In ancient east Asia, the turtle was mythologized as a cosmic entity, its shell the sky and its flat bottom earth (but the educated knew the earth is spherical), monuments of the turtle called Kame-ishi found all over Japan, and a stone sculpture of a turtle is part of the submerged Yonaguni complex off the Ryukyu islands, apparently named for the “glazed horn dragon” Ryuku mentioned in the chinese Book of Sui of 607 a. d., the dragon the yang in relation to the yin turtle. The ice age king Ryujin was said to have lived in the now underwater Palace of the Dragon, probably where is the submerged stone complex off Yonaguni, of the Ryuku island chain of southern Japan.
