Quest of the Feathered People: Different Worship of Dongyi and Shang Dynasty

Think about Chinese totem perhaps most people would say it's definitely dragon, but  the early worship was totally different from what people thought. This time I will introduce the another significant kind of culture in ancient China.

Dongyi(東夷) people have the irreplaceable status in Chinese history. Although they are not as famous as the Xuanyuan clan(軒轅氏)—another name of the Yellow Emperor and his clan—they actually played an important role in the Chinese culture and lineage, no less than any other.

The character "東" means "east", and "夷" was an archaic term for the people who lived in the east. Two prime worship of Dongyi were birds and the sun. Shaohao(少昊) was one of the most famous leader of Dongyi. Also, there was another person called Taihao(太昊) before who was belived as an earlier leader.

The structure of "昊" is a sun on the top and sky under it. These symbol in the picture came from Dawenkou culture(大汶口文化) in Taian(泰安), Shandong(山東) province, where was the main range of Dongyi. They seem like sun rises above the mountain and cloud or maybe something else. That shows the close connection between the sun and the eastern Chinese culture.

Not only the sun, another kind of legend has been existed for a long time. Yuren(羽人) or Yumin(羽民) could be seen in many documents pictures and handcrafts. It's meaning was "the Feathered People", this might related to Dongyi.

Let's explain the relationship between Dongyi, Xuanyuan clan and Shang dynasty. In the mythology Taihao had another name "Fuxi(伏羲)", who and his sister Nuwa(女媧) was the primary ancestor of Chinese, recreated human after the flood. In other words, Xuanyuan clan and Shaohao clan came from the same origin.

 

Feathered Human Jade Carving of Shang Dynasty

The Shang dynasty was found by the Shang clan. Nowadays, researchers tend to believe that they derived from the Shaohao clan. There were records in ancient document Zuozhuan(左傳) about Shaohao named official positions after birds. In the other hand, in Shang people's legend of the birth of their ancestor Xie(契), his mother ate a whole egg of Xuanniao(玄鳥) by accident and then got pregnant with him.

Xuanniao clan(玄鳥氏) was exactly one of Shaohao's official positions. The general opinion is that Xuanniao referred to swallow, it's habit could match the duty of Xuanniao clan. Also, it's look match to the meaning of Xuanniao: "black bird". There were lot of images of birds and even Feathered People in Shang dynasty's bronzes and carvings.

The Feathered People and worship of birds and the sun is an essential form of ancient Chinese culture. Somehow, similar worship and images have appeared in many other cultures as well. Are there any connection between them?

Where did these people came from?And where did they go?

Right Between Us: Lydia Fairchild and Henrietta Lacks

Most people think they have known the basic knowledge of human body. They learned from schools about how it was supposed to be. However, an assumption is far from the true truth.

In 2002, American Lydia Fairchild got into a big trouble. She was detected not the biological mother of her two children in a DNA test. The first time Lydia thought the test result was wrong, and she did three more tests after that. Unfortunately, the results are still the same. Meanwhile, another fact was that the DNA test certainly proofed that her husband Jamie Townsend is the father of his children.

 

Lydia Fairchild

Lydia could not believed it, she did give birth to both of her children. The hospital's birth records were disregarded, because people considered the DNA tests never lie. She might lost the custody of her children.

The final breakthrough appeared in a series of further tests in which more DNA samples were took from Lydia's families as well as different tissues of her body. This time it turned out that although the DNA of Lydia's hair and skin did not match to her children, her mother's DNA—and the most important, the DNA of the sample from her uterus did. Which means, Lydia carries two kind of tissures with different sets of DNA inside her body.

 

"Venus" A Chimera Cat

The genetic phenomenon is called Chimerism, which took it's name from the monster in Greek mythology. Organism with the same situation as Lydia is called a Chimera. In fact some scientists believe that it could be a more common phenomenon than it seems. The incidence rate may up to 10% to 15%. In other words, 1/10 of us have at least two sets of DNA in an inconspicuous level. One of them maybe came from mother.
 
On one hand, this envisage completely subvert the assumption that one person have the same DNA in all the cells. On the other hand, could this be a crucial moment in the medical science for solving those issues such as transplant rejection? That is what we are about to find out in the future.

Let's go back to the 20th century, a legendary story of an ordinary woman.
 
In 1951, 31 years old African-Americn Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cacer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Henrietta was a housewife, mother of six children in an Halifax country, Virginia. When she stepped into the hospital, she would never known the coming story.
 

 

Henrietta Lacks and Her Husband

 
 
The doctors excised her cancerous tissue. They left a sample and sent it to the pathology lab. After removing the tumor Henrietta started to receive follow-up treatment, but none of these could helped saving her life. She returned to hospital with a great pain on August 8 and died of uremic poisoning at October 4, with the cancer which has metastasized over her entire body.
 
Under normal conditions, a helthy cell cultured from another cell, could only divids for about 50 times and dies soon after that. This mechanism as known as Apotosis, or Programmed Cell Death, is the way that genes control the division of the cells to maintain the normal structure and function of body. Without it, all creatures will grow into chunks of unidentified things—or at least, the uncontrolled cells turns into cancer.
 
During the treatment, the sample of Henrietta's cancerous tissue was sent to Dr. George Otto Gey, who started a cell line with it and named it with the first two letters from Henrietta and Lacks, so called the HeLa Cell Line.

 

The HeLa Cells

Compare with other cancer cells, the HeLa cells divide and metastasize extremely fast. They live for extraordinary long time, even regarded as "the HeLa Immortal Cell Line". Is this the possible potential of immortalization of human body?

The current problem is, HeLa cells are definitely not human. Neither it's abnormal set of gene nor it's outrageous division have any similarity to human. Also, this would not denies that perhaps our secrets of life is right inside someone's body. Someone who just stands somewhere on the street.

A Person who is like HeLa, her cells were distributed to all over the world for scientific research. She left the world silently, but left her life to the world. She got her immortal in another different form, in all of those labs.

At first there is no any mark for HeLa's grave, untill 2010, Dr. Roland Pattillo donated a gravestone, reads：

Henrietta Lacks, August 01, 1920-October 04, 1951.
In loving memory of a phenomenal woman, wife and mother who touched the lives of many.
Here lies Henrietta Lacks (HeLa). Her immortal cells will continue to help mankind forever.
Eternal Love and Admiration, From Your Family

 

Restore the Mythological Ages (2: A Controversial Prehistoric Chronology was Found

The last post talks about the research of bronze age. This time I would like to trace back earlier to the prehistoric age, from the mythological birth of the world till the foundation of the Xia dynasty which was believed to be the first dynasty in Chinese history.

The story started at a peaceful small village of Yantin(鹽亭) country, Mianyang(綿陽) city in Sichuan province. For thousand of years, a legend has circulated among the people who live in Panya(盤埡) village. According to the legend, Yu(禹)—the founder of the Xia dynasty—was born here. He has raised a stele whith inscriptions of his verified chronology in his hometown. The inscription was decoded in 1960 by Baru He(何拔儒), who has been study abroad, at the time of Qing dynasty. The posterity referred it as "the Pangu Chronology of Kings*(盤古王表)".

 

Born in the Chaos

 

Separation of Sky and Earth

The chronology was named afer Pangu(盤古), the creator of the world in a most popular creation myth who was believed to be born in the chaos(混沌、渾沌) which was like an egg, and separated it into sky and earth with an ax. He was the first person in the chronology.

After Pangu, the chronology recorded the rulers at ancient times, ranging from the Three Sovereigns(三皇) to the Five Emperors(五帝), over a time span more than 4 thousand years. It laid down the Three Sovereigns as the Heavenly Sovereign(天皇), the Earthly Sovereign(地皇) and the Human Sovereign(人皇), eventually ended at the Yellow Emperor(黃帝), one of the Five Emperors. Some of the names in the chronology could match those names of mountains, gods and so on in the other documents. For example, Classic of Mountains and Seas(山海經).

 

 

Pages from Classic of Mountains and Seas

However, the Pangu Chronology of Kings* was only  contained in one published book, "Grand View of Chinese Character Culture*(中國漢字文化大觀)" [1995] and an article by Dekui Wang(王德奎), Journal of Literature and History(文史雜誌), 2000 issue 2.

The chronology was not considered trustworthy and reliable, because scholars could not find any evidence in authoritative documents which could proof that Yu has ever been to Sichuan.

Nevertheless, if what was on the chronology was true, it would be a significant reference to the academia. It provides a detailed order of the rulers of the blank alternation between the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors. This could be a window towards the controversial ages of prehistory, ages that we have never known about before.

Restore the Mythological Ages: The Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project in China

China, as known as a country which has long history. When Chinese people talk about history, they will probably say "five thousand years history". It was a widely accepted saying in China for centuries, however, the suspicion against this statement has also existed for a long time.

This could date back to the Song (宋) or Ming (明) dynasty. A group of ancient scholars, now called the doubt archaic school (疑古派), considered that the records of some historical documents which contained legends and myths were very sceptical. Some people even doubt that most part in the history of bronze age was made up by the predecessors. The disappointed fact was, there was no solid evidence to proof them. 

This deadlock dragged on until 1899, a significant discovery of ancient hieroglyphs led the researchers to a silver lining.

