Chengdu lantern festival features bizarre beings

A lantern at the festival takes the form of a mythical beast combining elements of both bird and tortoise. [Photo/Huang Zhiling]

Primary school student Zhang Jimin showed an intense interest in a large and rather bizarre lantern featuring a snake wrapped round a dragon with the shell of a tortoise — all brightly colored and illuminated from within.

He was just one of many enthralled visitors on Jan 28 to this year's lantern festival, held in the grounds of the Jinsha Site Museum in the western suburbs of Chengdu, Sichuan province.

"I have been to many lantern shows. This one is quite innovative, because it has lots of fantastic animals, such as a tortoise with the head of a bird and a dragon with a snail on its back," said the 12-year-old from Chengdu.

The 19-day festival, which started on Jan 28, takes its inspiration in part from the range of mythical creatures found represented on archeological discoveries unearthed at the site of the museum over the last decade, including the mysterious golden "Sun Birds", said deputy curator Zhu Zhangyi.

On Feb 8, 2001, builders were working at an apartment construction site in Jinsha village, which is the present location of the Jinsha Site Museum. Suddenly, among the mud they found objects of jade and ivory, and construction work was halted pending further exploration.

Since then, archaeologists have excavated more than 5,000 precious relics, including objects of gold, jade, bronze and stone, as well as 1 metric ton of whole elephant tusks and tens of thousands of pottery and ceramic pieces.

The most important relic discovered is the circular Sun Bird object, made of gold foil, featuring four birds flying around the sun. The object, believed to be about 3,000 years old, has been chosen as the symbol of China Cultural Heritage by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

In addition to strange animals, the festival in Jinsha features lanterns in the form of horses, marking 2014 as the Year of the Horse in the lunar Chinese calendar. There are also displays honoring Korean culture and examples of food from various countries.