Dunhuang murals reveal how the ancients synchronized swimming.

August 23rd is the summer heat in the twenty-four solar terms of the China lunar calendar. Dunhuang Research Institute analyzed the summer heat on the murals of that day: swimming is the most enjoyable thing.

In the picture of the southeast corner of the top back of Cave 257 in the Northern Wei Dynasty in Mogao Grottoes, "Playing four lotus pond boys and playing games" depicts the scene of swimming and frolicking in the lotus pond.

Dunhuang Research Institute explained that folk swimming technology was quite mature at this time, especially in the south, swimming is no longer a rare skill, but one of the daily entertainment projects of human beings. Especially for hydrophilic children, it is right to jump into the water and have a good time in summer. Ancient painters left pictures of them swimming and playing in the water in murals.

From the murals, we can find that during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, swimming styles were enriched, and backstroke, snorkeling and even freestyle appeared in the murals one after another. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, swimming techniques had almost achieved "full coverage". People who are particularly good at swimming like to play some dazzling water shows and earn a good voice.

An article published by Dunhuang Research Institute pointed out that in prehistoric society, human activities were very simple, mainly around two major themes-begging for food and attacking and defending. The earliest appearance of swimming is closely related to these two themes.

The earliest stroke, breaststroke, not only answered the question "Who learned to swim first", but also expressed the "water worship" and "frog worship" of our ancestors during the pantheism period. A large number of Neolithic painted pottery pots in Majiayao with water ripples and frog patterns unearthed in Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia are evidence.

In fact, we ancients were really smart, and many technologies were more advanced than now.

The above content source: China News Network