Woher kommen die Drachen?

As if out of nowhere, the dragon emerges from the fog of history. It is one of the most famous and oldest fantasy creatures of all time. All over the world he plays the main character in legends, fairy tales and modern fantasy. Sometimes he is a dangerous opponent, sometimes a powerful ally. “The dragon is undoubtedly one of humanity's oldest and most imaginative ideas. Not only among the Germanic peoples, but also among the Romans and from there to the Christian legends of the saints. Also in East Asia: in China, in Korea, in Japan. Everywhere, the dragon has always been a fantasy animal.” In the Western world, the story of Siegfried, the dragon slayer from the Nibelung saga, is better known.

In it, the hero bravely faces the dragon in a duel. The fronts are clear. The dragon represents evil and it is the hero's duty to kill the beast to protect the land and its people. The winner then assumes the power of the defeated. Siegfried bathes in dragon blood and becomes invulnerable. "Siegfried's dragon is, of course, a huge and dangerous monster, a creature that really needs a hero to kill it. In the European Middle Ages, the dragon is actually the personification of evil. We must not forget that in religious imagery Medieval the dragon symbolizes hell itself. The entrance to hell is represented in ecclesiastical art as the mouth of a dragon.

But how is it possible that the dragon can become a symbol of hell? Clues can be found in the unique nature of Iceland. For people here, mythical creatures are part of everyday life. Biologist Tryggvi Gunnarsson has a workplace that almost evokes dragon fantasies. Brennisteinsfjöll is the name of the area in southern Iceland: the Sulfur Mountains. There could be a monster lurking behind every rock. But Thrihnukagigur is something very special. Here you can descend into the mouth of hell as a visitor. "This volcano is not only the deepest lava pit on planet Earth, but also the only cone. of ash, that is, the only lava chamber accessible to man in the entire world.

An open cable car leads to the bottom of the volcano about 120 meters deep. left a rough-shaped rock that shines red, gold, green and violet in the spotlight. It smells like sulfur, like a dragon's breath. “This is the perfect room for a dragon: with all this volcanic activity, the beautiful colors and then the dragon's eye here on the wall. It's almost like it's looking down and guarding its treasures." The opening that lets light through also looks like the eye of a huge being watching over the visitor. Caves have always been places of wonder, but also horror. In man's imagination, danger became a sleeping beast that could not be awakened under any circumstances. “There are many caves and they are dark, often humid.

And many caves haven't been entered for thousands of years and everything you find there is definitely super strange. At the same time, of course, they are also more spiritual, of course, a symbol of everything that I can put my fears, my fears, what I don't know." The dragon - a symbol of what people fear the most. In the Christianity this is hell. But the myth of the dragon is much older. The ancient Greek name "Drákon" means something like "she who stares". Initially it referred to any species of larger snake without fangs. If you have ever seen a large snake devouring its prey, you can imagine that such a gigantic animal awakens primitive fears.

The so-called “snake dragons” of Uruk are among the oldest images of dragons in the world. 5,000 years ago they combined a huge neck. snake with the body of an ungulate. One theory: early observers could not clearly see that a hunter was eating his prey. Two animals become one. Once the victim is swallowed, the snake no longer looks like a snake. In many representations of the so-called “bipedal Dragon”, the two-legged dragon could also have a constrictor snake. been the model for the dragons of the East we cannot deny their snake origins, but they tend to live in water rather than in caves.

Unlike the dragons of the West, the dragons of Asia are present everywhere in great splendor: there is no hero who wants to destroy them. "Of course, there are also dragons in East Asia that are dangerous or that can cause suffering to people. But essentially the relationship with dragons is one of respect, sometimes even veneration. And you simply try to keep this powerful creature from your side in China, the scholar Wang Fu described the dragon as a hybrid creature made up of 9 animals as early as the 3rd century BC. It has deer antlers, a horse's head, rabbit eyes and a rabbit's belly, carp scales, eagle claws and lion foot soles.

The characteristics of these animals can also be found in the dragon. For the Chinese emperor, who united many different peoples under his rule, the dragon became the symbol of his power. He sees himself as a descendant of the divine dragon. That is why the ruler's chair from which he rules his vast empire is called the dragon throne. “In ancient empires, one of the characteristics of the ruler was that he could control the weather. which in turn is of fundamental importance for agriculture. Also the seasons. According to Chinese belief, the change of seasons is directly attributed to imperial rituals.

