Existing attempts to give an archetype a form of a particular animal or plant seem quite simplified. Homo sapiens already proved by the fact of his survival that he has universal characteristics. This means that a human has the ability to contain characteristics of all bio-forms of nature, comprehend them and successfully survive by using them.
It would be more logical to suppose that archetypes, by which natural human programs are recorded, should be complexed, multi-functional, more universal, and not simplified to a specific archetype of a natural element, whether an animal, a plant, a mineral or some natural phenomenon such as a storm, drought, flood, dawn, etc. And, this supposition was made by Andrey Davydov, the author of scientific discovery of the Catalog of human population.
In the 山海經 Shan Hai Jing (Catalog of Mountains and Seas) manuscript, as Andrey Davydov found, chimeric structures are widely used for recording of human “software.” From this, an assumption can be made that creators of humanity got involved in connecting unconnectable things in order to make representatives of this biological type more powerful and mighty than animals, and, as a result of this—amazing creatures that are recorded in 山海經 (Shan Hai Jing) came into being. Natural magnitudes turned into chimeras.
However, with all the fantasticality of described depictions of fauna and flora described in 山海經 (Shan Hai Jing), they are not unique. Almost all cultures preserved zoomorphic beings and unusually existing flora. Painting, sculpture, written records, utensils, and so on—everything has traces of chimerical joining. For example, in 1880 in peatlands of Denmark there was found a vessel similar to a boiler. It dates back to I century BC. It is decorated inside and out with a multitude of amazing depictions of human-like beings and amazing animals. Also, one of the strangest animals, of Celtic origin, is a snake with а ram’s head. It is impossible to attribute it neither to gods, nor to people or to anything at all. Chimeras of such kind, as if were taken from a single source and spread over all continents of the world.
As it is known, a chimera is an object that combines parts of different living beings. A well-known example of a chimera is the ancient Egyptian Sphinx.
Sphinx is portrayed differently. For example, in the ancient Egyptian art it is an animal with a body of a lion and a head of a human (less often of a falcon or a ram)—for example, the Sphinx of Hatshepsut (New Kingdom, XV century BC). In the ancient Greek mythology, it is a creature with a woman’s head, paws and body of a lion, wings of an eagle and a bull’s tail. However, in any case, it is “a composite creature”—that is, a totality of different parts of real animals. The same principle—chimerical—is observed in the case of psychical arrangement of Homo sapiens, recorded in the ancient source 山海經 (Catalog of Mountains and Seas), which turned out to be the Catalog of human population. However, not only zoomorphic or anthropo-zoomorphic chimeras are found in this ancient manuscript, but also plants-chimeras, etc.
Principled approach in use of chimeras prompted researcher-sinologist Andrey Davydov to think about the possibility of considering functional psychophysiological diapason of a human through chimerical images. And, as he found out, connections of parts of different animals or plants into one, these fantastic chimeras from 山海經 (Catalog of Mountains and Seas), in essence, are nothing other than formulas; formulas, as the totality of qualities, properties, and functions implanted by nature in representatives of different subtypes of Homo sapiens.
These formulas are universal in perception and indestructible in time. Images-chimeras from 山海經 (Shan Hai Jing), the book, which turned out to be the Catalog of human population, are “formulas of the soul” for subsequent multi-functional actions of a human in ever-changing environment. And, this is the answer to the so-called “great riddle of the Sphinx.”