and on the head, and on other occasions aligned with the body. Sometimes they appear superimposed forming small stacks of discs, but whenever this happens the bi they are usually of inferior quality or worse worked.
It is believed that the Neolithic specimens could have a ritual funerary function, the bi as celestial symbols that accompanied the dead to the afterlife and the cong as the element that connected the body with the earth.
Later, a moral and social status significance would be attributed to them, so that the bi Captured defeated enemy generals became a symbol of victory and their submission.
The historical and archaeological importance of these objects lies in the fact that they can constitute a testimony of the first stages of the development of cosmological concepts that, later, would profoundly influence Chinese culture. In this sense, some experts believe that they were used by the shamans, the religious leaders of the Liangzhu societies, to transmit this cosmological knowledge.
During the 1950s, a hoax appeared in pseudoscientific and ufological circles about some mysterious Dropa stones , whose age would go back to 12,000 years. However, and despite the fact that the subject remains hot in these circles, no one has ever been able to personally see one of these stones, and from the few photographs that circulate they seem to actually be bi discs. .