http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=2444
Did the Ancients Base Their Dinosaur Drawings on Fossils?
The
presence of antiquated dinosaur carvings, figurines, paintings, etc.
around the world leaves no doubt that the ancients knew what dinosaurs
looked like long before man began excavating dinosaur bones and
reconstructing their skeletons in modern times. Creationists believe
that the ancients’ illustrations of dinosaurs serve as one of the proofs
(along with the Bible and history; see
Lyons, 2001;
Lyons, 2007a;
Lyons,
2007b) that dinosaurs and humans previously cohabited Earth. Some have
suggested, however, that people living hundreds or thousands of years
ago may have simply drawn pictures of dinosaurs based upon fossils they
found in rocks. Similar to how modern man creates illustrations,
recreations, and CGI movies of dinosaurs based
upon the fossil record, ancient man supposedly did the same thing. Is
this conclusion reasonable in light of the available evidence?
There actually are several lines of reasoning against interpreting the
worldwide, antiquated dinosaur carvings as artwork made only from
dinosaur fossils. First, unlike dinosaur drawings made in the 21
st
century, the dinosaur petroglyphs (carvings), pictographs (paintings),
and figurines of antiquity are deeply embedded in a historical context
of men
living with dinosaur-like reptilian creatures
often called dragons (see Lyons, 2007a). If there were no stories or
references from history of men living and interacting with dinosaurs,
the ancient dinosaur artwork would be less impressive testimony for the
coexistence of dinosaurs and humans. If the setting of the world
thousands of years ago was like today (where men excavate dinosaur
bones, reconstruct them, and attempt to draw what they believe the
creatures once looked like), then certainly the ancient artwork would be
interpreted very differently. However, the historical context of
hundreds and thousands of years ago was
exactly the opposite of what it is today in reference to dinosaurs. History records how people all over the world told stories of
living with “dragons” (i.e., dinosaurs; see Lyons, 2007a).
The evidence [for dragons/dinosaurs—EL] is not
confined to works of natural history and literature but appears in
everyday chronicles of events.... And such eyewitness accounts are not
derived from hearsay or anonymous rumor; they were set down by people of
some standing, by kings and knights, monks and archbishops, scholars
and saints (Hogarth and Clery, 1979, pp. 13-14).
If this world continues for another 1,000 years, historians in A.D. 3000 should be able to distinguish between humans drawing pictures (or making movies) of dinosaurs in A.D.
2000 (which history would clearly indicate were based on fossil
reconstructions and not cohabitation with dinosaurs), and those who made
dinosaur art in A.D. 500 (and professed to live with dinosaurs).
Second, we know according to the Bible that only a few thousand years ago, man
lived with
one animal that had bones “like beams of bronze,” “ribs like bars of
iron” (Job 40:18), and that moved its tail “like a cedar” (40:17).
Another real dinosaur/dragon-like animal on Earth in Job’s day had
“terrible teeth” (41:14), a powerful neck (41:22), and could breathe
fire and smoke (41:18-21). What’s more, if God made “the heavens and the
earth, the sea, and all that is in them” during the six days of
Creation (Exodus 20:11), man obviously lived with dinosaurs, as well as
every other animal that has since become extinct. Thus, ancient dinosaur
artwork based on
living dinosaurs agrees with both history and the Bible.
Third, locating, excavating, reassembling, and illustrating dinosaur
fossils is an extremely painstaking, complex, time-consuming process. We
know of no evidence of the ancient people around the world excavating
dinosaur fossils, reconstructing their skeletons, and then drawing them
accurately, as scientists carefully attempt to do in the 21
st
century. Modern-day illustrations of dinosaurs are not done simply by
illustrators going to a fossil bed and drawing what they think the
dinosaur looked like. Most of the dinosaur bones discovered around the
world are not even articulated (aligned in the same arrangement as in
real life). According to James Powell, director of the Los Angeles
County Museum of Natural History, “in spite of the intense popular and
scientific interest in the dinosaurs and the well-publicized efforts of
generations of dinosaur hunters,
only about 2,100
articulated dinosaur bones” exist in museums around the world (1998, p.
xv, emp. added; see also Dodson, 1990, 87:7608; Lewin, 1990). Scientists
have spent billions of dollars over the past 150 years persistently
locating and excavating dinosaur fossils, and yet relatively few have
been found aligned as they were in life. Furthermore, considering that
almost half (45.3%) of all dinosaur genera are based on a
single
specimen, and 74% are represented by five specimens or less (Dodson,
87:7608), the suggestion that the ancients merely saw dinosaur fossils
and drew accurate pictures of these animals seems very unreasonable.
