Chapter 1,442 Throughout the Eight Thousand Years of China
It is said that "a dragon gives birth to nine sons, each of whom is different." The forms of primitive dragons in prehistoric times are also different, but there are still certain rules to follow.
Where did the original dragon come from? The giant dragon sculpture at the Chahai site cannot appear in the Dragon Court.
But there are smaller dragons like the one in front of you in the Dragon Court.
In addition, pottery fragments unearthed from the Chahai site are also found here.
In China, in 1986, dragon patterns were discovered on two pottery sherds unearthed from the Chahai site in Liao Province.
There are also dragon patterns on the pottery pieces in Chen Wenzhe's Dragon Court.
This shows that the depiction of dragon patterns on pottery at that time should not be an exception.
In 1994, a large dragon-shaped pile sculpture was excavated from the site.
This time, reddish-brown conglomerate was used to form the head, neck, body, scales, claws, and tail with clear shapes and orderly arrangement.
Archaeologists even discovered graveyards and sacrificial pits in the belly of the dragon.
This is the earliest known image of a dragon, dating back more than 8,000 years.
After that, what was discovered in China was the Xishuipo Clam Sculptor, which dates back to about 6,000 years ago.
This clam sculpture of a dragon is still controversial.
Because compared to the dragon-shaped sculptures at the Chahai site, this clam sculpture is closer to the image of a dragon.
Compared with the same period, the shape was so advanced that it was once suspected of being an archaeological forgery.
After that, there are the curled-body dragons represented by the Hongshan Culture Jade Dragon.
Then there is the Samsung Tala Jade Dragon. If you are not a professional, you may have never heard of this kind of dragon.
Many people don’t even know where Samsung Talara is or where it is!
Among the many prehistoric dragon cultural relics, the jade dragon is considered a major category.
The jade dragon of the Hongshan Culture is the most representative and the most abundant.
The Inner Mongolia Samsung Tala dark green jade dragon has the reputation of "the first dragon in China".
Well, there are many people who call themselves "China's First Dragon", just listen to them.
In the early 1970s, a large jade dragon was discovered at the ruins of Tala Village in Sanxing, Inner Mongolia.
This jade dragon is dark green, with its body curled into a "C" shape, 26 centimeters high, and intact.
The muzzle is stretched forward and curved upward, the mouth is tightly closed, the nose is flattened, and the upper end has sharp edges.
The end face is nearly oval, with two symmetrical round holes, which are the nostrils.
The Sanxing Tala site belongs to the late Hongshan Culture period, and this jade dragon should be no later than five thousand years ago.
It has a long snout, long eyes, flying mane, and is very handsome.
This type of jade dragon is rarely found and may be the highest-level jade ritual artifact of the Hongshan Culture.
There is also a kind of jade dragon in Hongshan culture, which is cute in shape and resembles a pig. This kind of jade is called "jade pig dragon", which means that the prototype of this kind of jade dragon is a pig.
Shijiahe Culture Jade Dragon, 4600 years ago.
In 1988, the dragon's body was unearthed from Xiaojiawu Ridge in Tianmen, Beihu. The body of the dragon was curled into a jue shape, with the head and tail almost touching.
This kind of jade dragon is similar in shape to the jade pig dragon of the Hongshan Culture.
ah Lingjiatan Jade Dragon, 5,300 years ago.
This kind of jade dragon has a protruding snout, two horns carved on the top of its head, a mouth and a nose carved in the negative line, and the seventeen diagonal lines on the back of the crest are the scales of the dragon's body. The characteristics of the dragon are very obvious.
Although found in different prehistoric remains, the bodies of these jade dragons all have the same curled shape.
Later, the painted dragon pattern on the Xishan Tao Temple was the same.
In the late 1970s, a pottery plate with a colorful dragon pattern was unearthed from the Taosi Village Cemetery in Xiangfen County, Xishan Province.
This painted pottery dish is 8.8 centimeters high, 37 centimeters in diameter, 15 centimeters in bottom diameter, and has a slanted edge.
There is a dragon with curved fists and a snake body, red and black, with ears on its head, slightly open mouth, fine teeth on the top and bottom, and a forked tongue.
The Taosi ruins represent the middle reaches of the Yellow River, a cultural type of Longshan Culture.
It was 4,500 to 3,900 years ago.
This dragon-patterned pottery plate was unearthed from an early cemetery at the Taosi site, dating back more than 4,000 years.
The longan is small and round, with a long mouth slightly open, holding a golden harvest in its mouth. The long and thick body is coiled into a ring, with a lin on the body, making it more like a totemized dragon.
The painted dragon-patterned plates at the Taosi site were only unearthed from large tombs, and there was only one piece per tomb, suggesting that this type of painted dragon-patterned plates was unusual.
In addition to these artifacts with obvious dragon patterns, some prototype dragon artifacts have also been unearthed in China.
For example, salamander pattern pottery, salamander, commonly known as giant salamander, is considered to be one of the prototypes of the dragon.
Faced with so many prehistoric dragon cultural relics, sometimes we can't help but wonder that maybe dragons really existed in prehistoric times, but they became extinct later.
But if this is the case, the remains and relics of the dragon itself should also be discovered.
Since the relics of prehistoric dragon culture are distributed over a wide range, the dragons in different sites do not look the same, which may mean that there was no such thing as a dragon in the first place.
During the primitive society, people had special emotions for certain animals, so they had the image of primitive dragons.
But what we call "dragon" now may not have been called dragon at that time.
The C-shaped dragon of Hongshan Culture was continued in the Shang Dynasty and became "orthodox".
The word "dragon" in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions has also appeared.
The word "dragon" appeared in the Shang Dynasty at the latest.
The dragons of the Shang Dynasty had a larger head, horns, a large mouth, and a curved and slender body.
This point obviously has a deep connection with the Jade Pig Dragon of Hongshan Culture.
The many jade dragons unearthed from the tomb of Queen Wuhao of Shang King Wuding and the tombs of Yinxu may better illustrate this phenomenon.
For some reason, businessmen are very fond of Hongshan cultural jade articles. They regard them as treasures and at the same time draw nutrients from them.
The advancement of technology has also provided more support for the complexity of dragon patterns.
Compared with the jade pig dragon of the Hongshan Culture, the jade dragon of the Shang Dynasty has more exquisite details, including horns and dragon scales, and the overall image is more divine.
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After three generations, the image of the dragon became more and more complex, but gradually became consistent.
The dragon in the Han Dynasty has basically got rid of the image of a reptile, and its body is closer to the image of an animal.
The deification of the dragon in the Han Dynasty is not unrelated to Liu Bang's entrepreneurship. Liu Bang, who was born in an ordinary family, was portrayed as the "son of the dragon" because his mother was inspired by the dragon.
His appearance is "long and accurate, with dragon face and beautiful beard", which is simply the incarnation of dragon in the human world.
After that, there were the Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. The dragons in these eras were very close to the dragons we know now.
The largest specimen, needless to say, is porcelain.
On the porcelain, there are dragon patterns characteristic of various eras.
In this way, from eight thousand years ago until now, dragons have run through our entire civilization.
"Grave robbers are really powerful!" Chen Wenzhe looked at the various jade dragons.
It can be said that Li Jinli has collected all the dragon-shaped artifacts found at any site in the country.
This is very impressive, and it only shows that the tomb robbers started their operations in advance before the state excavated it.
Some ruins and large tombs have not been visited by a group of tomb robbers.