Text, The Messenger Bird of Heaven

Solar disc on the messenger bird of heaven on a bi disc, National Palace Museum. The Messenger Bird of Heaven. The Liangzhu people, perhaps influenced by their ecological surroundings, believed in light and quick birds such as swallows or turtledoves. The bi disc exhibited here is very lightly engraved with a sign of bird on the altar, symbolic of the messenger bird sent by the Supreme Ruler of Heaven and perching high on a tall post. The altar below is also marked with a mythical bird, wearing a crown, wings wide spread. Inside the circle indicative of the sun are lozenge-shaped patterns, the secret codes between the Liangzhu residents and the Supreme Being above. Microscopic observation reveals that the lines are intermittent and extremely shallow. The back of the messenger bird is incomplete, as a circle of the disc rim has been sheared off. The dotted line gives what it might have looked originally.