Читать книгу Dragons of the Air: An Account of Extinct Flying Reptiles - H. G. Seeley - Страница 14

FIG. 3 From The Battle between Bel and the Dragon

The effigy of the dragon survives to the present day in the figure over which St. George triumphs, on the reverse of the British sovereign. In the luxuriant imaginations of ancient Eastern peoples, dating back to prehistoric ages, perhaps 5000 B.C., the dragons present an astonishing constancy of form. In after-times they underwent a curious evolution, as the conception of Babylon and Egypt is traced through Assyria to Greece. The Wings, which had been associated at first with the fore limb of the typical dragon, become characteristic of the Lion, and of the poet's winged Horse, and finally of the Human figure itself, carved on the great columns of the Greek temples of Ephesus. These flying animals are historically descendants of the same common stock with the dragons of China and Japan, which still preserve the aspect of reptiles. Their interest is chiefly in evidence of a latent spirit of evolution in days too remote for its meaning to be now understood, which has carried the winged forms higher and ever higher in grade of organisation, till their wings ceased to be associated with feelings of terror. The Hebrew cherubim are regarded by H. E. Ryle, Bishop of Exeter, as probably Dragons, and the figure of the conventional angel is the human form of the Dragon.

FIG. 4. FIGURE FROM THE TEMPLE OF EPHESUS