Cultural depictions of dinosaurs
Depictions of dinosaurs in media since 1842.
Last updated
Mayor draws connections to Protoceratops and Psittacosaur fossils sharing features with griffins: sharp beaks, four legs, claws, and neck frills.[1] Adrienne Mayor, a scholar of classical folklore, has argued that the griffin legends found in Greek and Roman texts and art from the 7th century BC to the 3rd century AD were shaped by travelers' accounts of fossilized beaked dinosaur skeletons from the Turpan and Junggar basins and Gobi Desert.[1]
Quick Facts
- Field
- Paleontology in popular culture
- Known for
- Translating scientific discoveries to the public; creating and reinforcing misconceptions about dinosaurs
Facts from the source article.
Biology and range
England in the 1820s is where the scientific investigation of dinosaurs got underway.[2] Owen was instrumental in creating the Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures, which debuted in 1854 as the first major public dinosaur reconstructions.[2] Those sculptures, still on view today, captured an early phase in how dinosaurs were understood.[2] The Crystal Palace sculptures proved so popular that Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, working with Owen, sold model copies and planned a second exhibit called the Paleozoic Museum for Central Park in Manhattan during the late 1860s, though local politics and "Boss" William Marcy Tweed prevented its completion.[3]
Around the same time, dinosaurs entered popular literature when Charles Dickens's Bleak House (1852–1853) briefly mentioned an Owen-style Megalosaurus.[4] Knight collaborated extensively with the American Museum of Natural History and its director Henry Fairfield Osborn, who aimed to use prehistoric animals to promote his museum and evolutionary ideas.[5]
What the specialist sources record
Witton states that Protoceratops fossils are found hundreds of kilometres from ancient Scythian gold mines.[6]
References
- Wikipedia, "Cultural depictions of dinosaurs" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mayor, "The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times", Princeton University Press, 2000; Dodson, "The Horned Dinosaurs", Princeton University Press, 1996, p. 225–226; Witton, Mark, "Why Protoceratops Almost Certainly Wasn't The Inspiration For Griffin Legend"; Tartaron, T. F. (2014). Cross-Cultural Interaction in the Greek World: Culture Contact Issues and Theories. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (pp. 1804–1821; Wyatt, N. (2009). Grasping the Griffin: Identifying and Characterizing the Griffin en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Cultural depictions of dinosaurs" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Torrens, Hugh. "Politics and Paleontology". The Complete Dinosaur, 175–190. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Cultural depictions of dinosaurs" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Glut, "The Complete Dinosaur", Indiana University Press, 1997, p. 675–706; Colbert, "The Palaeozoic Museum in Central Park, or the Museum that Never Was", Curator, 1959, p. 137–150 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Cultural depictions of dinosaurs" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Cultural depictions of dinosaurs" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Paul, "The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs", St. Martin's Press, 2000, p. 113–118; Padian, "An Agenda for Antiquity: Henry Fairfield Osborn and Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, 1890–1935 and Henry Fairfield Osborn: Race and the search for the origins of man", Journal o (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Witton, Mark, "Why Protoceratops Almost Certainly Wasn't The Inspiration For Griffin Legend". facts only, no text reused. markwitton-com.blogspot.pt
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Cultural depictions of dinosaurs (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Dinosaurs in popular culture
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Cultural depictions of dinosaurs (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the , each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced