The more you understand dragons, the clearer you will become that life is not easy for dragons.
From the beginning of mythical beasts to food ingredients, it was only after they became extinct that they slowly gained some status.
And this status comes from mysticism.
Because after the extinction, the ancients no longer knew what dragons were, so their status gradually improved.
Later, it was gradually improved until it became the image in our imagination, pictures and sculptures today.
This kind of dragon, which is similar to modern dragons, was perfected and recorded in the Ming Dynasty.
Li Shizhen said in Compendium of Materia Medica: Dragon has a head like a camel, horns like a deer, eyes like a rabbit, ears like an ox, a neck like a snake, a belly like a mirage, scales like a carp, claws like an eagle, and palms like a tiger, that's it.
There are eighty-one scales on its back, with ninety-nine yang numbers. Its sound is like a rattling copper plate.
There is a beard beside the mouth, a bright pearl under the chin, and reverse scales under the throat.
There is Mount Bo, also known as Chimu, above the head. A dragon cannot ascend to the sky without Chimu.
Breathing into clouds can turn into both water and fire.
At this time, the dragon not only has a fixed appearance, but also controls the wind and rain, is omnipotent in heaven and earth, and is purely deified.
As you all know, a batch of new cultural relics were recently announced in Sanxingdui, including a large number of dragon images.
These artworks are a powerful complement to the dragon culture of the Shang and Zhou dynasties.
But there are two points that need to be understood. First, dragons were a common animal in ancient times.
Therefore, the appearance of dragons in Sanxingdui is not evidence that Sanxingdui is subordinate to Chinese culture.
Although many people have always believed that Sanxingdui is the last light of the Chinese gods.
Second, since Sanxingdui is an art from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the image of the dragon does not appear as a totem.
Because at this time, the dragon totem has not yet appeared.
The first exhibition hall Li Jinli set up in this museum was the Dragon Court.
Since it's called Longting, it's natural that all the collections are dragons.
Therefore, the dragons here are very commemorative dragons, and they are dragons that many people do not understand.
The dragon is an ancient totem in Chinese civilization, and there are countless legends about dragons.
But ancient dragons, ancient dragons, many people don’t understand.
For example, in the Xinglongwa Culture, the oldest dragon was unearthed.
In other words, only the Jade Pig Dragon of the Hongshan Culture and the so-called first dragon of China more than 3,000 years ago have been unearthed. All of them are not worthy of their names.
The Xinglongwa culture is about 10,000 to 7,000 years old, which is equivalent to the legendary Fuxi era about 10,000 years ago, and earlier than the Huangdi era 5,000 years ago.
This point is earlier than Sanxingdui culture.
The appearance of this dragon means that Chinese civilization has been closely connected with Inner Mongolia, Liao and HLJ in the Fuxi era.
When it comes to Xinglongwa culture, many people find it strange.
Xinglongwa Culture is named after Xinglongwa Village, Tuxiang, Baoguo, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It belongs to the early Neolithic Age and dates from 7000 BC to 7000 BC.
The Xinglongwa Culture unearthed a dragon sculpture made from stones piled up about 8,000 years ago. This is the earliest dragon-shaped cultural relic in my country.
This dragon is made of reddish-brown basalt natural stones of equal size, with a total length of 19.7 meters.
Its overall shape holds its head high, opens its mouth, bends its body, arches its back, and has a looming tail.
This dragon is a set of ancient real dragons that have been continuously unearthed by archeology. It first appeared 8,000 years ago.
The dragon has special significance in Chinese culture. We have called ourselves the "descendants of the dragon" since ancient times and regard the dragon as the totem of the Chinese nation. This is not unreasonable.
The image of dragon appears much earlier than we think.
The word "dragon" appears in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty.
Judging from the glyph shape, the dragon has a winding and slender body, two long horns and a big mouth.
When did the earliest image of a dragon appear in my country?
What other discoveries have been made in the archaeological world? This is not necessarily the case.
Because archeology is constantly going on, excavations give us surprises from time to time.
For example, in 1982, archaeological experts discovered an 8,000-year-old ancestor site 2.5 kilometers southwest of Chahai Village in Fuxin, Liaoning Province.
After seven excavations, a total of 55 original house sites were excavated, and a nearly 20-meter-long stone sculpture dragon was unearthed.
According to research, this is the earliest dragon-shaped relic discovered in my country so far.
As for the Hongshan Cultural Site in Chifeng, Liaoning Province, it only has a history of more than 5,000 years.
Many jade artifacts were unearthed from the Hongshan Culture, including a strange C-shaped dragon and a jade pig dragon.
Next is the Lingjiatan Jade Dragon, whose appearance is similar to the Jade Pig Dragon of the Hongshan Culture.
This dragon is also connected head to tail, and there is also a small hole near the tail for threading a rope.
The jade dragon's scales are represented by engraved lines, and the dragon's horns are vaguely visible on its head.
The long diameter of the jade dragon is 4.4 cm, the short diameter is 3.9 cm, and the thickness is 0.2 cm.
Next is the image of dragon from 4000-3000 years ago.
At the ruins of the Linfen Tao Temple in Xishan, the image of a dragon is depicted on a clay pottery plate.
The inner wall of the pottery plate is painted with a curled up dragon with a spike in its mouth.
In June 2004, a turquoise dragon-shaped artifact was unearthed from the Erlitou site in Yanshi, Nanhe, which caused a sensation in the archaeological community at the time.
This dragon-shaped vessel is considered by experts to be the most orthodox source of Chinese dragon culture.
This turquoise dragon-shaped vessel is composed of more than 2,000 turquoise pieces of various shapes.
The size of each piece of turquoise is only 0.2 to 0.9 centimeters, and the thickness is only about 0.1 centimeters. The entire dragon is 64.5 centimeters long.
The Jade Dragon uses three sections of green and white jade to form the middle ridge of the face and the bridge of the nose. The eye sockets on both sides have obvious outlines, and the round cake-shaped white jade is used as the eyes.
There are many such combination dragons, such as the dragon found at the Panlongcheng site in Wu City, Beihu City, which was made of gold pieces and turquoise. After being discovered in the tomb, it was taken out in its entirety.
There are different opinions on the origin of the image of dragon.
For example, Mr. Wen Yiduo proposed that the image of dragon comes from snakes, some scholars believe that the image of dragon comes from crocodile, and some people think that dragon is a combination of horses, lizards and other animals.
In any case, dragons were formed in our country 8,000 years ago and have continued to develop to this day.
Of course, it is impossible for the museum established by Chen Wenzhe to hide the earliest and largest stone carving dragon.
However, there are also several broken and miserable-looking stone dragons hidden here.
Li Jinli had people conduct a comprehensive appraisal, especially the carbon 14 dating appraisal, which proved that these broken stones were indeed from more than 7,000 BC.
It was finally confirmed that this was probably a sculpture of a dragon made of rocks in Xinglongwa.
The dragon is the totem of the Chinese ancestors. In ancient times, Chinese civilization was mainly in the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin. Why did the oldest dragon appear in Xinglongwa?
These dragons were unearthed in Liao Province, which also belongs to the Xinglongwa Culture.
The earliest record about dragons appears in the "Bamboo Book Annals".
It is recorded in the book that Fuxi used the dragon to discipline his officials.
Fuxi used dragons to create many names, including the Black Dragon clan.
Black belongs to the north, so the Black Dragon clan is the official in charge of the north.
hlj's Black Dragon can correspond to the Black Dragon clan.