In the Zodiac Temple, there is a mysterious and powerful being. It exists almost exclusively in legends. It has shrimp eyes, antlers, bull noses, dog beaks, catfish whiskers, lion mane, eagle claws, fish scales, snake tails, a collection of various animal strengths, can fly, good at changing, and can even call the wind and rain!
Southern Song Dynasty Chen Rong Nine Dragons (detail).
Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
It's the dragonIt is also the zodiac sign of the upcoming Jiachen year of the lunar calendar. We have heard too many legends about dragons, and the "famous dragon" of the dragon clan is also a big handful, Nezha Ao Bing in the sea; Ao Lie, Ao Guang and so on in Journey to the West. It's almost the Year of the Dragon, so let's go to the Dragon Palace together.
Southern Song Dynasty Chen Rong Nine Dragons (detail).
Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
There is a dragon in the far east
Ancient dragons emerge
Speaking of Chinese dragons, you have to nag well, the earliest Chinese dragons can be traced back to 8,000 years ago.
In 1982, in the southwest of Chahai Village, Fuxin, Liaoning Province 25 kilometers away, archaeologists discovered one8000 years agoAfter 7 excavations before and after, a total of 55 original house sites were excavated, and a nearly 20-meter-long stone pile plastic dragon was unearthed. According to research, this is the earliest dragon-shaped remains found in China so far.
Chahai ruins stone pile plastic dragon.
The image of an early dragon was also found in the ruins of the water slope in Puxi, Henan, which is the site of the Yangshao culture periodIt has a history of 6,000 years. In Tomb No. 45, a male is buriedOn the left side of the bones is a dragon made of a clam shell.
Puyang West Water Slope Yangshao culture clam shell pendulum plastic dragon, the right pendulum plastic is a tiger.
It can be seen that as early as the primitive society of Ru Mao drinking blood, dragons have played a very important role in the cultural system of Chinese.
Red Hill Culture C-shaped dragon.
Collection of the Palace Museum.
The C-shaped dragon is the legendary "first dragon in China", which was unearthed from the Hongshan Cultural Site in Chifeng, Liaoning Province more than 5,000 years ago, and also unearthed the Jade Pig Dragon.
Red Mountain Culture Jade Pig Dragon.
Collection of Liaoning Archaeological Museum.
In fact, some other information can be read from these dragon images, that is, in primitive societies, the shape and appearance of dragons have not yet been determinedAt this time, the dragon is metaphysical, a kind of totemand not something that really exists in real life.
Taosi dragon pattern plate.
Collection of the Chinese Archaeological Museum.
This is the image of a dragon in Shanxi in the late Neolithic period, more than 4,000 years ago. The dragon had the body of a snake with black scales, a square head, two small ears, and a plant in its mouth.
This plate should not be a utility, because the paint will lose its color when it gets wet. It may have been a nobleman's plate, or it could have been used to hold wine during the sacrificial period.
Erlitou ruins turquoise dragon-shaped vessels.
Collection of the Chinese Archaeological Museum.
This dragon was unearthed at the site of Yanshi Erlitou in Henan. The Erlitou site is generally considered to be the capital of the late Xia Dynasty, and this turquoise dragon is one of the most important, exquisite and unique cultural relics of Xia culture, and has the title of "super national treasure".
Dragon-shaped detail.
This turquoise dragon is made up of more than 2,000 pieces of turquoise of various shapes, each of which is only 02-0.9 cm, thickness only 0About 1 cm. There is also a copper bell on the dragon's waist, which corresponds to the Book of Songs"Long Yang Yang, and Ling Yang Yang".of the record.
The dragon's body first appeared
Then came the Bronze Age. In fact, it is not difficult to see from the various bronzes unearthed that the application of dragon patterns in bronzes is quite a lot.
At this time, the dragon changed from a totem to a god in charge of some kind of natural celestial phenomenon. Why did it change from totem worship to god worship?
Shang Xiangzun can be seen on the surface of the dragon pattern.
Collection of Hunan Provincial Museum.
From a cultural point of view, the key to the emergence of human civilization is the cultivation of plants and the raising of animals, which is the stage known in academic circles as the "food revolution". Naturally, religious beliefs will develop further, from a relatively simple totem worship, witchcraft, etc., to a polytheistic worship stage.
In the early Western Zhou Dynasty, the red frame is a dragon pattern.
Collection of Shaanxi History Museum.
Judging by Chinese legends, China's agricultural revolution took place during the time of Shennong, one of the Three Emperors. It is recorded in "Yi Zhi Ci II":
Ku Xi Shi did not, Shennong's made, chopping wood for the plow, kneading the wood for the plow, the benefit of the plow, in order to teach the world.
The meaning of this ancient text is: After the death of the Fuxi clan, the Shennong clan rose up, cut the wood as a rake, kneaded the wood as a rake, and taught the people of the world how to plough the land and hoe the grass.
Shang Zhou elephant head ear scroll body Kui pattern copper, Kui pattern is also a kind of dragon pattern.
Collection of Sichuan Museum.
People learned to plant and raise, and civilization increased. But whether the crops grow well or not is all up to God, and the thunder, rain and dew are all God's grace. Judging from the religious beliefs of Chinese and foreign primitive peoples, among the various natural gods,Thor was one of the first deities to form.
In ancient times, people believed that thunder was related to the germination, growth, and fruiting of crops and pasturesThis is documented in many literatures. "Saying" cloud: "Thunder, thunder, bell, so stand out of everything." "Yi Saying Hexagrams": "Those who move all things are not sick with thunder." ”
Shang dragon shape
Collection of Shanxi Museum.
And oursThe dragon may be the original Thor. "The Classic of Mountains and Seas, the East of the Sea" records the image of the thunder god as "the body of the dragon and the head of the man", and the "Huainanzi Topographical Training" calls it the "head of the dragon body and the head". "Yi Saying Hexagram": "Earthquake is thunder, for dragon". Later, people associated dragons with rainfall, believing that dragons can call wind and rain.
Dragon-shaped dragon detail.
Dragons and Emperors
With the formation of a high degree of centralization of the Qin and Han regimes,The concepts of "divine authority of kings" and "unity of heaven and man" prevailed, and the dragon began to have a connection with the emperorThe concept of "true dragon emperor" gradually emerged.
Qin Shi Huang is called "Xianglong", although what exactly "Xianglong" refers to, historians have different opinions, but it shows that Qin Shi Huang and the dragon god should be undoubtedly related.
Han S-shaped dragon jade pendant.
Collection of Xuzhou Museum.
The emperors of the Han Dynasty were more adept at using the divine power and status of the dragon god to establish authority, and each generation of emperors said that they were the embodiment of the dragon and the true son of the dragon. Legend has it that Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, was born from the union of his mother Liu Yuan and Jiaolong, which is recorded in the "Historical Records of Gaozu Benji".
First of all, Liu Yuan tasted Daze, dreamed of meeting God, when the thunder and lightning were obscure, and the prince looked at itThen see the dragon on it. has a body, and then gave birth to a high ancestor.
Moreover, the artistic style of the dragon in the Qin and Han dynasties is more refined and specific, especially the modeling of the dragon in the Western Han Dynasty has changed greatly, one is that the dragon pattern is mostly a kind of cockroach pattern, and the "cockroach" is also the legendary dragon beast, its snake-shaped body is long and curved, and the shape is similar to the dragon pattern, and the body and tail are not separated, and they are integrated.
Han openwork carved jade ornaments.
Collection of Xuzhou Museum.
In the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties period, the image of the dragon that has been intertwined since the Eastern Han Dynasty gradually disappeared, judging from the murals, portrait bricks, epitaph stones, sarcophagi, etcThe image of the dragon shows the characteristics of a clear tail, a lion and a tiger, dragon horns rolled forward, slender limbs, and a body with carved scales.
Southern Dynasty dragon pattern bricks.
Collection of Changzhou Museum.
Most dragons have flying wings, eagle claws, and some flying wings are exaggerated into slender streamers, and the modeling style is the opposite of the previous steady and calm static, generally creeping and crawling, and the lines are smooth and pay attention to flowing water.
Deng County Southern Dynasty portrait brick Qinglong.
Collection of Henan Museum.
At this time, the image of the dragon also slowly changed from metaphysical to metaphysical, and people began to have a clear understanding of dragons, and different varieties and classifications of dragons began to appear.
Guangya" Yun: "There are scales called Jiaolong, winged Eagle Dragon, horned Dragon called Qiulong, and hornless Dragon called Dragon". "Sayings" It is said that the dragon "can be dark and bright, can be small and huge, can be short and long; The spring equinox ascends to the sky, and the autumn equinox dives into the abyss". "Erya Wing: Release the Dragon" It is said that the dragon has nine likenesses: "The horns are like a deer, the head is like a horse, the eyes are like a rabbit, and the neck is like a snake......."”
