30-year-old myth linking griffin legends to dinosaur bones debunked

Fossils have long inspired stories to be born, which is understandable, according to Dr Mark Witton and Richard Hing, paleontologists at the University of Portsmouth.

A recent study puts a royal end to any scientifically viable suggestion that the griffin actually originated from a dinosaur. However, there’s really nothing new about that kind of projection.

From “snakestones” in British culture, shark’s teeth being interpreted as snake tongues, to winged spirited brachiopods in China in the shape of a shell, fossils stimulate the mind to paint pictures and draw connections. Though some of these links may have an anchor in reality, the study authors say. But the griffin? No.

“An evaluation of the Protoceratops –griffin link, however, finds it uncompelling.”

“Some of the most famous links,” study authors write, “between fossils and myth have a more inferential and speculative basis: connections between extinct species and legendary creatures hypothesized through details of geography, history and anatomical similarity.”

This makes the griffin a geomyth , a fascinating field that postulates that fossils inspired some of our most beloved, imaginative creatures.

How the modern Griffin myth began

In the 1990s, Adrienne Mayor, a classical folklorist, claimed that Protoceratops fossils, a Mongolian horned dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period, inspired the griffin, an ancient Afro-Eurasian bird-lion chimera.

Mayor is one of geomythology’s most famous figures who drew many connections between the folklore of pre-scientific cultures and fossils. Meaning, they found them. Her work on the griffin turned out to be her most significant contribution to this area of interest.

“More than that of any other modern scholar,” the study authors admit, “focused academic and public attention on the links between geology and myth.”

It makes sense: wanting to find contextual evidence for these myths.

This idea gained Mayor notoriety, respect, and even mainstream attention. Her theories based on geology were taken as fact, in other words. However, in taking a closer look, these paleontologists stated that “the very linking of a dinosaur with ancient mythology is unusual as few compelling, materially-evidenced examples of Mesozoic reptiles informing folklore are known.”

The griffin has been around for a long time, but did fossils inspire it?

The griffin, as a mythological creature, predates Adrienne Major. Though they didn’t carry that name across the cultures in which they appear, these half-bird-lion creatures are some of the oldest beasts that exist, already present in Asian and Mediterranean iconography by the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. Where the idea came from and what the symbol even meant remains mysterious, but due to their widespread appeal, even of hybrid creatures, it would perhaps imply that they weren’t merely decorative. Stylistic differences seem to imply “unique origins, genealogies, and societal significance.”

To suggest that fossils might have inspired these creatures isn’t necessarily an outlandish idea as literature suggests that ancient civilizations have. But is that true in the case of the griffin? That’s their question.

Already, paleontologists found Mayor’s work wrought with confusing passages that even contradicted one another. In short, she developed a body of work around transmitting these tales from Protoceratops fossils. Gold traders from Asia carried them west to Ancient Greece.

In looking at the site of Protoceratops fossils , however, they are just a touch too far from the gold mines to be convincing, according to study authors. But then, news and stories travel fast. That aside, in any case, this might be an argument of semantics.

“ Protoceratops as inspiration for griffins, but her arguments only explain how dinosaur fossils may have influenced griffin development.”

Did dinosaur fossils inspire or influence the griffin? We don’t know

In analyzing her source texts, paleontologists acquiesce that “some details of griffin natural history and Protoceratops fossils are similar, but these accounts do not persuasively link the two entities.” Furthermore, they state that even Mayor’s attempts to draw anatomical similarities between the Protoceratops and griffins is unconvincing. Then, what her claims imply is that these groups had to have found the fossils.

“There is an assumption that dinosaur skeletons are discovered half-exposed, lying around almost like the remains of recently-deceased animals,” said Dr Witton in a press release . “But generally speaking, just a fraction of an eroding dinosaur skeleton will be visible to the naked eye, unnoticed to all except for sharp-eyed fossil hunters.”

So it doesn’t seem likely to them that these fossils had been uncovered just yet. There isn’t enough evidence after combing through the body of her work to state her theories as fact. And in the age of the internet, where information circulates in the blink of an eye, one has to remind oneself that discrepancies and inventions exist and can spread into the realm of fact — thus, scientifically, they can’t draw any firm, indisputable assertions.

“There is nothing inherently implausible with the idea that ancient peoples found dinosaur bones and incorporated them into mythology, be that of the griffin or any other folkloric creature, but such examples must be rooted in realities of history, geography and paleontology if they are to rise above the level of mere possibility.”

The study, “Did the Horned Dinosaur Protoceratops Inspire the Griffin?” was published in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews .