This year is the year of Jiachen in the lunar calendar, the Year of the Dragon. The dragon is a mythical animal in ancient Chinese legends, with a long body, scales, horns, feet, walking, flying, swimming, and rainfall. It is a kind of totem of our ancestors. The so-called totem is often used as the emblem or symbol of a clan or tribe, reflecting people's reverence and worship for nature. In different regions and cultures, the objects of totem worship are different, and in our China, the dragon is usually used as a totem. Therefore, our descendants of Yan and Huang are called the descendants of the dragon.
In 2002, in Yanshi Erlitou Village, Luoyang City, Henan Province. A bronze vessel was unearthed called a "large turquoise dragon-shaped bronze". It is about 3,700 years old and has been named "Chinese Dragon" by scholars. Its unearthing has found the most direct and orthodox root for the dragon totem of the Chinese nation. This dragon-shaped bronze and other unearthed bronzes are the earliest batch of unearthed bronzes in China and the earliest in the world.
The Xia Dynasty began in 2070 BC and ended in 1600 BC, with a total of 16 generations of kings reigning, making it the first hereditary dynasty in the Central Plains in Chinese history.
From the archaeological data, it is confirmed that the authenticity of the historical and cultural records of the Xia Dynasty in the "Historical Records of Xia Benji".
Experts believe that this unearthed cultural relic shows that in the Xia Dynasty, the dragon was already a symbol of noble and prominent aristocratic status and status, and a representative of royal power. The dragon culture that existed in the primitive society and the Xia Dynasty was passed down from generation to generation in ancient Chinese society, thus forming the orthodoxy of dragon culture that was closely integrated with the power of the monarch.
Therefore, this turquoise dragon-shaped bronze of the Xia Dynasty can be said to be the most orthodox source of Chinese "dragon culture", which is at least more than 3,000 years old.