Image and caption is from the Guardian Article: This cave in the Juukan Gorge, dubbed Juukan 2, was destroyed in a mining blast on Sunday. Consent was given through outdated Aboriginal heritage laws drafted in 1972. Photograph: The Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation.
DGoM was born when I heard about an Australian mining company blowing up an aboriginal cave that dated back to 46,000 years ago. You can read the article here.
I felt it was such a pity, and my mind immediately thought: “Ha. What if there had been a dragon egg in there? The only one in the whole world. Then they’d regret it!”
You can see how my brain works most days, lol.
Unfortunately there probably was no dragon egg in that cave, though there were plenty of artifacts. And I’m not sure if there were any paintings in there. But I’ve always found the idea of pre-historic people preserving things, or painting what they saw or thought of and imagined on cave walls kind of wondrous. They must have felt it was important enough to want to share it with future generations.
It’s really sad that some of us in the future don’t see it that way, or treasure the fact that it’s lasted for so long. Imagine how the first person who discovered it in modern times felt? Or at any time since it was drawn?
I imagine that it would have felt like an unexpected present, something special that would stay with them for the rest of their lives.
I’ve never made such a discovery. But I wanted to feel it, and I wanted to preserve the memory of that cave. So I put a dragon egg in it… and dreamed up the rest of the story.
And that’s how my Dragon Guardians of Magic series was born 🙂