Griffin bones emerge out of the rock
Aelian, a natural philosopher in the 3rd century AD, gives a wonderfully naturalistic description of the Griffin in his encyclopedia of animals, De Natura Animalium: ‘Men commonly report that it is winged and that the feathers along its back are black, and those on its front are red, while the actual wings are neither but are white. And Ctesias records that its neck is variegated with feathers of a dark blue; that it has a beak like an eagle’s, and a head too, just as artists portray it in pictures and sculpture. Its eyes, he says, are like fire. It builds its lair among the mountains, and although it is not possible to capture a full-grown animal, they do take the young ones.‘ [ref] Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals, translated A. F. Scholfield Loeb Classical Library [/ref] Close to a millennium later, Adrienne Mayor in her book, The First Fossil Hunters [ref] Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton University Press 2000) revised 2011 with new introduction. [/ref] presents an intriguing theory that it was actually people coming across the fossilized bones of protoceratops in the mountains of central Asia, that gave rise… Continue reading