Presently, a replica of the captivating face of the Hongshan goddess is on display at the Shenyang Museum in Northeast China’s Liaoning’s provincial capital, Shenyang. Alongside it are 265 artifacts, which take visitors on a journey into the beauty and enduring legacy of early Chinese civilization.

The exhibition, The Light of Civilization: Hongshan, Liangzhu, and Chinese Civilization, opened last month, elevates the Hongshan and Liangzhu cultures to equal importance, examining them within the grand narrative of the origins of Chinese civilization, according to Wang Chuang, the exhibition curator, and member of the Shenyang cultural heritage center.

The sculpture of the Hongshan goddess is a life-size terracotta representation of a woman with distinctive facial traits: high cheekbones, shallow eye sockets, a low nose bridge, thin lips and eyes inset with sparkling, jade circular pieces. It was discovered at the Niuheliang Site, which has been identified as a late-stage primitive settlement of the Hongshan Culture. The culture, pivotal in Neolithic Chinese history, once flourished across modern-day Liaoning, Hebei province, and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

“The exhibition focuses on three key themes: the height of civilization, Chinese characteristics, and cultural heritage,” Wang says. “We hope visitors will see the interconnectedness of Chinese civilization and the enduring influence of both the Hongshan and Liangzhu cultures.”

“From Hongshan to Liangzhu, we see the sequential brilliance of Chinese culture across different regions, marking a developmental process of rising and flourishing cultures, even though they did not follow a direct lineage,” Gan Chao, chief director of the documentary series, China Before China, said after attending the exhibition.