"But there are still greater surprises in store. During the Shang Dynasty, an era of great culture lasting roughly from 1500 to 1050 B. C., we repeatedly come across the image of Tao-Tie on sacrificial bowls. The same Tao-tie was also reproduced by the magnificent bronze-smiths of the Chou emperors, whose line survived for almost a thousand years until 249 B. C., when the last of the dynasty abdicated. The Tao-tie is the head of an unidentified beast whose origins lie far in the prehistoric past and may perhaps have stemmed from a vague memory of some ogre or long extinct man-eating monster. Astonishingly enough, where Tao-tie reappears as Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent. More than that, the mysterious animal is to be found not only in the Olmec civilization on the coast of the Mexican Gulf, but also in the Chavin civilization of ancient Peru, where it recurs unmistakably as a gold mask in the shape of a beast of prey."