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Dragons in Chinese history
1. Dragons in Chinese history
2. Chinese writing
China has an ancient and well-documented history going back over 4,000 years - including writing and many technologies. The Chinese written language uses pictographs. Many of the symbols are made of other symbols.
For example, the Chinese symbol for
boat is a combination of
vessel,
eight, and
people/
mouths (i.e., eight people on a vessel).
3. Unicode
Today, the 16 bit unicode character encoding format is used to provide enough characters for all of the world's written languages.
4. Dragons in Chinese history
| rabbit |
rat |
chicken |
horse |
| tiger |
pig |
monkey |
snake |
| ox |
dog |
sheep |
dragon |
|
Chinese New Year: February 10, 2024, Year of the dragon. Celebration until February 17, 2024.
|
It is interesting that the 12 Chinese years are represented by 11 common animals and one "
mythical" animal, the
dragon. Perhaps the
dragon really was a common animal at one time.
Might the
dragon have been a
dinosaur that really existed? Dinosaur
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) has been found. Many people in times past have drawn images of dinosaurs.
Job describes a creature called "
behemoth" that had a tail like a
cedar tree. The
NIV (New International Version) says it could be a hippopotamus or elephant.
5. Chinese recipes and dragon bones
The Chinese used ground up "dragon" bones as medicine. Americans examining the "dragon" bones realized that the "dragon" bones were actually fossilized dinosaur bones.
The origin of the dragon image is unknown because it is so ancient. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that some of the massive fossilized bones encountered in several parts of China, including dinosaur and mammoth bones, were thought by ancient people to be those of huge dragons. Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Traditional Medicine, Portland, Oregon
http://www.itmonline.org/arts/dragonbone.htm (as of 1985)
6. Chinese pottery and dragons
A gilded bronze dragon from the Tang Dynasty (618-906 A.D.) was found in 1975 in Xi'an City in the Shaanxi Province.
Chinese pottery from the early 1500's depicts dragons.
One Chinese legend tells of a famous Chinese man named Yu. After the great flood Yu surveyed the land of China and divided it into sections. He built channels to drain the water off to the sea and helped make the land livable again. Many snakes and dragons were driven from the marshlands when Yu created the new farmlands. The Great Dinosaur Mystery, p. 42.
http://www.chinapage.com/dragon1.html (as of 1985)
7. Dragon wall
The Nine-Dragon Wall in BaiHai Park in Beijing is a popular tourist attraction.
8. Marco Polo
Marco Polo lived in China for 17 yrs. around 1271 A.D. and reported that the emperor raised dragons to pull his chariots in parades.
In 1611 the emperor appointed the post of a "
Royal Dragon Feeder."
9. Books and sayings
Books tell of Chinese families raising dragons to use their blood for medicines and highly prizing their eggs.
Chinese sayings:
dragon's pool, tiger's den: dangerous place
dragons rising, tigers leaping: bustling activity
10. End of page