DINOSAURS: From Cultural to Pop Culture - 3000 BC to the 1600s AD: Eastern Dragons through the Medieval Ages

DINOSAURS! From Cultural to Pop Culture

Medieval Times

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3000 BC to the 1600's AD

Eastern Dragons through the Medieval Ages

In this entry we move from the dragons of European history to the Eastern dragons of China and elsewhere. Like the dragons of Europe, the origin of the Eastern (or Chinese) Dragon is also unknown. Based on the number of fossils that have come out of China and the surrounding regions there is a possibility that they helped to shape the future of what dragons eventually became (New World Encyclopedia).   

There are as many stories about how the dragon came to be (as you can imagine from a culture where the dragon is as deeply imbedded as the Chinese culture is). Here are just a couple of them: 

There is a theory that the Eastern Dragon is a conglomeration of many animals into one "super beast". The theory is that six to seven thousand years ago early Chinese people believed that certain animals and plants possessed the power to overcome nature's fury. Different tribes would adopt a different animal, or totem. One tribe, ruled by the legendary Emperor Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor), used the snake as their totem and as they conquered other tribes they would acquire their totem and merge them with the snake. Eventually the dragon was born with the head of a camel, horns of a deer, eyes of a hare, ears of a bull, neck of a snake, belly of a clam, scales of a carp, claws of an eagle, and paws of a tiger (PrimarySource.org).

Another dragon origination theory suggested by the archaeologist Zhou Chongfa was that the initial inspiration for the dragon was lightning. The Chinese pronunciation of the word dragon "long" resembles the natural sound of thunder. This theory combined the early settlers need for water and the relief that the lightning provided as it was intricately linked with the much needed rain (People's Daily). 

Is there any proof that dinosaur skeletons influenced the historical creation of dragons, No. But the possibility is there. This is something that will never be disproven or proven, the evidence just doesn't exist either way. So I say let's just have fun with it and explore the "evolution" of the Chinese dragon through time.   

The Zigong Dinosaur Museum, Zigong, China (CNN)

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Disclaimer: Unfortunately trying to find legitimate images of ancient Chinese dragons is near impossible on the internet with the plethora of  Pinterest posts that don't actually link to anything, rampant auction sites with their often dubious claims of authentic dates (and personally I can't condone the selling of ancient pieces of history, "It belongs in a museum!"), or Creationist websites with their own variety of distorting the facts. I tried my best to filter out those images, and only focus on the ones I could determine were seemingly legitimate dragons representations dating to the time periods represented. That being said:
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Here are some of the Eastern Dragons as we progress through history.

Hongshan Culture (~3000 BCE)

One of the earliest known physical depictions of a dragon. This Hongshan culture "C" shaped plate of a dragon  (showchina.org). This looks like many of the early dragon forms which are termed the "pig" dragon. Pig dragons are dragons with pig-like heads and snake bodies, often coiled up in some manner.

Xia Dynasty (1994 BCE - 1766 BCE)

One of the earliest dragon sculptures ever found. This dragon sculpture is made of over 2,000 pieces of turquoise from Erlitou, which was possibly the capital of the Xia Dynasty (china.org.cn)

Shang Dynasty (1766 BCE - 1027 BCE)

Shang Dynasty "pig" dragons (chaz.org).  

Zhou Dynasty (1122 BCE - 256 BCE)

Early Eastern Zhou dragons (chaz.org). In these I feel the dragon shaped head is starting to progress to the stereotypical dragon we know of today.

Qin Dynasty (221 BCE - 206 BCE)

Qin Dynasty bronze dragon design - Shaanxi History Museum, Xi'an, China (travelblog.com). Here I feel we have more snake-like representations than many of the previous forms.

Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 AD)

Han Dynasty stone relief engraving showing a form of Dragon Dance (Wikipedia). This is the first time where a dragon has been depicted having limbs. Previous dragons all had a rather snake-like representation and here we are starting to get more of a mixture of animals. The Dragon Dance is the dance often seen in parades where many people dress up inside a giant dragon and dance/march down a street.

Gold hook buckle with jade dragon, Western Han dynasty, from the mausoleum of Nanyue King Zhaomo, Xianggang, Guangzhou - Hong Kong Museum of History (Wikimedia.org).

It appears that at about this point in history, we move away from the generic "pig" dragon, with a pig head and snake body, into one that is much more detailed with many of the now iconic features of the Chinese dragon, such as the fish scaled body, clawed arms, and the now famous dragon head.

Sui Dynasty (589 AD - 618 AD)

Model of a Sui Dynasty dragon boat (cultural-china.com).

Tang Dynasty (618 AD - 907 AD)

Gilded bronze dragon from the Tang Dynasty (cultural-china.com)

Close up of the head (Art Gallery NSW).

