The images below are a collection of historical findings. These findings vary in location, culture, timeline and materials. From Native Americans, to Ancient Mesopotamia. How would these ancient people depict Dinosaurs if they had never been around them? Would we assume that they found Dinosaur bones and guessed on the shapes of the animals? Remember that most discovered Dinosaur skeletons are based on finding very few bones. It seem highly likely that mankind witnessed and documented Dinosaurs just as they had other types of animals. The images speak for themselves.
The Angkor Wat is a Buddhist temple in Cambodia. Like most ancient ruins the walls are covered with carvings of several animals, including a creature that could only be described as a stegosaurus. Whether or not it is a stegosaurus, it does have some of the distinct features of the family Stegosauridae: triangular plates on its back and tale, four muscular legs, a head attached to a short neck, a large body, and a thick tail. Read more here.
Over 50,000 carved burial stones were discovered outside of the town of Ica in Peru, South America. They show images of men, daily activities, tools, medical procedures and Dinosaurs. Not only that, but man's interaction with Dinosaurs. These stones contain images of all types of Dinosaurs known today. They are on display at the Cabera Museum, Museum of Inca, Nazsca Museum, Aeronautical Museum, and the Naval Observatory in Peru. Watch Video
Discovered in 1944, these Figurines were found along the lower slope of El Toro Mountain near the town of Acambaro, Mexico. The discovery led to the excavation of over 33,500 ceramic, stone, and jade figurines and artifacts. At the same place where the artifacts were discovered, the teeth of an extinct horse, the skeleton of a mammoth, and human skulls. Read more here.
Ancient dinosaur artwork has been found on cliff sides in Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah. The petroglyph is attributed to the Anasazi Indians who lived in that area during the 1300s A.D.. The first complete dinosaur skeleton was discovered in 1858, so the art seem to reveal that the Anasazi Indians had actually seen a living dinosaur. Watch Video. Read more here.
A bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a collection of concise information describing beasts. Originating in the Ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. In the category of Elephants, there are a surprisingly large number of depictions showing Elephants fighting with Dragons.
This ancient Mesopotamian artifact provides a clue that the ancients existed with dinosaurs. Estimated to come from the year 3,300 B.C., the seal displays two long necked animals that strikingly resemble a sauropod dinosaur. One can logically conclude that the artists who created the seal would have to see a representation of a dinosaur or a living specimen to make such an accurate depiction. Read more here
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This pictograph of an apparent Pterosaur, is located near Green River, Utah in Black Dragon Canyon. It was drawn directly under a cave high up on the cliff. Did the ancient artist draw what he observed flying out of that cave? It is possible that all of the pictures of "Thunderbirds" were actually depictions of flying reptiles like the Pterosaur. Read more here.
The Kuku Yalanji is a tribe located in rainforest of Far North Queensland, Australia. A missionary, Dennis Fields, learned from the elders of the Kuku Yalanji that a creature called the Yarru used to live in large waterholes in the rainforest. When Dennis Fields asked a tribal artist to paint the Yarru for him, the result was astonishing. The artist, who had no knowledge of what textbook dinosaurs or extinct creatures were supposed to look like, created a painting that was an accurate portrayal of what appeared to be a plesiosaurus. The painting was based entirely on the descriptions passed down to the tribal artist from ancient stories. Read more here.
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This is found in the tomb of a 15th century bishop at Carlisle, Richard Bell. A brass fillet, dating back to the 1400s, runs around the perimeter of his tomb. Engraved into its metal surface are various animals such as a dog, fish, eel, bird, pig and what appears to be two long-necked creatures with long tails apparently struggling with each other. All the creatures in the tomb are fairly accurately portrayed, so it is likely that these creatures were accurately portrayed as well. Watch Video. Read more here.
Found on different cliff faces near the Great Lakes, another interesting native representation of a dinosaur-like creature. The Sioux Indians believe that this creature inhabits the Missouri River. The Sioux tribe have been documented saying, "The creature had a backbone just like a crosscut saw and in the middle of its forehead was one horn." The pictograms of this creature show an animal with a jagged back similar to a dinosaur's back, and two horns protruding from its head. It looks strikingly like a triceratops, a member of the family Ceratopsidae, or a horned dinosaur of some kind. Read more here.
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On May 1, 2012, researcher Vance Nelson and Harry Nibourg were on site in northern Peru on the edge of the Amazon rainforest documenting pictographs said by secular archaeologists to be over 5,000 years old. They then brought to attention a panel of unique pictographs on a rock ledge. Amazingly, one of the pictographs shows nine warriors hunting what appears to be a dinosaur. Watch Video.
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This artwork is called the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina. It depicts Nile scenes from Egypt all the way to Ethiopia. Scholars now believe this is the work of Demetrius the Topographer, an artist from Alexandria who came to work in Rome. The top portion of this remarkable piece of art is generally believed to depict African animals being hunted by black-skinned warriors. These Ethiopians are pursuing what appears to be some type of dinosaur. The Greek Letters above the reptilian animal in question are: Krokodilopardalis which is literally translated Crocodile-Leopard. Could the animal in the middle image be a Diadectes? Could the animal on the far right image be a Platybelodon?
The Narmer Palette is a flat plate of carved metamorphic rock. It was found in Hierakonpolis, the ancient Pre-Dynastic capital located in the south of Egypt, by J.E. Quibell in 1897. The central scene on the palette's front represents two men tying together the stretched necks of two fabulous animals. Ceremonial palettes often represent the theme of taming wild animals, one of the traditional tasks of the king. Read more here.
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Up to the 1800s the Dayak peoples of Borneo and Sumatra produced multiple pieces of art depicting long-tailed, long-necked creatures with a headcrest. Some of these animals resemble hadrosaurs. This particular work, housed in the Ethnographical Museum of Budapest, depicts a creature that bears a striking resemblance to a Rinchens mongoliensis, which is a type of Oviraptor. It is apparently being hunted by these ancient Indonesian peoples.
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An example of Native American rock art carved into the walls of Grand Canyon. It was discovered in 1879 by E. L. Doheny and documented in 1924 by a scientific expedition which included Dr. Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, United States National Museum. The resulting publication reported as "fact" that some prehistoric man made a pictograph of a dinosaur on the walls of this canyon..." Doheny Scientific Expedition, Recently someone used it as a target practice and you can see a bullet hole at the base of the tail. It shows just how old the etchings must be since the fresh bullet mark cuts through the thick "rock varnish".
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This Chinese artifact is the Late Eastern Zhou Sauropod (Fang Jian) ornamental box. The animals have a tridactyl foot, a long neck and a head that resembles a Brachiosaur. The seated dragon sculpture in cast bronze and is currently housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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The bronze styling on this artifact suggests it is from China's Zhou Dynasty in 1122 B.C. - 220 B.C. or possibly from the Han Dynasty 206 B.C. - 220 A.D.. It displays numerous characteristics of the beaked dinosaurs like the oviraptor. The animal has a tridactyl feet configuration, metatarsal stance, scale-like representation all over the body (except for the horn which has a striated pattern), long albeit slender tail, elaborate head crest and a long neck.
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This terracotta statue is approximately 7 inches long displaying plates of its back like a Stegosaurus. The plates are triangular, and continue along the back until reaching the tail. The legs are large and awkward, as of an animal of great weight, not at all like those of a lizard or of "modern" animals, such as the crested triton or other types of salamander which the sculpture has been compared to. It was found in an area of Caria, Turkey with hundreds of other ancient artifacts, of a pre-Greek civilization of Calabria, that is at least 3,000 years old. Read more here.
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The slaying of a ferocious dragon by St. George is an extremely common motif in medieval art. Various European artists interpreted the dragon differently, depending on local knowledge and lore. The legend tells that a dragon rushed Saint George from it's cave, roaring louder than thunder. He struck the monster with a spear which broke on it's scales. He ended up killing the dragon by piercing it with a sword under the wing where there were no scales.