And in these rituals that relate to the seasons, a dragon or different dragons are often mentioned because they directly govern the elements. The Nine Dragons Wall near the Forbidden City in Beijing shows several dragons emerging from the sea to summon wind and rain. . They are also considered the rulers of the monsoon, which is both a blessing and a threat to the people of Asia. Not only the lack of rain, but also its excess, can be devastating for agriculture. To this day, the dragon remains in the urban landscape of modern Asian cities. It has long gone from bringing rain, which makes you feel full and therefore happy, to a general symbol of good luck.

Therefore, the Chinese New Year is always marked by the dragon. If you honor it, it will bring good luck for another year. While the eastern dragon does not need wings to fly, the western dragon developed considerable wings early on. But where does this idea of ​​the winged dragon come from? 67 00:10:37,000 -- 00:01:45,000 The first written evidence that snakes could fly is a report written by the well-travelled Greek scholar Herodotus in 450 BC. It is said that the Egyptian city of Buto was invaded every spring by fearsome flying snakes. The city's defenders managed to kill the monsters en masse. Herodotus personally investigated the case.

According to his report, these drawings of flying reptiles were created later. “He personally traveled to Egypt to research the story. There he spoke with the priests who took him to a valley in the desert and showed him piles of skeletons of flying snakes. We don't know what he actually saw, but it looks like a fossil site. The Egyptians did not know what the fossilized skeletons were and interpreted them as flying snakes. Paleontologists working in Egypt today are finding more and more dinosaur fossils, including flying reptiles. It is very possible that Herodotus saw something like this.” For a long time, scientists did not see a connection between dragons and fossil finds, since the first reports of dragons and works of art emerged in the Mediterranean.

However, no fossils of flying lizards were known from there. Only recently has North Africa come into the focus of science. 80 00:12:31,000 -- 00:12:41,000 A special surprise: during the Cretaceous period, 100 million years ago, not only terrestrial dinosaurs roamed the Sahara, but also pterosaurs. With a wingspan of 5 meters, the Sahara aviators were impressively large. How did an ancient man react to the discovery of such bones? And what kind of creature did one imagine when the bones of pterosaurs were mixed with those of other species? “I try to imagine myself in the shoes of a farmer in the time of Homer, in the 8th century BC.

C.: I am plowing my field and I find a femur. I recognize what it is, but the bone is bigger than me. I don't throw something like that, I try to explain what the fossil is. The Greeks and Romans rejoiced in such finds because they were evidence of the heroes, titans or monsters that had populated their lands in the Golden Age of mythology. “They collected these fossils, took them to their temples and called them monsters.” This painting of a Corinthian vase from the 6th century BC. C. shows the love of the Greeks for fossils. It shows Heracles fighting the sea monster Keto.

However, Keto is not represented here as a dragon or a snake, as is usually the case, but as a huge fossilized skull. But fossils don't explain everything: why do so many dragons breathe fire and leave death and devastation in their wake? From Iceland to Indonesia, from China to the Mediterranean, volcanoes are impressive models for the fire-breathing dragon. “Many ancient people blamed monsters for mysterious and powerful natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and floods. Especially monsters that were thought to be somewhere underground.” But if these areas are so dangerous, why do people continue to settle near the volcanoes to this day?

The answer is: good agricultural land and gold. “Volcanoes essentially act like assembly lines. They can bring to the surface gold enriched in the magma of a volcano. In the magma chamber there are the so-called aqueous phases that transport the gold. This water rises to the surface, cools and forms veins of gold.” If we look at the distribution of the most productive mines in the world, we notice that they are all located in areas of high seismic activity. So a volcano is something like a gold elevator. Such a lucrative volcano can contain up to 1,300 tons of gold.

This is where the original reason for killing the dragon is found: the gold treasure. The first hero was not a savior of the world, but a thief who had one thing on his mind above all else: to steal the dragon's gold. Where a volcano burns, you can get a lot of gold. Early gold miners may have invented stories of fearsome dragons simply to protect their mines from thieves.