The portrait brick of the green dragon of the Western Jin Dynasty can be seen to be a three-clawed dragon.
Collection of Jinchang City Museum.
In addition to these settings, according to the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", "Huainanzi", "Taiping Yulan", "Shu Wei Ji" and other records:
The five hundred years of the dragon turned into a dragon, the dragon turned into a dragon for a thousand years, the dragon for five hundred years was a horned dragon, and the horned dragon was a dragon for five hundred years.
It can be seen that this is the dragon's "advanced path", and in fact it may also be another reflection of the hierarchy.
Southern Dynasty Immortal Riding Dragon Portrait Brick.
Zhejiang Provincial Museum.
The Tang Dynasty was a period of prosperity and prosperity for ancient Chinese culture. The application range of the dragon was further expanded, and the dragon head of the Tang Dynasty was neither like the square dragon head before the pre-Qin period, nor the flat and long dragon head of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, but similar to the head of the unicorn; The dragon's belly is bulging and its body is compact, a bit like the shape of a tiger and leopard.
The gilt bronze dragon ornament of the Tang Dynasty is also a three-clawed dragon.
Collection of the Nelson Atkins Museum.
The most special thing is the evolution of the dragon's claws, in fact, the limbs and claws of the Shang Dynasty dragon have been faintly visibleDuring the Warring States period, the limbs of the dragon were obviously elongated, and the three-clawed dragon was the main one, and until the Tang Dynasty, the dragon was mainly three-clawedIn the Song Dynasty, four-clawed dragons were more common, and in the Yuan Dynasty, there were five-clawed dragons, and the Ming and Qing dynasties also followed.
Tang Dynasty gilt dragon (left) and Yuan Ji blue glazed white dragon plum vase (right).
It is worth noting thatBefore the Song Dynasty, the body of the dragon was not that long; After the Song Dynasty, the dragon began to become more sinuous and colorful, and the body became longer, which became more obvious after the Yuan Dynasty.
Tang Sunflower single dragon mirror.
Collection of the Freer Art Gallery.
Southern Song Dynasty Sanguan Diagram Axis: Water Official Diagram, the red frame can see that the dragon is four-clawed.
Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Since the Yuan Dynasty, it was stipulated that only the emperor and some of his relatives could wear the dress of the five-clawed dragon. According to the form of the dragon, the one facing the person is the dragon, and the one facing the person is the dragon. The main dragon can only be used by the emperor himself, while the restriction of the walking dragon is less.
Qing Dynasty dragon robe can be seen with dragon ornamentation.
Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.
At this time, the yellow five-clawed dragon became the emperor's emblem, and no one was allowed to cross the system, otherwise he would be killed.
Yuan Seawater dragon pattern luodian flower prismatic plate, red frame can be seen five-clawed dragon.
Collection of the Tokyo National Museum.
Ming Wanli cloisonné enamel double dragon plate, can be identified as a four-clawed dragon.
Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.
The folk saying that "five claws are dragons, and four claws are pythons" was formed in the Qing DynastyMainly as the difference between the ornamentation on the clothing of the emperor and his subordinates, the emperor wears a "dragon robe", and other royal families and subordinates wear a "python robe", highlighting the hierarchy.
Ming Yongle Tick red double dragon peony pattern round box (detail), five-clawed dragon can be seen in the blue frame.
Collection of the Palace Museum.
Qing Kangxi blue and white cloud dragon pattern plate, five-clawed dragon can be seen in the red frame.
Collection of Nanjing Museum.
Those "famous dragons".
Not only the ornamentation that exists on the cultural relics, our perception of the dragon's "human touch" is basically the first in various legends, these "star dragons", add a lot of color to the dragon culture.
Ao Bing (left) in "Romance of the Gods".
Ao Bing (right) in the movie "New God List: Nezha Rebirth".
In recent years, the most popular "famous dragon" is none other than Ao Bing, the third prince of the Dragon King of the East China Sea. He is from the legend "Nezha and the Sea". The story of Nezha and the sea is mainly taken from the records of ancient books such as the gods and demons of the Ming Dynasty, "Romance of the Gods", "Journey to the West" and the Yuan and Ming Dynasty "Three Religions Search for the Gods".
Ao Lie in the comic "Inhuman".
