[SunkenCiv]

The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times by Adrienne Mayor foreword by Peter Dodson

[SunkenCiv]

the book is related to the article.

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[SunkenCiv]

The Histories (Book II)
by Herodotus
tr by G Rawlinson

"I went once to a certain place in Arabia, almost exactly opposite the city of Buto, to make inquiries concerning the winged serpents. On my arrival I saw the back-bones and ribs of serpents in such numbers as it is impossible to describe: of the ribs there were a multitude of heaps, some great, some small, some middle-sized. The place where the bones lie is at the entrance of a narrow gorge between steep mountains, which there open upon a spacious plain communicating with the great plain of Egypt. The story goes that with the spring the winged snakes come flying from Arabia towards Egypt, but are met in this gorge by the birds called ibises, who forbid their entrance and destroy them all. The Arabians assert, and the Egyptians also admit, that it is on account of the service thus rendered that the Egyptians hold the ibis in so much reverence."

In the Selincourt translation, the note for this passage is that it is unknown what Herodotus describes.

[Junior]

I don't think this theory is new. I remember hearing of this in high school more than 20 years ago.

[ValerieUSA]

That looks like a really interesting book, Civ.
I hadn't heard the theory before. Never thought much about cyclops, but now I have new nightmare material.

[Little Ray]

I read somewhere that the Cyclops myth referred to a tribe that tatooed a circle on every member's forehead.
Later (19th century) fossil hunters thought that they had found Cyclops skulls when they discovered ancient mammoth bones.

[Fintan]

 

Cool.

[blam]

The Mediterranean was completely dry 5 million years ago. It's been wet ever since, but, almost drying out at least 40 times since.

[Phsstpok]

This isn't a new theory. In fact, there are apparently instances of "cyclops skulls" from the middle ages being correctly identified as elephant or mastadon skulls.

Here's a picture of one. You can easily see how the idea got started.

[SunkenCiv]

Just updating the GGG information, not sending a general distribution.

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Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

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