This so-called pig-dragon, zhulong, is a hallmark jade of the Hongshan culture. This distinctive type is known by a highly polished piece of nephrite in the shape of a thick curl with snake-like body and pig-like snout. The head is usually distinguished by two large circular eyes framed by a large, key-hole shape and a flat snout and forehead characterized by grooves of short or long lines representing wrinkles. Here these facial features are simplified to back-swept ears separated by a narrow groove, a telltale mark of the Hongshan pig-dragon, as is the biconically bored hole for perforation

This type of zhulong continues into the Shang period as represented by finds from the Fu Hao tomb (M5) at Anyang, Yinxu Fu hao mu, Beijing, 1981, pl. 105, figs. 1-3. There the snout is treated flatly and the round eye is emphasized. The thick body is shrunken and sometimes decorated with Shang volutes or scale patterns. Because the present example is still characterized by some rotundity and carries the telltale head groove, it can be dated to a phase late during the Hongshan period. For a comparable example from the Liaoning Provincial Museum see E. Childs-Johnson, "Jades of the Hongshan Culture", Ars Asiatiques, XLVI, December, 1991, fig. 1:H, p. 83 and Wenwu, 1984.6, figs. 3:5, p. 13; 7, p. 10. For a discussion of this unique form and extant examples, see Ibid., pp. 83-84. For early and late Hongshan period examples, see E.Childs-Johnson, Ritual and Power: Jades of Ancient China, China Institute in America, New York, 1988, fig. 4, p. 16