 

Oracle-bone Inscriptions from Anyang

These are the Oracle-bone Inscriptions or so called Jiaguwen (甲骨文), fist found in Anyang (安陽), Henan (河南) province.

Later from 1928 to 1937, a series of archaeological excavations in Anyang unearthed one of the greatest discoveries—the Yin Ruins (殷墟) or Yinxu as transliteration. The one thing I would like to mention here is that the character "墟(xu)" in ancient Chinese used to meant "city" unlike "ruin" in present time.

 

Bronzes from the Yin Ruins

Yin was the capital of the late Shang (商) dynasty after the king Pangeng (盤庚) moved the capital there. It is the first fully confirmed ancient capital ever in Chinese archaeological history. Countless relics and inscriptions of records were unearthed. Finally, the authenticity of Shang was proved.

After more excavations, in May 16, 1996 an effort in massive scale named "the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project (夏商周斷代工程)" was officially launched. The goal of the project is to reproduce the chronology of the three dynasties in detail that all of the ancient documents did not do.

The subjects of this project ranging from history to astronomy, and cover the whole vast area of China continent.

 

The Erlitou Relic Site

 

 

Symbols on the Potteries of Erlitou

 



In another place of Henan, the Erlitou Relic Site (二裡頭遺址) lays silently in the middle of a wheat field of Yanshi(偃師). It was believed belongs to the Xia (夏) dynasty by some researchers who is working on the project. It was discovered in 1956. Later in 1960, a large palace site which was found in the upper layer makes them believes that it was the capital of Xia.

However, the project in this point was questioned by the international academia, and in manny other aspects as well. Some scholars claims that the Xia dynasty never existed.

Although the doubts about some periods remain, China is still struggling to restore the lost chronology. The quest reveals the mysterious history, and turns us back into the era of mythology.

 

A Place Beyond Earth: The Surreal Landscape and Ecosystem of Yellowstone

Let's start the first topic with a road trip that I took from western to central United States. Crossed the red rock area of Arizona and Utah, the Yellowstone National Park is located at the northwest corner of Wyoming.

It is the first national park in the world, established in 1872. At the same time one of the world's most spectacular national parks.

 

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

 

 

The landscape in the park was the result of a massive eruption of a super volcano 2 million years ago. It contains over ten thousands of geothermal sceneries, thus hot springs and geysers. Countless kinds of microbes are thriving in the hydrotherm that was gushed out of the cracked surface.

 

In the Grand Prismatic, which is the most visited scene spot of the park. Microbes gathered on the bottom under the hot water to form a colorful bacteria mat. These amazing little creatures are so called "Thermophiles" or "Thermophilic Bacterias". They are generally classified as a kind of Extremophile, which means that they prefer to or could only live in a extreme environment and could still maintain their bioactivity in those situations.

Thermophiles could withstand extreme high temperature which could probably makes the protein of other creatures denaturate and kills them.  For Extremophiles, they have their complete different ways to live and get energy. In a sense, they are not similar to most of the life forms on earth as we know until now.

 

There are more types of Extremophiles, such as:

Lithoautotrophs (use inorganic matter to produce energy)
Barophiles (prefer to live under high gravity enviroment)
Hypergravity Organisms (could live under over 15~400 thousand times normal gravity)
Toxitolerantes (prefer, withstand poison)
Radioresistants (withstand radiation over 500 Gy)
Hyperthermophiles (live under higher temperature than Thermophiles)
Psychrophiles,Cryophiles (live under low temperature, some Cryophiles withstand -20℃~ -200℃)
Polyextremophiles (live under various extreme environments)

By the way, they are not limited to microbes.

The existence of these unique extreme ecosystems provide a glance to the scientists into another world beyond our assumption. Are life and earth themselves different from what people used to imagine? Are alien worlds far away in other galaxies? Or they are just being together with us on this planet which we thought we were familiared with, but actually not.



Introduction

I am an international student from China. This blog "Worldwide Mystery" is going to be my homework over the following week.

What you are about to see in my posts, are solved and unsolved mysteries of our world and people's discovering of them. I may focus on those which are related to my major thus history, archaeology and mythology. By the way, for some of the terms add the original Chinese when I'm writing about China, and for those which I might haven't found the official translation I will put a * after them .

Mystery is the one thing that we can't help carrying on. People are conscious to aware the unawareness, to know that there is more unknow. Not every question has an answer, but the question is that is it actually about the answer? Perhaps the action of pursuing mystery itself is a paradox, an unsolvable mystery, remains forever.

 

Being conscious is a torment

The more we learn is the less we get

  Every answer contains a new quest  

A quest to non existence, a journey with no end

 

——Epica - Sensorium