Putting past glory on a podium

At the heart of that city was the palatial complex — temples of worship for Liangzhu people who shared a unified belief, as evidenced by their common embrace of the jade culture. Today, what remains of those majestic temples is a giant rammed-earth platform sustaining three earth mounds upon which the temples once stood.

Judging by the discovery of typical Liangzhu jadeware in other parts of China, sometimes thousands of kilometers away, the Liangzhu culture, during its heyday, may have spread like wildfire. But it was water that provided the undercurrent for the history of Liangzhu.

Having decided to build their homes on the waterlogged lowland of the Yangtze River Delta, the Liangzhu people knew from the outset that they must harness this natural element to their own advantage if they were to stay. Liangzhu's extensive water conservancy system, of which more than 30 dams have been discovered so far, was the most advanced of all Neolithic dams in China, affecting an area of 100 square kilometers.

Having proven themselves to be master planners, engineers and builders, Liangzhu people also established themselves as masters of the land.

They cultivated paddy fields, filled their granaries, and brought their economy from a primitive form of collectivism to household-based private ownership. The rows of little earth platforms they constructed to keep the floors of their homes dry — miniatures of the ones at the base of the palatial complex — serve today as reminders of the lives they lived and the glory they minted through ingenuity and sheer hard labor, something that has made their descendants proud.