To the right is a Roman mosaic from about 200 AD that depicts two long-necked sea dragons. Some fish are shown in the mosaic as well. Creationist Paul Taylor likens the dragons to the web-footed Tanystropheus.
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This bronze crested helmet of a Thracian gladiator from first century CE Pompeii is adorned with an animal ornament. The animal bears a striking resemblance to a Tsintaosaurus Spinorhinus.
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In 1920, Bud Chalmers was removing rocks from his ranch outside the town of Granby, Colorado when he lifted one that weighed more than he expected. Curious, he decided to wash it off. After the coating of dust and dirt had been removed, a set of grooves appeared in the rock. A crude, smiling face surrounded by strange symbols appeared on one side of the rock. On the reverse side of the stone, the distinct carvings of a long-necked dinosaur and a woolly mammoth appeared. Read more here.
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On a trip to Hidden Mountain, just outside of Los Lunas, New Mexico, on October 20th, 2012, Jeremy Springfield took pictures of what is possibly a dinosaur figure petroglyph. It seems to be a type of Sauropod dinosaur or Edmontosaurus. New Mexico has one of the highest numbers of dinosaur fossils found. Read more here.
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It should be obvious that this piece from China, from the Warring States period of 221 to 475 years before Christ shows a man astride a very dinosaur-like dinosaur. Never mind the question as to which dinosaur type it represents; can you look at this piece and seriously continue to believe that any resemblance to an actual animal we call a dinosaur is purely accidental? Read more here.
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The Liber Floridus (Book of Flowers) is a medieval encyclopedia compiled between 1090 and 1120 by Lambert, canon of the Church of Our Lady in St Omer. The text compiles extracts from some 192 or so different works. Lambert's medieval encyclopedia contains a universal history, a chronological record of events to the year 1119. On two different pages, there are clear images of Dragons. Read more here.
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In 1969 a mosaic depicting a dragon was discovered in what is now called the "House of the Dragon". It was first exhibited in the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia, but was restored and transferred to the Monasterace Archeological Museum in 2012. Read more here.
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At a museum in Manitou Springs, Colorado, exists an artifact on display that has raised more questions than anything else ever discovered in the area. The word "Anasazi" is used to describe a distinctive American Indian civilization and culture that existed from about 1200 B.C. to A.D. 1300 in the Four Corners Area of the United States. These people are probably best known for the ruins of their monumental cliff dwellings at places like Mesa Verde, which they abandoned at the end of the 13th century. The artistically and well-defined head of a Pteranodon stands atop the "prayer" stick, raising many questions of how they molded the head of a species long extinct, and why they did so. Many legends exist of large "reptilian birds" in the area.
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The famous temple of Muktinath lies in the district of Mustang in Nepal. The temple is situated on a high mountain range and is visited during fair weather. On a wall of the temple are 108 dragon headed fountains which pilgrims seek out to cleanse themselves. At least one of the heads is an excellent likeness of a ceratopsian dinosaur. Read more here.
Burial of a chieftain with shell sculptures of tiger and dragon at Xishuipo, China, during the late Yangshao period about 4th millennium BC. Three artistic dragons (along with tigers and other animals) composed entirely of white shells were placed alongside human remains. No doubt this indicates a burial place of some very important ruler from the beginnings of the Chinese culture. The Xishuipo site dates back several thousand years, yet the dragons shown are surprisingly like modern renditions. This shows the dragon concept did not slowly develop through Chinese history from a simplistic, primitive mythological figure. This would make sense if they were, in fact, modeled after living creatures.
The following graphics are a collection of artifacts and image from around the world, and different eras of time.
Visual evidence can be very compelling, but most of mankind's history is found in written form. Aside from what's found in the Bible, have other men written about Dinosaur-like creatures?
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