Re: Re: Significant dates in dino history

[jrw6f@virginia.edu]

George Olshevsky wrote:

>Not bad, but the Chinese have the Romans beat by a country mile. Dinosaur
>bones are recorded in Chinese medical texts as old as 16th century BC. If
>anyone can provide specifics--such as a title and date for the oldest such
>citation--I'd be interested in hearing about it.
>
>I don't have the paper handy, but a historian recently suggested that
>_Protoceratops_ skulls weathering out of the cliffs along the Silk Road may
>have been responsible for the physical appearance of the gryphon in
>Babylonian mythology and iconography.

        Facinating.  However, in partial defence of the west (and I realize
that this isn't a published record), there is evidence from sunken Greek
and Phoenician (?) galleys that the Greeks not only knew about dinosaurs
and other extinct critters, but actually mounted them in temples.  As in,
didn't grind them up for medicine (not that I don't like China, but
grinding them up gives me the willies).
        Wagner