Furthermore, as previously stated, the historical context of ancient
times is
not of men
digging up dinosaur bones,
imagining what they looked like, and then carving them onto rock; it simply is of men carving what they saw in real life.
Fourth, ancient dinosaur artwork repeatedly is found surrounded by
real-life, extant animals. In the Ta Prohm temple near Siem Reap,
Cambodia, the
Stegosaurus carving is surrounded by animals
still alive today, including monkeys, parrots, swans, and water buffalo.
At Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah the
Apatosaurus-like
dinosaur is near a depiction of a human and a wild goat. At the
Havasupai Canyon in northern Arizona, the dinosaur-like artwork is on
the same wall with an elephant, a human, and an ibex. On Bishop Bell’s
tomb in Carlisle, England, long-neck dinosaurs are engraved next to a
bird, a pig, a fish, and a dog. The Ica stones of Peru have many other
animals besides dinosaurs on them. Contrast these contexts with how
modern dinosaur illustrations depict evolutionary, “scientifically
accurate” settings: they show so-called “pre-historic” creatures, and
not with humans, monkeys, giraffes, bears, or other large mammals, which
supposedly evolved millions of years after dinosaurs became extinct.
Once again, ancient dinosaur artwork is repeatedly found in a context of
coexistence with humans and extant animals.
Fifth, though scientists since the early to mid-1800s have been
excavating dinosaur fossils and attempting to reassemble what they think
the dinosaurs looked like, so often they have been wrong in their
recreations of these animals (see Potter, 2007). For example, Don Patton
noted:
When the bones of Iguanodon were discovered in the early 1800’s,
scientists had a very poor idea of their appearance in life. By the late 1800’s [nearly 70 years later—EL] the conception had improved considerably. Now
we know much more. For example, ossified tendons in the tail indicate
that the tail did not droop but stood out straight (n.d., emp. added).
Impressively, this scientifically accurate position is how the
Iguanodon-like dinosaur in the Acambaro figurine collection is positioned. Consider also how scientifically accurate the
sauropods
with dermal spines
were depicted in the Ica stone collection. Modern man was unaware that
some (many?) sauropod dinosaurs possessed dermal spines, even though
scientists had been studying the dinosaur fossils around the world for
more than 150 years. This characteristic of sauropods was not learned
from the fossil record until 1992. The ancient Peruvians had it right
long before 1992: are we to believe they carefully examined, excavated,
and reconstructed fossilized sauropod bones and skin—intricate
scientific recreations that history simply does not record the ancients
performing? Is it not more reasonable to conclude that man once lived
with the animals that they illustrated? Modern-day paleontologists have
the luxury of researching dinosaur data from all over the world and as
far back as the 1820s. Our present knowledge and illustrations of
dinosaurs come from their composite research. The ancients had no such
comparable science, yet they still depicted dinosaurs accurately. The
only logical conclusion is that the ancients actually saw living
dinosaurs.
Sixth, although some have supposed that the ancients
may
have based their illustrations of dinosaurs on the fossil record, even
various skeptics have alluded to the improbability of dinosaur art from
countries like Peru, Mexico, and England being based on fossils.
Evolutionist Adrienne Mayor addressed the figurines from Acambaro, and
asked: “Could the reptile figures from Acambaro be amazingly accurate
ancient restorations based on observations of dinosaur fossils?” Her
answer: “Unlikely: the fossils in the state of Guanajuato belong to
Pleistocene mastodons and horses, and not to Mesozoic dinosaurs of
250-65 million years ago” (2005, p. 337). And what about the dinosaurs
engraved on the stones from Ica? Could they be based on fossils from
around that area? Mayor concluded: “No: the fossil remains of that area
are of Oligocene to Pleistocene mammals, with no Cretaceous dinosaur
remains” (p. 339). What about the long-neck dinosaur engraved on Bishop
Bell’s tomb around A.D. 1500, that even some
critics admit looks “more like a quadrupedal dinosaur than any other
sort of animal, past or present” (“Bishop Bell’s...,” 2007)? Do skeptics
believe Englishmen excavated a long-neck, long-tail dinosaur in the 15
th
century, without leaving behind any trace or record of their
paleontological work, and then had an artist engrave the animal onto
Bishop Bell’s tomb? Although skeptics have noted that “[t]his
hypothesis...is at least possible,” they admit that it is “whimsical”
(“Bishop Bell’s...,” 2007). Whimsical indeed! Statements like these
really just show that more people, even evolutionists, are conceding
that the ancients knew what dinosaurs looked like.
