Dinosaurs in Literature, Art & History-- Page 12

Man and Dinosaur Co-existence

Ancient Chinese Sculpture Depicts Dinosaur/
What is Depicted on Thai Vase?

Here at s8int.com, the pizza's getting cold. I think we're about through with this topic (dinosaurs in literature, art and history)for a while because frankly, our eyes have gotten a little blurry from looking at all that art. On the bright side, we now know so much more about pre-columbian and ancient Chinese art.

S8int.com's President?

Right now, we're wondering if perhaps we haven't left a lot of information concerning human giants on the table so maybe we'll go work on that angle for a while. The other thing is that we're starting to wonder if we're seeing dinosaurs sometimes even when there's nothing there.

We have been somewhat heartened by the results of the polls on various pages in this section. Some are seeing the same things we are--proof that some of the "ancient peoples" interacted with animals we now call dinosaurs.

In a section of this page below, we'll present an ancient animal representation that once again, you will be able to decide for yourself what it represents. We're not even sure which way we'd vote-but we lean towards corythosaurus.

On our last page, we suggested that we might not even be allowed to see the most obvious dinosaur representations because they likely would not be placed front and center. In the academic community, no doubt an incontrovertible ancient dinosaur would call the authenticity of the object into question.

Inscribed Ancient Zhou Bronze Pan
with animal head? Click and drag
photo to resize.

In 2003, some Chinese farmers found 27 Zhou Dynasty bronzes in a cave. Scientists were particularly excited about the finds because many of them were inscribed. One of the pieces, described as a pan had a very long inscription. It's been difficult to find photos of the objects, and especially difficult for one of the objects.

The photo on the right is one we did find of the object. Only the feet were shown in the photo for perhaps some artistic reason. Perhaps the feet are the most impressive part of the object.

It could be, as well that they were not anxious to show the part of the object that we found the most interesting, we can't say for sure.

The item which has the most inscriptions of any Zhou item found to date; the one that had the historians the most excited, is the most difficult one to find a complete photo of in our experience. Two complete photos of the object are shown below, left. Here is a bit of the story of the find.

New Light on Chinese Civilization

A week ago a farmer in northwestern China's Shaanxi Province swung his hoe onto the ground and opened up another world -- a cave appeared.

Well laid-out were 27 inscribed bronze artifacts. The more than 2,000 characters inscribed on them are expected to shed light on the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), which has puzzled historians for two millenniums.

Zhou Kuiying, archaeologist with the Shaanxi Administration of Cultural Heritage, said formal archaeological excavation has kicked off in the area around the cave in Yangjia Village, Meixian County, in the city of Baoji.

Two views of the inscribed object.
Click and drag photo to resize.

The accidental uncovering of the 2,700-year-old bronze ware, which surprised the archaeological world, occurred on January 19 when five farmers were scooping up soil on a cliff in the afternoon sunshine to make bricks.

About 4 pm, a lump of soil rolled off the cliff as the hoe of Wang Latian hit the ground. The cave appeared before Wang. He knelt down, peeped into the cave and saw a dim, green light.

"Come on, there is something in the cave," he shouted. Wang Ningxian, the eldest of the five, ordered the others to get back for fear of the ground collapsing and gasped as he looked in.

He saw the bronze items arranged in order. The farmers called the local cultural heritage administration. At 8 pm Zhang Runtang, head of the Baoji Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, arrived with archaeologists. The cave was found to be a cellar, 1.8 meters long, 1.4 meters wide and one meter high. "Since the cellar was hidden more than 10 meters deep, we put a ladder into it and had 18 villagers along the ladder, passing the bronze ware from inside the cellar to the surface," said Zhang.

"It was so breathtaking. There were 27 of them, each with inscriptions engraved on their bodies." An inscribed bronze piece is considered a national treasure since bronze ware inscriptions, along with bamboo slips, which were used as paper to write on, and the pictographs carved into the tortoise shells and animals bones, are the only documents of Chinese history before the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC).

This is an apatosaurus skull and neck
which perfectly matches the shape and neck
angle of the animal on the inscribed "pan" above.
Source: Weather Enthusiast-Sam Noble Museum
Click and drag photo to resize.

The 27 bronze pieces were large in size, graceful in shape and decorated with complex patterns, said Zhou Kuiying. They included a ding (an ancient cooking vessel), pan, pot, calyx, yu (a broad-mouthed receptacle for holding liquid) and gui (a kind of container for grain). The greatest find was the pan with more than 350 characters inscribed on it.

Before its finding, the Shi Qiang pan (water container), which was unearthed in Shaanxi Province in 1976, was believed to bear the most characters among the bronze artifacts unearthed after 1949.

The 284 characters inscribed on the bottom of the pan recorded important events in the reigns of six kings of the Western Zhou Dynasty and told about the family of the inscriber as well, who happened to be an official in charge of noting down the court history. It was considered by historians to be the most important Western Zhou bronze item ever discovered.

Inscriptions on the newly unearthed pan documented all the 11 emperors of the dynasty before Emperor Youwang who, as legend goes, led to the destruction of the dynasty in his extravagant pursuit of luxury and women. The list of emperors was perfectly compatible with the Shi Ji (Historical Records), written by Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) historian Sima Qian.....

(China Daily January 28, 2003)

Thai Vase from 1400's Depicts Dinosaur or Seahorse?

15th Century Thai Vase. Click and drag photo to resize.

Because of the distinctive crests on the tops of their heads, the corythosaurus should be one of the easiest dinosaurs to identify if they were to appear in ancient art. In fact, on several prior pages of this section, the corythosaur was so identified.

The museum that has this item on display identifies it (the animal likeness) as a seahorse. As a matter of fact, it does look more than a little bit like a seahorse. We carefully compared photos os seahorses with drawings and skulls of the corythosauras and finally decided to cast our vote for the dinosaur for the following reasons.

Although the vase also depicts fish, which would be a point for the seahorse explanation, it also depicts leaves, which the corythosauras ate for food. The crest looks exactly like the crest on the head of the dinosaur and seemed to us, less than an exact match for the seahorse.

Finally, it appears to us as though the attitude (upward angle) of the head is unlike that usually displayed by the seahorse. As a matter of fact, we're not even sure that the seahorse could comfortably get his head in that position. One could argue that the scales would have been applicable to either a seahorse or a dinosaur(reptile), so we're not sure that they help in the identification. It's certainly not something we'd stake our professional reputations on, even though we have no such reputations.

We've provided a nice picture of the vase as well as samples of the corythosaurus (top row)and the seahorse so that you can decide the issue for yourself. Of course, if it is the corythosaurus this is an extraordinary find.

Comparisons. Click and drag photo to resize.

An Additional Ancient Chinese Dinosaur Depiction

This is another ancient object with an animal head of unknown representation. Of course, the identification given is that of a mythological animal.

Click and drag photo to resize.

We ask you once again if representations like this long necked animal on the ancient teas server doesn't confirm once and for all that our ancestors lived with an interacted with dinosaurs? Like other animals from the past, it's possible that the dinosaurs of that time weren't as large as they had been in the past--like other animals we've examined beginning at Mega1.html

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