Here is a Neolithic pottery plate, the inner wall of which is decorated with a snake-shaped dragon. The coiled dragon has a square head with its mouth open and tongue out.
Unearthed from the Taosi site in Xiangfen county, Shanxi province, in 1980, the plate’s dragon image is the earliest found in the Central Plain of China, and provides clues for research on the source of the dragon image. The Shanxi Museum holds the plate in its permanent collection.