Seventh, although history does not record the ancients meticulously
excavating and reconstructing dinosaur bones, and then accurately
drawing how these creatures looked in real life, there are hints
throughout history of how prior to modern times people
misinterpreted
fossils. For example, Dr. Donald DeYoung noted that “in 1677 a large
bone was found in England. It was initially attributed to the giant
humans described in Genesis 6:4. However, surviving drawings of this
bone look similar to a dinosaur femur” (2000, p. 39). Moreover, it has
long been thought that the Cyclops legend originated from the Greeks’
discovery of a young, dwarf mammoth skull, which has a nasal cavity in
the middle of the skull that the ancients may have mistaken for the
creature’s eye socket (cf. “Meet the Original...,” n.d.). No one argues
about the ancients’
misinterpretation of various bones
and fossils. We simply are curious: where are all of the examples of
them accurately finding, identifying, excavating, and reconstructing
dinosaur fossils?
Finally, unlike today, when scientists and scientific illustrators
often recreate the skeletons of dinosaurs based on the fossil record,
the ancients depicted the actual
bodies of these
creatures. If the ancients’ knowledge of dinosaurs came from the fossil
record, we would expect that they, at least occasionally, would have
drawn dinosaur
skeletons. Instead, we find example after example of dinosaurs as they would be seen
in real life—exactly what one would expect to find if the ancients really lived with dinosaurs.
CONCLUSION
The case for the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans is cumulative. As
creationists, we admittedly and unashamedly believe that the coexistence
of dinosaurs and humans is based upon what God’s Word teaches about the
creation of man and animals (Genesis 1-2; Exodus 20:11). However, the
coexistence of dinosaurs and humans is also supported by history (in the
form of ubiquitous, antiquated dinosaur stories; see Lyons, 2007a) and
physical evidence (in the form of dinosaur artwork that ancients in
various countries around the world produced centuries ago). Truly, if
man once lived with dinosaurs, such artwork, stories, and biblical
testimony would be expected.
REFERENCES
“Bishop Bell’s Dinosaurs” (2007),
Skepticwiki, June, [On-line], URL: http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Bishop_Bell’s_Dinosaurs.
DeYoung, Donald (2000),
Dinosaurs and Creation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
Dodson, Peter (1990), “Counting Dinosaurs: How Many Kinds Were There?”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 87:7608-7612, October.
Hogarth, Peter and Val Clery (1979),
Dragons (New York: Viking Press).
Lewin, Roger (1990), “Science: Dinosaur Count Reveals Surprisingly Few Species,”
New Scientist Archive, 128[1745], December, [On-line], URL: http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=1&id=mg 12817452.700.
Lyons, Eric (2001),
“Behemoth and Leviathan—Creatures of Controversy,” Reason & Revelation, 21[1]:1-7, January.
Lyons, Eric (2007a),
“Historical Support for the Coexistence of Dinosaurs and Humans—Part I & II,” Reason & Revelation, 27[9-10]:65-71,73-79, September-October.
Lyons, Eric (2007b), “Why Are Dinosaurs Not Mentioned in the Bible?” [On-line], URL:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3350.
Mayor, Adrienne (2005),
Fossil Legends of the First Americans (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
“Meet the Original Cyclops” (no date),
The Classics Pages: Homer’s Odyssey, [On-line], URL: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/cyclops02.htm.
Patton, Don (no date), “The Photogallery of the Dinosaur Figurines of Acambaro, Mexico,” [On-line], URL: http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks-acambaro-dinos.htm.
Potter, Ned (2007), “Rediscovering the Dinosaurs,” [On-line], URL: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3027863&page=1.
Powell, James (1998),
Night Comes to the Cretaceous (New York: Harcourt Brace).
Jesus
was undoubtedly the Master Logician. He demonstrated unsurpassed
logical prowess on every occasion. One such incident occurred when He
was preaching to a group that had gathered in a house. So many people
were crammed into the house that four men were unable to bring a
paralytic into contact with Him, so they carried him onto the roof,
punched a hole through the ceiling, and lowered him down through the
hole into the presence of Jesus. The text then reads:
[EDITOR’S NOTE: We receive many questions at A.P. from inquirers all over the world. We are devoting this issue of R&R to a few of these questions that we think may be of interest to a wider audience.]
