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Many
unusual and different animals have been described, glamorized and romanticized
down through history, but dragons would probably come out on top as far
as popularity and recognition go. Additionally, most areas of the world
have dragon stories and tales.
My position here is that probably
most animals which were labeled "dragons" in history were not fictitious,
but real. Secondly, I am grouping dragons into the "dinosaur" category,
since a creature matching the characteristics of a dragon would certainly
be strange and reptilian enough to warrant the classification.
We must be careful, though,
to not use today's definition of dragon and interpret creatures down through
history as the same thing. Hollywood portrays them as huge, reptilian monsters
which have wings and can fly, as well as always breathing fire. Perhaps
some had wings and could breathe fire - perhaps not. Maybe some could and
some couldn't. We may even be speaking of different species of animal altogether.
We should understand that historically, dragons were those animals which
were uncommon, unusual, frightening and dangerous (oftentimes). They usually
did not fit into any normal classification of animal; they occupied a unique
niche all their own.
The Angkor Temple Stegosaurus
I have already listed on my "Dinosaurs" page what
is probably a dragon in the Bible. I will now elaborate on other possible
dragon appearances and descriptions down through history (and these are
by no means comprehensive - only highlights).
[Below] A carving of a stegosaurus on a 13th century temple gate in Angkor, Cambodia - the capital city of the former Khmer Empire.
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[Captioned above - The head of a dragon, the
symbol of Marduk, sculpted in bronze and dating from c. 300-600 B.C., was
found in Mesopotamia and is now in the Louvre Museum, Paris - dragon
image and dragons-bar (top) taken from "Dragons: A Natural History" by
Dr. Karl Shuker]
While digging for the ruins of the ancient empire of Babylon in modern-day Iraq, archaeologists in 1899 uncovered a gateway with relief carvings portrayed upon it. There were three animals carved upon the stone wall - a lion, a wild ox and a.....what? An unknown and unrecognizable creature presented itself. Babylonians called this creature a sirrush, a servant of the pagan god Marduk. Since the other two animals on the gate represented real animals, there is no reason to believe that the sirrush was not real as well, especially since they all appear side by side. No doubt many animals have become extinct down through history, and probably more often than not with no one to record their existence (and in a general age of illiteracy in ancient times, to make matters worse). It isn't so incredible that a dragon-like animal could have existed in the day of the ancient Babylonians.
[Information and image taken from "The Great Dinosaur
Mystery" by Paul Taylor, p.40]
| When it comes to dragon stories, few images are as interesting as St. George and the dragon. There are many famous paintings immortalizing the dramati moment when St. Geroge drove his spear into the fierce but doomed dragon. But what is the story of St. George? When did he live and what events led up to the famous event? The story begins approximately between the years 250 AD and 300 AD. It seems there was living in a great lake a terrible dragon with breath so bad it poisoned the countryside around the lake. The local people were forced to feed this beast two sheep a day to keep it content. Pretty soon they ran out of sheep and, so the story goes, began feeding it their sons and daughters. Well, they rean out of those,, too. In desperation, they took the king's daughter and tied her to a stake in the field to wait for the dragon to come and eat her. |
| It was her lucky day because St. George just happened to be passing by. He saw the king's daughter tied up and crying, so he went to investigate. She warned him to run for his life since there was no point in both of them being eaten. Well, St. George, being a brave man, met the dragon head on and drove his lance through the dragon's evil heart. Because St. George gave the glory to Christ for the victory, the princess and then the entire population were baptized as Christians. This is one of those legends that probably has a lot of truth in it. We know St. George was a real man who lived during that time period, and unfortunately we have the record of his martyrdom (put to death because of his faith) on April 23, 303. The "dragon" in this illustration is the meat-eating Baryonyx, a dinosaur whose fossil remains were discovered in Great Briton in 1983. |
| Dragon legends are quite common in China. Stories and tales of dragons there go back thousands of years, and it is said that Chinese kings used captured dragons to even pull their chariots! Many old Chinese books tell of people raising baby dragons. This preponderance of evidence further strengthens the case for the existence of dragons in times past. |
[Image taken from "The Great Dinosaur Mystery" by Paul Taylor, p. 42]
This Ica Stone, dating from 1000 years ago from the Ica Indians of South America, portrays numerous "dragons" which obviously existed in their area at the time.
The Story of the Piasa Dragon
In 1673, seven explorers set
out by canoe from the french colonies in Canada to search for a waterway
to the Pacific Ocean. They did not discover a passage to the western sea,
but they did find an account of a bizarre and very unusual creature or
dragon.
The expedition encountered
the mystery on the east side of the Mississippi River a short distance
upstream from present-day Alton, Illinois. There, on a limestone cliff
above the east bank of the river, the explorers found images of a strange
creature painted in red, yellow, green, and black. A record kept during
their journey described the paintings as follows:
| They are as large as a calf, with head and horns like a deer or goat; their eyes red; beard like a tiger; and a face somewhat like a man. Their bodies are covered with scales. Their tails are so long that they pass over their heads and between their forelegs, under their belly, and ending like a fish tail. |
A picture of these
images in a book published in 1854 also showed wings and claws on one of
them. Although the explorers recognized the remarkable nature of the cliff
paintings, they did not appear to know their meaning.
| Various interpretations of the paintings have been offered since the expedition of 1673. One of them suggests the mysterious images can be explained by a legend about a large, bird-like creature called Piasa. According to the legend, Piasa lived in a cave in the cliff above the Mississippi. Whenever it hungered, it swooped down, attacked, and devoured its prey. Some of its victims were human. Eventually, inhabitants of the area destroyed the monster and painted its likeness on the cliff to commemorate their victory. |
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Many have written about the Piasa of Illinois, and probably the most enduring and fascinating story is told by John Russell in 1836. Click here to read it.
[Much of this information taken from PiasaNet]
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