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Griffins once carried the sun god across the sky, watched over golden treasures, and even guarded the mighty Zeus with their sharp beaks. Griffin myths are widespread among many ancient civilizations and live on in popular culture to this day.
The prevalence of these monstrous-beaked hybrids across cultures has led some researchers to believe the inspiration for these fantastical beasts is real, with their mythical origins found in fossilized dinosaur bones found in Asia.
Two researchers from the University of Portsmouth have put forward an argument arguing that the origin story of dinosaurs and griffins is itself a myth.
“Not all mythical creatures need a fossil explanation,” says paleontologist Mark Whitton.
“Giving dinosaurs a role in griffin lore, especially species from distant lands such as Protoceratops, not only introduces unnecessary complexity and contradictions into the origins of the dinosaurs, but also makes them dependent on interpretations and proposals that do not stand up to scrutiny.”
Ancient Greek and Roman writers told of Central Asian tales of a beast with the head and forelimbs of a bird of prey and the body of a lion. These stories spread along international trade routes, leading classical folklorist Adrian Mayo to suggest about 30 years ago that the beast may have been imagined by Scythian gold miners who stumbled upon a Protoceratops-like beaked dinosaur. This has since become the prevailing theory for the origins of the griffin myth.
After re-evaluating the fossil record, Whitton and his colleague Richard Hing found several inconsistencies in this idea.
Griffins were considered patron deities in ancient Greece and were often believed to guard caches of gold, leading to their association with gold miners.
There’s just one problem: Protoceratops fossils have never actually been found near gold.
“We expect dinosaur skeletons to be found semi-exposed, lying around like the remains of freshly-dead animals,” Whitton explains, “but typically only small portions of eroded dinosaur skeletons are visible to the naked eye, and go unnoticed by all but the most eagle-eyed fossil hunters.”
Moreover, griffin mythology exists in the Mediterranean, depicted on Mycenaean vases from at least the 12th century BC, hundreds of years before news of dinosaurs reached the region.
Whitton and Hing also point out that dinosaurs such as Protoceratops only resembled griffins in that they had four limbs and a beak.
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea that ancient people discovered dinosaur bones and incorporated them into their mythology,” Hing explains.
“But these proposals must be rooted in historical, geographical and paleontological realities; otherwise they are merely speculation.”
There are also examples of geomyths based on fragments of truth, such as the story of the magical stone swallow. It has healing powers and flies around freely during thunderstorms. probably Shellfish fossils From the Devonian of China Shaped like a bird with its wings spread.
Later in history, fossil remains were also linked to the griffin: in the Middle Ages, hoofed horns and the claws of an extinct rhinoceros were identified as the mythical beast, but this was centuries after the griffin myth was established.
The outline carved into clay on a Mesopotamian carved seal, found in what is now Iran, is the oldest known depiction of a griffin, dating back to 3000 BC.
“Everything about the griffin’s origin is consistent with the traditional interpretation that it is a mythical beast, and its appearance is perfectly explained by it being a chimera between a big cat and a bird of prey,” Whitton concludes.
Sometimes, even if shared across time and cultures, a fantasy is just that: a fantasy.
This study Interdisciplinary Science Review.
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