The Evolution of the Dragon | Page 5

BIRTH OF APHRODITE 140

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE Fig. 1.--The conventional Egyptian representation of the burning of incense and the pouring of libations 2
Fig. 2.--Water-colour sketch by Mrs. Cecil Firth, representing a restoration of the early mummy found at Med?m by Professor Flinders Petrie, now in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London 16
Fig. 3.--A mould taken from a life-mask found in the Pyramid of Teta by Mr. Quibell 17
Fig. 4.--Portrait statue of an Egyptian lady of the Pyramid Age 18
Fig. 5.--Statue of an Egyptian noble of the Pyramid Age to show the technical skill in the representation of life-like eyes 52
Fig. 6.--Representation of the ancient Mexican worship of the Sun 70
Fig. 7.--A medi?val picture of a Chinese Dragon upon its cloud (after the late Professor W. Anderson) 80
Fig. 8.--A Chinese Dragon (after de Groot) 80
Fig. 9.--Dragon from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon 81
Fig. 10.--Babylonian Weather God 81
Fig. 11.--Reproduction of a picture in the Maya Codex Troano representing the Rain-god Chac treading upon the Serpent's head, which is interposed between the earth and the rain the god is pouring out of a bowl. A Rain-goddess stands upon the Serpent's tail 84
Fig. 12.--Another representation of the elephant-headed Rain-god. He is holding thunderbolts, conventionalized in a hund-like form. The serpent is converted into a sac, holding up the rain-waters. 84
Fig. 13.--A page (the 36th) of the Dresden Maya Codex. 86
Fig. 14.--A. The so-called "sea-goat" of Babylonia, a creature compounded of the antelope and fish of Ea.--B. The "sea-goat" as the vehicle of Ea or Marduk.--C to K--a series of varieties of the makara from the Buddhist Rails at Buddha Gaya and Mathura, circa 70 B.C.--70 A.D., after Cunningham ("Arch?ological Survey of India," Vol. III, 1873, Plates IX and XXIX).--L. The makara as the vehicle of Varuna, after Sir George Birdwood. It is not difficult to understand how, in the course of the easterly diffusion of culture, such a picture should develop into the Chinese Dragon or the American elephant-headed god 88
Fig. 15.--Photograph of a Chinese embroidery in the Manchester School of Art representing the Dragon and the Pearl-Moon Symbol 98
Fig. 16.--The God of Thunder (from a Chinese drawing (? 17th Century) in the John Rylands Library) 136
Fig. 17.--From Joannes de Turrecremata's "Meditationes seu Contemplationes". Rome: Ulrich Han, 1467 137
Fig. 18.--(a) The Archaic Egyptian slate palette of Narmer showing, perhaps, the earliest design of Hathor (at the upper corners of the palette) as a woman with cow's horns and ears (compare Flinders Petrie "The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty,"
Part I, 1900, Plate XXVII, Fig. 71). The pharaoh is wearing a belt
from which are suspended four cow-headed Hathor figures in place of the cowry-amulets of more primitive peoples. This affords corroboration of the view that Hathor assumed the functions originally attributed to the cowry-shell. (b) The king's sporran, where Hathor-heads (H) take the place of the cowries of the primitive girdle 150
Fig. 19.--The front of Stela B (famous for the realistic representations of the Indian elephant at its upper corners), one of the ancient Maya monuments at Copan, Central America (after Maudslay's photograph and diagram). The girdle of the chief figure is decorated both with shells (Oliva or Conus) and amulets representing human faces corresponding to the Hathor-heads on the Narmer palette (Fig. 18) 151
Fig. 20.--Diagrams illustrating the form of cowry-belts worn in (a) East Africa and (b) Oceania respectively. (c) Ancient Indian girdle (from the figure of Sirima Devata on the Bharat Tope), consisting of strings of pearls and precious stones, and what seem to be (fourth row from the top) models of cowries. (d) The Copan girdle (from Fig. 19) in which both shells and heads of deities are represented. The two objects suspended from the belt between the heads recall Hathor's sistra 153
Fig. 21.--(a) A slate triad found by Professor G. A. Reisner in the temple of the Third Pyramid at Giza. It shows the Pharaoh Mycerinus supported on his right side by the goddess Hathor, represented as a woman with the moon and the cow's horns upon her head, and on the left side by a nome goddess, bearing upon her head the jackal-symbol of her nome. (b) The Ecuador Aphrodite. Bas-relief from Cerro-Jaboncillo (after Saville, "Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," Preliminary Report, 1907, Plate XXXVIII). A grotesque composite monster intended to represent a woman (compare Saville's Plates XXXV, XXXVI, and XXXIX), whose head is a conventionalized Octopus, whose body is a Loligo, and whose limbs are human 164
Fig. 22.--(a) Sepia officinalis, after Tryon, "Cephalopoda". (b) Loligo vulgaris, after Tryon. (c) The position usually adopted by the resting Octopus, after Tryon 168
Fig. 23.--A series of Mycen?an conventionalizations of the Argonaut and the Octopus (after Tümpel), which provided the basis for Houssay's theory of the origin of the triskele (a, c, and d) and swastika (b and e), and