No one knows exactly when the idea that a Chinese emperor was a "real dragon" — a man mandated by Heaven to rule — started to take hold. However, Zhao Feng, a former director of the China National Silk Museum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, says dragon robes as we know them today have probably existed since the time of the powerful Tang empire (618-907), whose territories extended all the way westward to present-day Afghanistan.

"No contemporaneous images have been found of a dragon robedonning Tang emperor," Zhao says. "However, we do have a mural from the Mogao Caves showing a Uygur ruler who lived in the late 10th century, in the decades after Tang's demise, wearing a dress decorated with the iconic dragon roundel pattern."

Sitting on the ancient Silk Road in what is now the city of Dunhuang, Gansu province, the world-renowned caves Zhao refers to stood witness to the frequent cultural exchanges along the route.

The oldest archaeological artifact of the dragon robe, Zhao says, belonged to a ruler of the Liao Dynasty (916-1125) of North China, founded by a clan of the ethnic minority Khitan people. The Khitan rulers, while pushing their borders against their neighbor, the ethnic majority Han people-dominated Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), were more than eager to take a few pages from their rival's cultural books.

This was before the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) codified, for the first time, the use of dragon robes as the official court dress. The same people also put carved jade dragons on the top of their headdresses.

"Such was the symbolic significance of the dragon that it cut through various cultural divides to be embraced by all who considered themselves legitimate rulers on the Chinese land," Zhao says.

In the meantime, the creature never stopped reinventing itself. The gilt bronze dragons of the Tang Dynasty are infused with a fierce dynamism reflective of the verve and vigor of Tang society. Their counterparts in the ensuing Song Dynasty (960-1279), during which a literati culture flourished, are equally imposing, but in a more dignified, stately way.