From this point on, I feel we have reached a modern dragon.

Sung Dynasty (969 AD - 1279 AD)

Piece of the Nine Dragons handscroll created by Chinese artist Chen Rong from 1244.

Yuan Dynasty (1279 AD - 1368 AD)

Yuan Dynasty dragon hanging scroll ink painting (The Met).

Dragon images on a Yuan Dynasty porcelain pot (cultural-china.com).

Ming Dynasty (1368 AD - 1644 AD)

The Nine Dragon Wall in Beihai Park, Beijing was built in 1402.

Close up of some of the dragons (Wikipedia).

Flask decorated with a dragon and wave scrolls in underglaze blue, Ming dynasty, 14th century. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Encyclopedia Britannica)

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Although created first, there is little evidence that the Chinese dragon influenced the European dragon in design and creation. It is possible that Marco Polo brought back information on dragons after his travels, which were during the late 1200's and early 1300's. But it is never mentioned in his Travels of Marco Polo diary account of his trip. But regardless, it can't be denied that the Chinese developed their dragons to a high degree of detail, far earlier than the Europeans, who were only producing rudimentary dragon artwork at this time.

And we will end this episode there, matching the time period our travels through the European Middle Ages had brought us to, the end of the 1400's. Also, you can see that dragons in modern day China greatly resemble, if not are identical, to many of the dragons being created over 500 to 1500 years ago. The dragons produced in China's history showed remarkable detail and exquisite design, in a style that has been imitated and matched for over 1,000 years.

Until the next time...

Dinos in Pop Culture - T-REX Restaurant at Walt Disney World

There is a restaurant in what is now known as Disney Springs called T-REX that I have always wanted to go to since it opened (for obvious reasons). Well we finally got to go last year.

Main entrance sign.

 Some skeletons hanging about near the entrance.

 Is this the cause of the dinosaur's demise? 

Walking around inside the restaurant they had different areas. I don't recall the names but this was the ice cavern area with a nice size wooly mammoth. 

Inside the ice cave we have a blue glowing T-rex skeleton. 

 Another view of the woolly mammoth, this time with baby in view.

 Some pteranodons flying about. 

 Here we have a couple of apatosaurus. The baby is up on the right side and the mother is back on the left side. Look at the people eating, it's like they don't even care.

Up close and personal.

 A couple of Parasaurolophus.

 Pachycephalosaurus

 Triceratops

 Stegosaurus

Octopus bar that actually moves (the octopus, not the bar).

And your entrance greater, the T. rex. He was actually just next to us as we were eating and he moved! The kid did NOT like that.

And of course I took pictures of the bathroom. Because look at them!

All of the fossils in the bathroom were labeled so anything that you found interesting you could find out more information about. Here are some nautiloids. 

And some Knightia fish from the Green River formation of Wyoming.

 And last but not least, the gift shop. 

 Because...yea, we got this.

They also have a Build-a-Bear in the restaurant where you can make stuffed dinosaurs. The kid and I may have made one each.

They are sooo cute. 

And that is all. 

Paleo in Pop Culture - Lottie the Fossil Hunter Doll

I had been alerted to what was called a Lottie doll that was part of a special line called "TrowelBlazers: Celebrating women in archaeology, palaeontology & geology - past & present" from TrowelBlazers.com.

The Lottie doll in question was a Fossil Hunter Lottie. You can buy your own fossil Lottie doll HERE.  

So I get it in the mail and it's pretty awesome. It comes with a whole bunch of stuff not only celebrating paleontology, but women in paleontology specifically. 

I'll cut to the chase right now, I recommend any paleontologist to get this awesome toy. I got one for myself, but then my daughter saw it. So now apparently I need to get one for myself ... again.

 View of the front of the box. You can see some of the stuff laid out pretty well with pictures of various Mesozoic animals across the cover.

 Window side with "She sells sea shells by the seashore" written below the window.

 Back of the box with the writing:

It’s the summer holidays and Lottie can’t wait to go to Lincoln Cliff Beach to look for fossils. With her special rock hammer and backpack full of useful gear, Lottie is ready for an adventure at the cliffs by the sea. It is so exciting to think that she might make her own scientific discovery! What will she find? An ammonite? A bone from a plesiosaur? Or maybe even a dinosaur…!

 And after taking her out of the box, we find that not only does she stand pretty easily, she also looks like a young girl. No disproportionate features to deal with, but a well proportioned body. She also has an ammonite T-shirt on, so I'm guessing I know where her collection bias lies. For people that know about this sort of thing (of which I am far from an expert) she has 5 points of articulation and is made of a rubber sort of material, allowing most of her body the ability to bend (often in unnatural positions) but she always goes back to normal).

