THE DRAGON – A Chinese Lantern Festival – Tampa, Florida (#2 in a series)

“The highest-ranking animal in the Chinese animal hierarchy is the dragon. It is one of the four most revered animals throughout Chinese history. The modern dragon’s original ancestor can be found on Neolithic pottery as well as Bronze Age ritual vessels. By the Warring States Period and Han Dynasty, however, it had taken on its distinctive slender, scaled shape and had become associate with imperial authority.”
~ Chinese Art by Patricia Bjaaland Welch, p. 121.

“In ancient China, only the emperor could use the dragon on his clothes and in architecture to symbolize his imperial power and strength.”
~ Zoominations, Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo.