Dilong. A living and breathing Chinese river dragon?
In the archives of Dr Cagliostros cabinet of curiosities we found a small wooden box containing curious objects from some of the most remote parts of western China and Central Asia.
The contents of the box reveal the beginning of an exciting and frightening story, a story so epic in scale that it continues to play out to this very day.
Our search for the history of the box began when we found in a draft for August Strindbergs article 'A speech to the Swedish nation, Explorers fraud', the following curious quote:
-Has Sven Hedin discovered any new countries?
-No!
-Why should the entire nation gather in docks and railroad stations every time he comes running?
-Question? There are people that, in an unthinkable way, take the cover of a reign of terror and with the help of a strong web of suspicious interests achieve an untouchable position. If one (dares) to measure the credibility of Hedin, one should read his own article in von Libenfels horrible publication Ostara (1909) with the ridiculous title “The descendants of Fafnir in Central Asia”.
August Strinberg A speech to the Swedish nation (Draft) 1910.
Strindbergs reference to the German occultist von Libenfels and his magazine Ostara are not included in the final version, but what was it that Strinberg found so offensive in Hedins article?
In the year 1900 Sven Hedin discovers the legendary lost city of Dandan Oilik buried deep in the shifting sand dunes of the deadly desert of Taklamakan. The Taklamakan desert or the Takla Makan is a vast desert in modern day south-west Mongolia and western China that the Arabs call The place of no return or The desert of death. In his article in Ostara Hedin claims to have found evidence that a strange creature that the Chinese calls Dilong, existed during the era of Dandan Oilik (7th and 8th Century)
The expedition through The Taklamakan desert nearly claims the life of Sven Hedin and he loses two guides and seven camels. Hedin never dares to return and Dandan Oilik once again disappears under the deadly dunes of Takla Makan.
The Dilong, or the Earth dragon is well known in Chinese mythology, but both the Swedish geographer Johan Gustaf Renat and his future wife Birgitta Scherzenfeldt, describes testimonies about creatures of this kind in western and north-western China, as late as the first part of the 18th century.
In Friedrich Christian Webers book Vraenderte Russland the vice governor of Peter the Great in Irkutsk, Lorentz Lange tells of how the local people in a small village in the modern day Chinese Song Ling district are tormented by a huge reptile river monster.
In modern times there are countless testimonies about the existence of a monstrous creature that the local people of northern China call Dilong. In our collection we have fragments of strange fossils, collected by Sven Hedins fourth Central Asian expedition in 1935.
We also have a box containing curious eggs that are thought to have been collected by the same expedition. The only clue to the origin of these eggs is a small hand writhen note with the word: Dilong.