It's great to take something old and spice it up for the next generation, but some things are attractive simply for how old they really are. An exhibition of jade artifacts belonging to the Hongshan Neolithic culture thousands of years ago has been open to the public in Beijing. The pieces on display were retrieved from collections overseas, and have enthralled visitors with their exquisite carving.

The Hongshan Neolithic Culture is one of the earliest most advanced civilizations discovered in China. The Hongshan people were temple builders who created some of the earliest nephrite jade carvings. The jade artifacts reflect the taste of beauty of people some four-to-eight-thousand years ago, giving them great aesthetic and historical value.

On display are over 13-hundred items, collected by more than one-hundred overseas collectors over the past decades. Stealing the limelight at the show is a coiled jade dragon fetus, the FIRST example of the omnipresent dragon in Chinese art.

Hongshan sites have been found in northeastern China, in an area stretching from Inner Mongolia to Liaoning and Hebei province.

(CCTV August 26, 2009)