My system is not decent

Chapter 1439
The Jade Pig Dragon was named by the archaeologists because it just looks a bit like a dragon.

As for what it was called at the time, no one knows now.

Some people call this kind of cultural relic Jade Pig Bear, which shows that there is still a big gap with the legendary dragon.

Of the dragons unearthed by archeology and classical records, the closest to our modern dragon is the dragon-shaped jade pendant of the Warring States Period.

The dragon in the dragon-shaped jade pendant is very close to the dragon in our impression, no matter in terms of body structure or size.

For example, the Warring States Dragon and Phoenix Pendants on the booth below, the dragon patterns on these jade pendants are the real Chinese dragons.

These are jade pendants, which are flat and openworked.

Of course, it only looks like a dragon from a certain angle. If you look at it from another angle, it is a line.

Before the Warring States period, some dragon image cultural relics were unearthed, mainly jade carvings.

But it looks quite different from the dragon in our impression.

This can also show that the dragons in artworks gradually change with the changes of the times.

The dragon in our impression is obtained from relatively recent classical records.

So the closer you go to the back, the closer the image of the dragon is to what we imagined.

In modern times, due to the development of carving technology, the images of dragons have become richer and more delicate.

But from the development of this field, there is no change in the identity of the dragon.

It can only be concluded that dragons have entered people's lives since ancient times, and in the process of historical development, the artistic image has become more and more perfect.

If we look at another field, it is the records of dragons in words.

The following sentences are excerpted from Shan Hai Jing.

Its divine appearance is all about the body of a bird and the head of a dragon.

Its divine form has the body of a dragon and the head of a bird.

The gods all have the body of a dragon and a human face.

His son is called Drum, which looks like a human face and a dragon body.

Duotianying, whose shape is like a keel, can be acne.

The divine trick is placed on it, and it looks like a human body with a dragon head.

Its divine appearance is all about the body of a horse and the head of a dragon.

In Shan Hai Jing, the image of a dragon has never been directly written.

Sentences like the ones above all use dragons as metaphors.

The dragon head means that the head looks like a dragon, and the dragon body means that the body looks like a dragon.

We know that when writing an article, in order to clarify the problem, we often use metaphors that are more common to people.

For example, if I tell you that a Bull Terrier looks like Sun Honglei, then you will have a certain impression.

If I tell you like Zhao Sanwa, you won't have any impression, because you don't know who Zhao Sanwa is.

This shows that dragons were relatively common animals at that time.

Even when it mentions the keel, the Shan Hai Jing does not describe what the keel looks like.

It shows that he concluded in his heart that people who read Shan Hai Jing know what the keel looks like.

All of this shows that dragons were a very common animal at that time, so there is no need to spend a lot of time describing their appearance.

The characters in the Shan Hai Jing era were carved on animal bones with knives, called bone inscriptions.

In the era of Shan Hai Jing, since the dragon was a common animal, was it a domestic animal or a wild beast?
The Book of Mountains and Seas has also been revealed to us, and the following are some excerpts.

Zhu Rong in the south, with a beast body and a human face, rides two dragons.

The Field of Great Joy, where Empress Xia started to dance for nine generations and ride two dragons.

There is a snake in the left ear, and there are two dragons riding on it.

Dongfang Jumang, with the body of a bird and the face of a man, rides on two dragons.

Frozen people face, riding two dragons.

Beyond the Southwest Sea, south of Chishui, and west of Quicksand, there are people riding two green snakes and riding two dragons.

Without exception, they are all used as a means of transportation, just like Lao Tzu's green ox and Guan Yunchang's red rabbit.

And they all ride two dragons, no one travels by one dragon.

However, Shan Hai Jing does not say whether these dragons are flying or crawling. We generally understand that they are flying around in the air.

This shows that in the Shan Hai Jing era, the dragon, a common domestic animal, was mainly used as a mount.

They can't grow freely in the barren mountains like the nine-tailed fox, and they occasionally find someone to eat.

You can't eat an elephant when you're hungry like Ba Snake, and you can eat it once for three years.

Their role is equivalent to that of cattle and horses, and their status is very humble.

After Shan Hai Jing, books that had a great impact on China, including Shang Shu and Analects of Confucius, did not mention a word of dragon.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, only Xunzi mentioned the dragon in an article: "The world is dangerous, and the heroes of the world may be lost. The chilong is a chafly, and the owl is a phoenix."

Until the release of Shi Ji, dragons were mentioned again.

And it's about the last two dragons in China.

There are two dragons descended from the sky, male and female, Kongjia cannot eat, and the dragon family has not been captured.

After Tao and Tang declined, there was Liu Lei, who learned from the Huanlong clan to serve Kong Jia.

The surname bestowed by Kong Jia was the Yulong family, after receiving the pig Wei.

The dragon one female dies, and eats the summer queen.

It roughly means that two dragons came to the court of the Xia Dynasty, and Kongjia, the king of Xia, found a man to train the dragon and let the dragon serve him.

Later one of the dragons died, and Kong Jia ate it.

Although they are the last two dragons, their status has fallen into the abyss. Not only do they have to serve people, but people also have to eat its flesh.

This kind of creature that lived in ancient times was tragically extinct in this way.

As mentioned earlier, in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, although the dragon became extinct, the image of the dragon has always appeared in the jade carvings, and people have not forgotten them.

In particular, this image became more and more sacred, and eventually became a very revered animal.

The word animal is used here for the time being, but in fact the word god can also be used.

In the Qin Dynasty, the dragon's status had risen to the highest position.

That is, Qin Shihuang is called Zulong. Please note that it is others who call Qin Shihuang Zulong, not himself.

Qin Shihuang's own understanding of Zulong is "the ancestor of human beings", that is, people are called Zulong after they die.

Of course, after the emperor's death is specifically referred to here.

Since then, the dragon has become a symbol of the emperor.

When historians record the birth of the emperor, they often make up a plot.

The main thing is that the dragon sends the seeds into the body of the emperor's mother, and puts a green hat on the emperor's father that is known all over the world.

Dragons were carved on the emperor's seat, dragons were decorated on the bed, dragons were patterned on clothes, dragon face, dragon heart, and dragon policy also became the emperor's special words.

Because the emperor manages the world on behalf of heaven, and the emperor himself is a dragon, the common people worship the dragon.

At this time, the dragon really became the totem of the Chinese nation.

At this stage, the images of dragons, whether in written records, paintings, or sculptures, are very rich.

Chen Wenzhe remembers a magical sculpture, which seems to be called Zenghou Yijian Drum Base, with many dragon heads on it.

People start counting from different places, and the number of dragons counted is different. Sometimes there are 108 dragons, and there are also 118, 128, and 132 dragons.

This may be the pinnacle of dragon artwork, and the image of the dragon is still evolving.

Evolved in people's imagination because, as animals, dragons are virtually extinct.

(End of this chapter)