Secondly, the "famous dragon" that everyone knows, Ao Lie, the third prince of the Dragon King of the West Sea, is counted as one. You may not be familiar with the name, but if you want to say that the white dragon horse comes to mind? Tang Seng's white horse was eaten by the third prince Ao Lie, so he turned into a white horse and carried Tang Seng westward.
The Western Dragon, the embodiment of **?
The same is a dragon, and the "dragon birth" of the Western dragon is more miserable. If you put the eastern and western dragons together, the eastern dragon is shining with golden light, majestic, soaring clouds and fog, calling for wind and rain, who will not call the dragon lord when he sees it?
On the other hand, the Western Dragon, on the other hand, looks terrifying and loves to hoard. Whether it's Smaug, the evil dragon of the dwarf kingdom in "The Hobbit", or the frost dragon Rego in "Game of Thrones", which one is not full of evil?
The evil dragon Smaug from the movie "The Hobbit 2: The Battle of Smaug".
In fact, the notoriety of dragons in the West has a long history, and in the Old Testament · In the book of Isaiah, there is a description of evil dragons:
in that day the lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punishLeviathanthe piercingserpent,even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay thedragonthat is in the sea.
Translation: On that day, the Lord will punish the Flying Dragon and the Snake with his mighty, great, and fierce sword; And to slay the dragon in the sea. (The Scotch Translation of the Bible has a different name.) ）
You can see it hereThe dragon is a complete villain in the BibleThe Bible was written around 1000 B.C., around the time of the Western Zhou Dynasty. In other words, the notoriety of the Western Dragon basically began to circulate at the same time as the fame of the Eastern Dragon, but one is famous in history and the other is infamous for 10,000 years.
Ancient Babylonian boundary monument, unearthed in Susa, Iran, the lowest creatures that snake and crawl are dragons, in the collection of the Louvre Museum.
We are all too familiar with the Eastern Dragon, so what does the Western Dragon look like? The Encyclopædia Britannica says that the ancient Babylonian dragon had four legs, scales, and wings.
The ancient Egyptian and Greek dragon is depicted as hydra, and legend has it that it had nine heads, and if you cut off one, one will grow another, and Hercules, the ancient Greek god of Hercules, once killed it.
Henry IV beheaded the Hydra.
Collection of the Louvre. The other image is the chimera (Grimara), with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a viper's tail. In Hesiod's Theogony, it is recorded that it had three heads, namely the head of a lion, the head of a goat, and the head of a viper.
St. George's Dragon Fighting Mural.
Collection of the Louvre. Beowulf, the hero of the Old English heroic narrative poem, also kills a serpentine dragon, wings, can swim, can spit water, and has fangs. The story of King Arthur ** The dragon is also snake-shaped, winged, and can breathe fire and thunder.
12th-century frescoes in the church of San Pietro in Rome with a red dragon to be seen.
It can be seen from thisIn Western mythology and legend, the dragon is a symbol of fierce monsters and **Therefore, the tradition of "slaying dragons" has always been popular in the Western world, and in addition to the heroes of later generations, in fact, this tradition can be traced back to much earlier.
Relief decoration of the dragon on the gates of Ishtar.
In the 80s of the 19th century, a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania excavated a Sumerian site in Nipur and unearthed more than 30,000 clay tablets of Sumerian literature, dating from about 1750 BC.
In Sumerian mythology, there are three protagonists who slay dragons, namely Enki, the god of water and wisdom, Ninurta, the god of war, and Inanna, the goddess of fertility and love.
A 18th-century BC cylinder print, with the motif of Inanna being worshipped by the gods, and Inanna stepping on a monster with horns on her head, presumably Kuhl (red framed), in the collection of the British Museum.
Throughout the stories handed down from the East and the West, most of the Eastern Dragons play positive images with "divinity"; The Western Dragon, on the other hand, plays the role of a "monster" that the brave must eradicate.
A silver bowl excavated from Idasingon on the island of Cyprus depicts the story of Cadmus, the son of the Phoenician king Agenor, slaying the dragon.
Alas, they are all dragons, why is the gap between dragons so big?
Conclusion
The dragon culture has been inherited for thousands of years and has become an indelible part of Chinese culture, and even a representative totem of the Chinese nation. The descendants of Yan and Huang are also descendants of the dragon.
Warring States Dragon Shouheng.
Collection of the Shanghai Museum.
February** Dynamic Incentive Program