This ancient goddess began her celestial career as a directional deity in the Shang Dynasty (c.1600-1045 BCE). During then, her image was one of a disheveled shaman possessing a leopard’s tail and tiger’s teeth. By the end of the Warring States period (770-456 BCE), she was transformed into a benign matriarch controlling immortality, residing on Mount Kunlun. During the height of her popularity in the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), images of her proliferated on bronze mirrors, censers, murals, clay tiles, stone relief and lacquer. She was sometimes depicted with her male counterpart, King Father of the East, Dong Wanggong (东王公).