 Back view of the doll.

 And a side view. Notice the great, sturdy, hiking boots, striped socks (perfect for tick prevention), cargo shorts, and utility vest. She's clearly ready to do some fossil hunting!

 I think the best part of the doll is all the toys that it comes with. They all fit within the backpack too! Not only do you get a magnifying glass (that's a big hand lense!), a rock hammer, a trowel, a backpack, and a hat, but it also comes with four ammonite fossils. See I told you I knew her collection bias!

 Everything packed up, put on her hat and backpack, and she's ready to go.

 Not only does the doll come with the toy components, it also has a sizable sheet with information about women in paleontology including Susan Hendrickson, Dorothea Bate, Marie Carmichael Stopes, Helena Walcott, Helen Walcott, Mary Leakey, and Beth Shapiro.

 On the back of that sheet is general information about paleontology, like what is the purpose of paleontology, and how do we do it safely. Clearly we are looking the European spelling of 'palaeontology' here as it is manufactured in Ireland.

And to top it off, we have a set of 10 cards (really tiny cards) about one of the earliest paleontologists (not just early female paleontologists, she was one of the first paleontologists of any gender) Mary Anning. Mary lived most of her life before the word 'dinosaur' was even coined!


To finish this off, here is the official list of stuff that comes with Lottie (from the website):

• Olive coloured gilet puffa vest
• Turquoise blue polo short with an ammonite shell design print
• Cargo shorts
• Orange and white stripe socks
• Sturdy boots
• Baseball cap
• A rucksack 
• Fossil hunting tools (magnifying glass, trowel and geology hammer)
• Four ammonite fossils
• Special collector cards about the British female fossil hunter Mary Anning
• Notable women in paleontology additional sheet

Like I said, I highly recommend you go out and get this. Especially if you have a young daughter who is showing an interest in paleontology. It's a great toy and one I will gladly put my money towards.

Geology in the Wild - Roadside Faults

While traveling home a couple of years ago, I happened to notice some nice faults along the side of the road. So, like any good geologist, I got out to take a few pictures.


The location is in Utah, within the Eocene Green River Formation east of the Tie Fork Rest Area between Price and Provo along Route 6. It's the fancy newish rest area that has a bunch of train displays.


The image below was taken along Route 6 facing north, with the west to the left and east to the right. You can get a pretty good view of it within Google Street View Here.

West                                                                                                                                      East

Taking a closer look at the western fault above.


And an even closer look with the fault highlighter. The beds show significant offset by matching up that double bed located just above the arrows in the image below.

 This type of fault is what is known as a Normal Fault, as illustrated in the image below. It results from extensional forces where each side of the fault are moving away from each other. A Reverse Fault would be where the two blocks are being pushed towards each other.

Looking at the eastern portion of the top image.

We can see there are two, nearly vertical, faults lying very close to each other.

The bend in the fault line above is just due to the degree of erosion revealing the fault at a weird angle and also the perspective from which I am viewing the fault. In actuality, the fault is not bent like that.

Both of these faults are also Normal Faults because of the same extensional activity as to the west. This makes sense because if the fault to the west resulted from extensional activity, it would be highly likely the entire area, if not the region, had undergone extensional pressures. This means that these couple of faults here would probably not be the only normal faults in the area and there are  more normal faults spread throughout the area and/or region.

This is what is known as a scientific hypothesis. We looked the available data on the region and came up with a testable hypothesis based on it.

Geology Through Literature - Idylls of the King

The next up on my Geology Through Literature thread is Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson published between 1859 and 1885. You can get my complete thoughts on the book/story over at my blog - The Remnant, but for here I will just go into the geological or basic scientific aspects that are brought up in the story.

The story is an epic poem based on the life of King Arthur. There is only one geological instance worth noting in the story itself.

"Chapter": Gareth and Lynette

"In dewy grasses glistened; and the hair 

All over glanced with dewdrop of with gem 

Like sparkles in the stone Avanturine."

Avanturine, more commonly spelled Aventurine, is a gemstone variety of quartz (SiO2). However, unlike the typical varieties of quartz like amethyst, smokey quartz, or milky quartz (to name a few), aventurine contains flecks of mica and other materials incorporated into the crystal. It is these flecks that give the crystal a "sparkle" as the poem states (geology.com).

A green variety of aventurine. 

Aventurine was named after the Italian words "a ventura", meaning by chance. This is in reference to the chance creation of the artificial aventurine variety now referred to as goldstone where flecks of copper were incorporated into a bit of glass creating a similar, but much more dazzling, appearance (mindat.org).

Goldstone, an artificial "gemstone" similar to aventurine in appearance, except it is often made with glass and copper flecks or other metals (wikipedia).