Cong and bi in a Liangzhu burial at Sidun.

Liangzhu and related east-coast cultures produced abundant rice harvests, and sites have yielded evidence of silk weaving, lacquering, and some of the earliest use of mortise-and-tenon joints in timber construction. They are best known, however, for finely crafted jade objects that attest to the material wealth of the culture. These were made in great abundance as ornaments, ritual weapons, and in the distinctive shapes known by the later terms cong and bi. The jades' fine workmanship is probably a result of improved rotary tools, including the fast wheel that was used to produce the complicated and delicate shapes of black Liangzhu pottery.

The cong tube is among the most impressive ancient jade objects. Typically, the cong, which is found in both single-section and longer types, is a squared tube with a round hole. The squared corners are usually decorated with designs resembling faces. Bi are wide discs with a center hole. We can only guess what the function of these objects was. Later texts refer to the bi as representing the heavens and the cong as representing the earth. Some have suggested that the cong is a temple diagram and the bi the sky above, and others that the cong connected the buried person with the earth and the bi (usually placed over the chest of the dead) with the heavens. It seems likely, in any case, that bi and cong were part of ritual paraphernalia. The jades appear in large numbers in what must be the burials of high-ranking persons or religious leaders. These enigmatic objects testify to the concentration of power and resources in the hands of a small elite. That cong and bi shapes were also adopted in later Chinese art indicates the enduring power of symbolic forms.