How much did the finding of dinosaur bones influence Ancient Greek mythology, if at all?

by Contented
rosemary85

There's room for speculation, but no evidence of any influence whatsoever. We have good, solid evidence of ancient Greek fossil finds (of sea and plant life, that is; no dinosaurs, in the Greek world at least), but nothing to link them to anything mythological.

Here's a book that goes into the speculations at great length, but be warned that the author treats all her speculations as proven fact ("Here's a cool idea that could in principle be true, therefore it is true"). She's not too bad on evidence of fossil finds, in and of themselves; but when it comes to links with mythology, it's basically all imagination. I've outlined my own views on the book here (though with the update, if anyone cares, that I am now persuaded there's no good reason to interpret the vase painting mentioned there as anything other than a snake skull, as opposed to the prehistoric giraffe that Mayor insists on).

Evan_Th

Good question; you might be interested in the several rather good answers to this in the subreddit FAQ. If anyone would like to add to them here, I'd be interested in reading that too.