Different mythical creatures have accompanied human beings throughout their history that seem to refuse to abandon the collective imagination and strangely many of them are almost as old as humans themselves. Although many believe that the origin of dragons is limited to the Middle Ages, the truth is that they have appeared in different forms throughout the planet for a long time, this is the origin of dragons.
Many creatures appear in historical accounts and we must be careful because there is a fine line between considering them real beings belonging to a natural taxonomy or confining them to the world of cryptids. The truth is that the existence of many of these mythological beings is not proven in the slightest despite the fact that the stories persist.
In modern times we have endless examples such as the Loch Ness monster or the legend of the mermaids, but in ancient times other, much more epic creatures emerged. The dragon is one of them, it has been positioned as an icon of strength and power since time immemorial and although the word itself in English appeared for the first time in the 13th century, well into the Middle Ages, references to beings of this type have appeared even before the common era.
From China to the Mayans
“In the world of fantastic animals, the dragon is unique. No other imaginary creature has appeared in such a rich variety of forms,” notes zoologist Desmond Morris in the prologue to ‘Dragons. An Illustrated History’ (1995), work by Karl Shuker.
The dragon stands out for positioning itself as universal, as a constant that appears again and again from ancient times to Egypt and through the traditional Mesopotamian peoples. Of course, as Desmond Morris points out, in each region it has appeared with a specific morphology, although references to the dragon are unavoidable.
But perhaps the hegemonic idea of dragons comes mainly from two conceptions. The first is the ancient Chinese thought that conceives the figure of the snake with four legs, controlling the forces of good luck, as the representation of power in its own flesh. In addition, it also takes elements from the European conception, mainly from the West, which sees these large reptiles as four-legged, winged and malevolent beings that expel fire from their large snout.
The oldest draconian representation that has been found are amulets carved in jade that belonged to the Hongshan culture that lived in Ancient China between 6,700 and 4,900 years ago. Serpent-shaped, they largely resemble the original Mediterranean ones. But it was not until classical Greece that the first words referring to impetuous dragons were found. Etymologically the word ‘dragon’ comes from the ancient Greek ‘δράκων’ (drakón) which literally translates as ‘viper’. It is known that drakon comes from the verb ‘δέρκομαι’ (dérkomai) which means ‘to stare’. Therefore, dragons would have to be reptilian creatures, mainly staring snakes.
But the Chinese and Greeks weren’t the only ones who wrote about powerful reptiles, the Egyptians did too. The clearest Egyptian reference comes intrinsically with the concept of day and night, since they worshiped the god (or Apep) who had declared war on Ra (god of the Sun). Every night Apophis, whose form was a gigantic snake, pursued Ra to death and was the way in which they conceived the cycle of light and darkness.
The Mayans and Aztecs are not far behind, their main gods Kukulkan and Quetzalcoatl are in the form of a feathered serpent and both are related to the very creation of the universe from the worldview of their cultures. The feathered serpent is the very effigy of the majestic dragon whose figure is so different and so universal at the same time.
Ancient traditions that include the veneration of dragons of different kinds are intriguing and although it has been theorized that it could be thanks to the discovery of dinosaur fossils by our ancestors, there is no evidence to support this.
Strangely all records of beliefs about finding dragon corpses are related to mammal skeletons. For example, the so-called European Dragon Caverns, which received their name due to the discovery of supposed dragon skeletons, but which were later proven to be cave bears.