Archaeologists have uncovered clay figures shaped like a dragon and a phoenix inside a 4,300-year-old tomb in northern China, offering rare evidence of how the two creatures appeared in ancient burial rituals.
The figures were found at Zhaizita Stone City in Jungar Banner, Ordos City, in China’s Inner Mongolia region. Radiocarbon dating places the tomb at about 2300 B.C., during the middle-to-late Yongxingdian Culture and the wider Longshan period.
According to the archaeological team, no earlier discovery in northern China has produced such a clearly recognizable pairing of the two forms. The find gives researchers a new point of reference for tracing dragon and phoenix imagery before China’s early dynastic states emerged.
Other discoveries show that dragon imagery was already present farther north in prehistoric China. In 2024, archaeologists reported a roughly 5,000-year-old jade dragon from the Hongshan Culture at a tomb in Inner Mongolia.
Figures arranged around the deceased
The figures’ positions inside the tomb are particularly significant. The rectangular earthen grave contained a person buried face-up with the limbs extended and the head pointing northeast.
Archaeologists placed the dragon figure on the right side of the body in their reconstruction of the burial, where it was found with its head facing the same direction as the deceased. The phoenix lay on the left and appears to have been shown in a rising or soaring position. Together, the figures form a balanced arrangement around the body.
Researchers believe the placement was deliberate and may reflect ideas about death, status or spiritual beliefs. The burial provides unusual physical evidence that recognizable animal imagery formed part of funerary practices in northern China more than four millennia ago.
Other finds point to the importance of the person buried in the tomb. Archaeologists discovered a jade bi disc with turquoise inlay beside the right side of the neck. Such an object required valuable materials and skilled craftsmanship.
Jade and diet point to high status
Evidence from the person’s diet also suggests relatively high status. Sun Jinsong, head of the Inner Mongolia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, explained that stable-isotope analysis showed a diet largely based on millet agriculture.
The person also consumed comparatively high levels of animal protein or other food resources associated with greater access.
Researchers say the diet, jade ornament and elaborate burial together support the view that the individual occupied an elevated position within the community.
The discovery is also important because dragons and phoenixes became major symbols in later Chinese culture. Archaeologists caution, however, against assigning later imperial meanings to figures made thousands of years earlier. Their symbolism changed considerably over time.
The Zhaizita finds instead show that forms interpreted as a dragon and phoenix were already being used together in a carefully arranged ritual setting by around 2300 B.C.
A settlement in a changing region
The wider settlement provides further context. Zhaizita covers about 420,000 square meters and was protected by stone walls. It belonged to an era when communities across northern China were building larger fortified settlements, making specialized objects and developing more complex social and ritual systems.
Archaeological research along the Yellow River has documented the same broad shift toward larger and more centralized communities. A recent study of nearly 2,000 sites found that settlements in the Songshan Mountain region became increasingly concentrated over thousands of years.
Its position within the wider Yellow River cultural sphere also places the tomb in a landscape where increasingly complex Late Neolithic communities interacted.
Late Longshan remains found at the Liuzhuang site in Henan include house foundations, pottery kilns and wells, offering further evidence of increasingly organized settlements before the rise of the early dynasties.
For archaeologists, the burial offers a rare glimpse into that symbolic world. The carefully positioned figures suggest animal imagery had become part of structured funerary practices long before dragons and phoenixes acquired their familiar roles in later Chinese history.
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