This Site covers a large area. In the center of the site is the Zhaoling Hill, an artificial earth mound taking the form of a terrace which is 3 kilometers away from the south bank of Wusong River. The hill, oval-shaped, 9 meters higher than the surroundings, is 110 meters long east to west and 80 meters wide south to north and occupies an area of about 10,000 square meters. The hill is surrounded by ancient river courses, an earth terrace relics typical in the Taihu Lake Area. The Site was found in early 1984 and three archaeological excavations were carried out in 1990, 1991 and 1995 by Nanjing Archaeological Museum, Suzhou Museum and Kunshan Cultural Relics Management Committee respectively. The cultural relic deposits are as thick as 9 meters. The upper cultural layer is from the Spring and Autumn Period. The middle one is from the Neolithic Period, mainly the Liangzhu Culture. In the central part of this layer is a large artificially piled mound, 4 meters high, 60 meters long from east to the west, 50 meters long from south to the north and about 3000 square meters in area. Under the mound are the deposits of Songze Culture. In the Liangzhu Culture layer, 94 tombs were found and over 600 pieces of stones, jades, potteries, crystals, agates, ivories, and other funerary objects were unearthed.
The 19 tombs found in 1990 were concentrated at the foot of the northwest slope of the mound. They are in three rows from south to north, without graves and burial coffins, and quite few funerary objects were found. The 66 tombs found in 1991 were mainly distributed in the central west of the mound, which can be roughly divided into three cultural layers. Each layer is densely gathered but in order. Most have graves, burials and funerary objects. The jade articles include round flat piece of jade, jade Cong, jade rings, jade bracelets, and jade pipes, all made of refined nephrite, totaling 206 pieces. 125 of them are unearthed from the tombs of the clan nobilities of the early Liangzhu Culture. In this batch of jades, the representative works are a few deep carved jades in God’s Mixed Human and Animal Facial Features, which are unique, vivid, exquisite and can be called the treasure of Liangzhu Culture Jades. The big square jade Cong and the big stone tomahawks are also very rare to see. The archaeological discovery of Zhao Lingshan Site was named one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in China in 1992.