61 replies to this topic

[superdarkyoshi]

Do you think their is a possibility that dragons existed long ago beside dinosaurs and In the midevil times?

[Bracket]

Not really. What i think explains them very well is that people at that time were discovering the skeletons of long dead dinosaurs and since they couldn't comprehend the concept of something living millions of years ago, they assumed they were recent remains of a still existing monster.

[Doctor_Strangelove]

Bracket, on 24 May 2011 - 03:35 AM, said:

Not really. What i think explains them very well is that people at that time were discovering the skeletons of long dead dinosaurs and since they couldn't comprehend the concept of something living millions of years ago, they assumed they were recent remains of a still existing monster.

Beat me to it.

Jerk.

[aquatus1]

The thing of it is that every culture in the world, when they tried to come up with something spectacularly out-of-this-world, they went with a giant sized reptile.  Reptiles are about as alien to mammals as we can get.  Heck, we still do it in Hollywood.  We have the option of believing that this was (and is) simply an aspect of the human psyche.  Or we can wonder if some sort of reptilian species existed globally in different forms, shapes, and behaviours, including such incredibly diverse forms from no-legged to 2-legged to 6-legged, fire, poison-breathing, fire-breathing, ice-breathing, water-dwelling, cave-dwelling, sky-dwelling, feathered, scaly, flying, grounded, and yet, despite such phenomenal evolutionary diversity...disappeared world-wide without a trace.

[Bracket]

Doctor_Strangelove, on 24 May 2011 - 03:35 AM, said:

Beat me to it.

Jerk.

Well, be faster next time.  

[Soul Kitchen]

Aren't many Biblical figures actually Dragons, or something...?  

[Cynical Sounds]

Soul Kitchen, on 24 May 2011 - 04:48 AM, said:

Aren't many Biblical figures actually Dragons, or something...?  

not as far as I know? I thought the only "dragons" in the bible were the leviathan and the pole serpent

also I'm well in the they didn't exist camp

[Drakester]

Depends on what you understand by dragon. Actually the word "dragon" originally meant "serpent", and naturalists such as Pliny the Elder described them as giant snakes that would coil around large beasts and strangle them to death. Sounds familiar? They also said that dragons lived in India and Ethiopia, which fits the range of the Indian and African Rock Python.
In the VIII century, St. John of Damascus wrote that "dragons exist, but they are serpents born from another serpents, and when young they are small but then they grow up and mature, they become so big and fat that they exceed other serpents in lenght and size. It is said that they grow up to thirty cubits or more, and become as thick as a huge log". Once again, the description fits a python snake perfectly. Thirty cubits would be around 13-15 meters which is larger than pythons but understandable since these naturalists probably never got to measure a large python by themselves and you know snake sizes are often exagerated. Also, pythons probably got bigger at the time because they weren´t so heavily hunted as they are today.
Let's also consider that all the ancient stories about dragons (from Ancient greece, for example) described dragons as being giant snakes, and actually the word python comes from the name of a mythical Greek "dragon". So there's plenty of evidence that the original dragons in the Western world were actually python snakes. The dinosaur-like appearance of dragons is a relatively recent modification.

As for the Eastern dragons, we know that they were based on numerous fossil remains of diverse animals, not only dinosaurs but also mammals and sea reptiles. Gigantopithecus teeth were even recently considered by the Chinese to be "dragon's teeth" and powdered to make medicines.

So no, I don´t think dragons as we usually understand them existed for real. But then again if we look at the origins of the legend, then Eastern dragons DID exist (in prehistory and in the form of different animals), and Western dragons DO exist, as python snakes.

[King Fluffs]

This is a rather difficult topic to discuss due to the lack of evidence on both sides.

All i can say is, possibly.
All races across the world, many thousands of years ago, all reported some strange, flying reptilian creature.
From what ive heard, when the first accounts came into place there was no way these people could have contacted each other and simply made this beast up.

Id love it if they were real though...

[Drakester]

King Fluffs, on 24 May 2011 - 06:52 PM, said:

All races across the world, many thousands of years ago, all reported some strange, flying reptilian creature.

Only the original dragons were not flying creatures, but snake-like.

[superdarkyoshi]

Maybe it was something similar to a dragon? Some giant reptile?

[zenfahr]

King Fluffs, on 24 May 2011 - 06:52 PM, said:

This is a rather difficult topic to discuss due to the lack of evidence on both sides.

All i can say is, possibly.
All races across the world, many thousands of years ago, all reported some strange, flying reptilian creature.
From what ive heard, when the first accounts came into place there was no way these people could have contacted each other and simply made this beast up.

Id love it if they were real though...

There could have been many reasons for this.... Better shipping, more stories go across seas, the spread and evolution of religion.  When you look at these different places you see very different types of dragons.  The Asian Dragon for instance is more like a snake, some can or cannot fly.... The European dragon, has legs, but no arm, just wings.  So you could say that these people were hearing stories, and then embelshing on these storys.  As for the source of the stories..... Im going to have to side with Bracket

[DieChecker]

I'd also guess that dragons had their roots in large snakes, or possibly crocodiles.

I'd suggest Snakes, because many of the ancient stories include giant intellegent, supernatural snakes, such as Python in Greek myth, and Jörmungandr of Norse myth. These evolved into winged creatures and giant lizard creature, which evolved into the western four legged fire breathing dragon.

I'd suggest crocodiles, because many of the ancient dragons were ocean, river or lake monsters, and not creatures of the air, like the winged dragons.

I'm pretty sure that oriental (Chinese) dragons could fly. Many of them were actually deities in their own right. although they usually lived in rivers, lakes or the ocean, they could fly and bring storms and winds with them.

[Drakester]

DieChecker, on 24 May 2011 - 09:32 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure that oriental (Chinese) dragons could fly. Many of them were actually deities in their own right. although they usually lived in rivers, lakes or the ocean, they could fly and bring storms and winds with them.

Yes, they could fly, but they used supernatural forces (magic) to do so, not wings.

It would be interesting to know when they started depicting dragons as winged creatures, since all the original stories were about snake-like creatures.

[Vance665]

I look at dragons like modern day aliens. People had/have too much time on their hands so they start creating imaginary scenarios that seem possible even if they are not based in reality.