(TFT) Protoceratops and the Legend of the Griffin?

["Cas and Lisa \(also Silvia, Max & Viveka\) Liber" <casliber@ozemail.com.au>]

Just read this in a book on the Horned Dinosaurs - fascinating
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The correct interpretation of fossils is a difficult human endeavor. To gaze
upon a fossil is not necessarily to comprehend its significance as a
biological entity. The reason that our European medieval forebears did not
have knowledge of the world of fossils was not because they were ignorant,
superstitious unfortunates cowed by the authority of the church. It was
because they had so little knowledge of the living world around them. Europe
is not particularly informative regarding the biological diversity of the
modern world, especially that of tropical regions or of marine realms.
Irnag- ine that the great eighteenth-century Swedish botanist Kari von
Linnee, who in his lifetime classified some ten thousand species of plants
and animals, believed that he was classifying all of the biological world
(variously estimated today to comprise between ten and forty million
species)!
Knowing these matters as 1 do, 1 have been terminally skeptical about
attempts to claim a transmission from fossils to folklore. But a novel idea
put forward by Dr. Adrienne Mayor has put my skepticism to the test. She has
analyzed the legend of the griffin or gryps, which first appears in Creek
writing about 675 B.c., around the tiine that the Greeks first made contact
with Scytliian nomads of Central Asia. The essential features of griffins
are sharp beaks, four legs, and prominent claws. They live in wilderness
areas and are said to guard deposits of gold. Aeschylus (460 i3.c.) called
them
'silent hounds with beaks.' Ctesias (ca. 400 B.c.) described them as .a race
of four-footed birds, almost as large as wolves, with legs and claws like
lions." Pliny the Elder (A.D. 77) noted the 'terrible hooked beak' and added
long ears (i.e., something sticking above and behind the face) and wings.
Although they are often pictured with wings, most accounts seem to agree
that griffins did not actually fly, although they may have taken to the air
with short hops during combat. Digging behavior is frequently described,
associated both with nesting and with gold mining.
What could be the basis in fact for such an animal? It is not associated in
myth with the exploits of any named heroes. No commentator ever claims to
have seen one alive. It is not an obvious hybrid of any known animals. Mayor
makes the startling case the griffin represents an attempt to interpret
Protoceratops skeletons observed in the ground by ancient traders whose
caravan  routes crossed the Gobi Desert or by gold miners crossing the Gobi
to reach the Altai Mountains (whose very name means gold). It is true that
skeletal remains of Protoceratops are very abundant. Their bones are white,
that is, obviously bone colored to the most casual observer. Furthermore, as
the sediments of the Djadochta Formation are bright red, the bones are
conspicuous in the ground. The size of the animals is true to legend, as is
the combination of beak, four  legs, and claws. The vagueness about wings or
ears could represent the obvious bafflement arising from attempts to
interpret the bony frill at the back of the skull. Even the large eye
sockets of Protoceratops are consistent with reports of baleful glaring eyes
that added a corroborating detail of ferocity to the legend (Mayor,
1991,1994). Although 1 stop short of giving Mayor's interpretation a whole-
hearted endorsement, 1 honestly cannot detect a major flaw that allows me to
dismiss it out of hand-it is something fascinating to ponder.
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