"Deaf" is a pictophonetic character, which has not appeared in Oracle Bone Inscriptions discovered today, but was first seen in some documents of Han Dynasty. "Xie Lao" written by Han Feizi, a famous philosopher in the Warring States Period, said: "Hearing and seeing are deaf." It can be seen that the word deaf came into being not later than the Warring States period and has a long history. Why use the dragon's voice and the shape of ears to express the "ignorance" in Shuowen? This proposition seems a bit funny, or it doesn't accord with Yulong at all. Why did the ancients combine the majestic and religious dragon with the ear to express the "deafness" of hearing failure? Did the ancients think that the protrusions on the ancient jade faucet were not just ears but horns, so they were hard of hearing?
"Zuo Zhuan Gong Xuan Fourteen Years": "Zheng Zhao, Song Yong." Social note: "Zhao, Ming, deaf, dark." Shuowen also means "making trouble without reason", so deafness is also used in politics. There is no way for the king to be stupid, but Zhou Wang is just the opposite. After Zhou Wang acceded to the throne, he was afraid that Shang Long had ears but didn't distinguish voiced sounds, so he made trouble without reason, so he played down the shape of Shang Yulong's ear horn and left a guess that Shang Yulong had no ears. Although this speculation is absurd, from the end of the Western Weekend to the end of the Warring States and the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, the ears and horns on the jade dragon head have been confused. This proves that the change of dragon ears has a certain relationship with the political color of powerful people when shaping characters at that time.
Jade Dragon Ear is from scratch.
In addition to two upward horns, there are two bull-ear-shaped things under the dragon horn of Yulong in Lingjiatan. Hongshan Culture's Jade Pig-headed Dragon also has a pair of big ears standing on both sides of its head. Even in Shang dynasty, we can still distinguish the decorative features of dragon ears from the bottom of the mushroom-shaped ear horn with bronze pattern. So where did Yulong's ear go from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the end of the Warring States and the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty? When did Yulong's ears reappear? We might as well study the modeling characteristics of dragon ears in past dynasties, which is of great benefit to our collection!
The research on the evolution of dragon shape shows that the dragon shape before Shang Dynasty developed to several dragons in Warring States and Han Dynasties, and then to the reptile dragon. No matter how the shape changes, the basic features of the dragon's horns and ears still exist. From the analysis of the characteristics of the horns and ears of the dragon, it can be basically divided into three periods: from the Neolithic Age to the Shang Dynasty, the ears and horns of the dragon were obviously different. Represented by dragons on bronzes and jade articles in Shang Dynasty. The second stage is from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Warring States Period, and the shape of dragon horns and dragon ears tends to be chaotic. We can deepen our understanding of these from a large number of jade dragons. The third stage is from Qin Dynasty to Song Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty is the shaping period of dragon pattern development. It inherited the snake-shaped strips of the Warring States period and added accessories to its head. The shape of the dragon is a strange complex, including crocodile mouth, antlers, ox nose, horse ears, snake body, fish scales and eagle claws. After a long and complicated development process, the change of dynasties, vicissitudes of life, the development of civilization and the evolution of ideas, in the feudal era, the dragon's horns and ears finally separated again, as if it were a symbol of the emperor's majesty and wisdom.
Among Chinese characters related to dragons, there are "dragon, cage, gathering, dragon, oboro" and so on. All these characters are created according to the shape of dragons. For example, the oboro is a combination of the moon and the dragon, indicating the bright appearance of the moon. Liu Zhou's "New Theory of Military Art" in the Northern Qi Dynasty: "It is not as good as the moon, and the shape is different." Obviously, Liu Zhoulong's endless changes show that the moon's surplus and deficiency are changeable, which can be said to be formation. Ridge, also the long body of the dragon, is used to indicate the curvature of the ridge path. It can be seen that the rule of "deaf" is no exception, and it must have been produced by the needs of political life at that time, which is a metaphor for the fatuity of the king's ruling. Jade Dragon, as a work of art, is also acceptable to show the political factors of the times. The above argument is that it is of great appreciation and reference value to discuss the evolution of dragon horn and dragon ear in the two weeks and the Warring States period by using the research of archaeological materials and the textual research of dragon-shaped jade unearthed in various places.
"The dragon has grown up", and the emperor called it Buron.
In ancient literature, dragons were recorded as "dragons combined to become adults". Looking at the 20 or so dragons discovered by archaeology in recent ten years, their images, such as pig's head, cow's head or snake's body, are all like the dragons of later generations, but they all have original non-dragon images. For example, the Huangmei site in Yilong, Hubei Province in the Yangtze River valley is decorated with dragon patterns made of river pebbles on the braised soil. The dragon is snake-shaped, with a head shaped like an ox, horns on its head and claws on its feet. It is vivid and powerful, nearly 6000 years ago. It was unearthed at the site of Hongshan Culture, Inner Mongolia, 5,000 years ago. The C-shaped jade dragon has a snake-like body, but the difference is that the C-shaped dragon is a pig's head, with no horns and ears, a long kiss, a long mane on its back and no claws.