The First Fossil Hunters

Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Archaeology, History, Ancient History
Cover of the book The First Fossil Hunters by Adrienne Mayor, Princeton University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Adrienne Mayor ISBN: 9781400838448
Publisher: Princeton University Press Publication: March 7, 2011
Imprint: Princeton University Press Language: English
Author: Adrienne Mayor
ISBN: 9781400838448
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication: March 7, 2011
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Language: English

Griffins, Cyclopes, Monsters, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.

Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Griffins, Cyclopes, Monsters, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.

Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology.

More books from Princeton University Press

Cover of the book The Silicon Jungle by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book The Long Divergence by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Whatever Gets You through the Night by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Cross and Scepter by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book The Origins of the Urban Crisis by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Where Are the Women Architects? by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book The Theory of Taxation and Public Economics by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Money Talks by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Racism by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Arendt and Heidegger by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book Hasidism and Modern Man by Adrienne Mayor
Cover of the book The Fascinating World of Graph Theory by Adrienne Mayor
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy