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Dragons, myth and not universal gods


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Why of course you would agree with a 16 year old. You have demonstrated by our own debate that you know even less about ancient mythology than Gremlin.

Epic fail again DC

I am pwning you in that debate, dont trust your own opinion as its already been proven wrong so many times, ask anyone else, they will tell you you have no credibility left at all

:tu:

btw this part is where people not in the debate get a chance to comment

you had your oppotunity to post and you screwed it up as all the comments so far show, deal with it//

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Why am I not surprised you would say this? Gremlin was not even aware of the serpent god Glycon until I mentioned it here. In fact, he quite incorrectly stated the Greeks had not reptilian gods at all.......... and he was very wrong as I have proven.

well actually i had come across him previously, reading lucian.....and again looking at snake cults....

but he's hardly that memorable, or significant....not to mention bogus as hell.

dont gimmie that 'oo but marcus aurelius sent off for his advice....' So what the guy was open to any ideas.....probably knew the oracle came from the priests really, but thems some well informed priests.

btw, you still havent provided any pre-hellenistic evidence for claw-footed and winged ketos yet.....or drakones for that matter.

Snake cults does not wash, they are irrelevent to your argument.... you cant use the 'they inspired serpent cults' line, you claim that they saw them daily back in them bronze ages.

im not sure the glycon thing really counts, although i conceed that it does on some lower level. But then you have to score points where you can, your theory is all shot to hell.

see, glykon was not a drakon, nor was he a winged, claw-footed quadrupedal lizard....no matter how you twist it.

also, some 16yr olds here show a considerable degree of maturity in their critical thinking, something your theory displays a distinct lack of.

might be worth considering. :tu:

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I was referring to his discussion of Ketos in the Mediterranean and how to prevent them from attacking your ship. Please don't try to tell us he was never in the Mediterranean. He was a Roman ADMIRAL!

Mattshark was quite correctly pointing out that he wrote about things he never saw/experienced, but just heard of 3rd hand. He never visited india and never went to ethiopia either, yet wrote about their dragons...pythons and such.

no real claw footed, winged reptile ketos or dragons in pliny im afraid, just a lot of plagurism and new reserch on a few subjects.

Despite being an admiral and famous writer we cannot trust everything pliny comes out with, every fool knows that. He is reliable on some well observed things, but dragons......no.

how surprising.

think about it logically, what sea creatures are known to ram/attack boats?

ps. wasnt it in your debate with legionromanes that you ignored an oxford professor's opinion on the disagreement, one of the most qualified persons on the subject of Mesopotamia in the world....someone who's paid top dollar for their opinion.

she gave it freely and you discarded it like some snot-rag, because: A] Her educated and professional opinion proved you wrong, and B] because you think you know more than her?

She is privy to all the updated information to hand, all the improved translations and new and corrected perceptions of mesopotamian cultures even before they're published. And you've got Bibleorigins.com and Google.

:clap::w00t::rofl::lol:

btw this part is where people not in the debate get a chance to comment

:o i forgot that, oops...sorry. :whistle::su

Edited by lil gremlin
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I was referring to his discussion of Ketos in the Mediterranean and how to prevent them from attacking your ship. Please don't try to tell us he was never in the Mediterranean. He was a Roman ADMIRAL!

Yes and Ketos also translates literally to big fish as well remember.

Can you show a link of him directly saying that because I have not seen. The only mention in The Natural History is of the sea dragon in reference to the weever fish (Trachinus draco).

The other mentions there are of draco as in the latin for snake and none are first hand reference.

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Yes and Ketos also translates literally to big fish as well remember.

Can you show a link of him directly saying that because I have not seen. The only mention in The Natural History is of the sea dragon in reference to the weever fish (Trachinus draco).

The other mentions there are of draco as in the latin for snake and none are first hand reference.

In the French Ocean there is discovered a mightie fish called Physeter, [i. a Whirlepoole] rising up aloft out of the sea in manner of a columne or pillar; higher than the very sailes of the ships: and then he spouteth, and casteth forth a mightie deale of water as it were out of a conduit, ynough to drowne and sinke a ship.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny9.html

this is physeter

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Physeter macrocephalus - sperm whale

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Here's one instance where Pliny mentions Ketos.....

f. de arabia, tradit mitulos ternas heminas capere, cetos sescentorum pedum longitudinis et trecentorum sexaginta latitudinis in flumen arabiae intrasse, pinguique eius mercatores negotiatos, et omnium piscium adipe camelos perungui in eo situ, ut asilos ab iis fugent odore. (0.68)

And here it is in english for those who cant read latin...... ;)

Juba, in those books descriptive of Arabia, which he has dedicated to Caius Cæsar, the son of Augustus, informs us that there are mussels1 on those coasts, the shells of which are capable of holding three semisextarii; and that, on one occasion, a whale,2 six hundred feet in length and three hundred and sixty feet broad,3 made its way up a river of Arabia, [p. 6006] the blubber of which was bought up by the merchants there. He tells us, too, that in those parts they anoint their camels with the grease of all kinds of fish, for the purpose of keeping off the gad-flies4 by the smell.

seems like he knows what he is refering to when he says cetus, unless you believe that they killed a winged quadrupedal ketos, and took its blubber!!!!

Again your 'evidence' does not stand up to the briefest scruitiny.

Edited by lil gremlin
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Here's one instance where Pliny mentions Ketos.....

And here it is in english for those who cant read latin...... ;)

seems like he knows what he is refering to when he says cetus, unless you believe that they killed a winged quadrupedal ketos, and took its blubber!!!!

Again your 'evidence' does not stand up to the briefest scruitiny.

That makes sense cetos - cetacean.

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Gremlin was pulling out many more reliable sources, and as a result much more reliable information, than DC was. Gremlin presented a much more logical, coherent, understandable argument as a result.

What I saw on DC's side was a lot of speculation, a lot of brushing aside alternative explanations, and a lot of artistic license. Which while fun in most cases, isn't debate material.

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here's another ref to ketos in pliny....

a pelusio chabriae castra, casius mons, delubrum iovis casii, tumulus magni pompei. ostracine arabia finitur, a pelusio leftbracketlxvrightbracket p. mox idumaea incipit et palaestina ab emersu sirbonis lacus, quem quidam leftbracketclrightbracket circuitu tradidere. herodotus casio monti adplicuit, nunc est palus modica. oppida rhinocolura et intus rhaphea, gaza et intus anthedon, mons argaris. regio per oram samaria; oppidum ascalo liberum, azotos, iamneae duae, altera intus. iope phoenicum, antiquior terrarum inundatione, ut ferunt, insidet collem, praeiacente saxo, in quo vinculorum andromedae vestigia ostendit. colitur illic fabulosa ceto. inde apollonia, stratonis turris, eadem caesarea ab herode rege condita, nunc colonia prima flavia a vespasiano imperatore deducta, finis palaestines, leftbracketclxxxviiiirightbracket p. a confinio arabiae. dein phoenice; intus autem samariae oppida neapolis, quod antea mamortha dicebatur, sebaste in monte, et altiore gamala.

and for us mere mortals.....

On leaving Pelusium we come to the Camp of Chabrias388 , Mount Casius389 , the temple of Jupiter Casius, and the tomb of Pompeius Magnus. Ostracine390 , at a distance of sixty-five miles from Pelusium, is the frontier town of Ara- [p. 1425] bia. (13.) After this, at the point where the Sirbonian Lake391 becomes visible, Idumæa and Palæstina begin. This lake, which some writers have made to be 150 miles in circumference, Herodotus has placed at the foot of Mount Casius; it is now an inconsiderable fen. The towns are Rhinocolura392 , and, in the interior, Rhaphea393 , Gaza, and, still more inland, Anthedon394 : there is also Mount Argaris395 . Proceeding along the coast we come to the region of Samaria; Ascalo396 , a free town, Azotus397 , the two Jamniæ398 , one of them in the in- [p. 1426] terior; and Joppe399 , a city of the Phœnicians, which existed, it is said, before the deluge of the earth. It is situate on the slope of a hill, and in front of it lies a rock, upon which they point out the vestiges of the chains by which Andromeda was bound400 . Here the fabulous goddess Ceto401 is worshipped. Next to this place comes Apollonia402 , and then the Tower of Strato403 , otherwise Cæsarea, built by [p. 1427] King Herod, but now the Colony of Prima Flavia, established by the Emperor Vespasianus: this place is the frontier town of Palæstina, at a distance of 188 miles from the confines of Arabia; after which comes Phœnice404 . In the interior of Samaria are the towns of Neapolis405 , formerly called Mamortha, Sebaste406 , situate on a mountain, and, on a still more lofty one, Gamala407 .

whilst the Greeks didnot worship ketos (she was a seamonster to them), these levantine folk did worship her as a goddess......or rather, we have a composite mythical creature worshiped as a god by the phoenicians of Joppe, that the greeks/romans equated with ketos.

notice pliny's use of the word fabulous....

.....not meaning, great/wonderful/splendid,

but 'fantastical'/make-believe/crazy/mythical/not real.

pliny does not believe in your ketos dc,

that's the last nail in the coffin on that one.

Anyways i have to confess.......I see dragonses....

i see one almost every week running around infront of me, doing all sorts of tricks.

We call him Cochyn.

on account of him being red.

http://www.scarlets.co.uk/images/wallpaper...yn-1024-768.jpg

Edited by lil gremlin
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http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny9.html

this is physeter

linked-image

Physeter macrocephalus - sperm whale

Yes, the sophisticated greeks and romans knew the difference between whales, dolphins, sharks and sea dragons. Their contemporary art of these animals is very clear on the subject as everyone reading this thread have seen.

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here's another ref to ketos in pliny....

and for us mere mortals.....

whilst the Greeks didnot worship ketos (she was a seamonster to them), these levantine folk did worship her as a goddess......or rather, we have a composite mythical creature worshiped as a god by the phoenicians of Joppe, that the greeks/romans equated with ketos.

notice pliny's use of the word fabulous....

.....not meaning, great/wonderful/splendid,

but 'fantastical'/make-believe/crazy/mythical/not real.

pliny does not believe in your ketos dc,

that's the last nail in the coffin on that one.

Anyways i have to confess.......I see dragonses....

i see one almost every week running around infront of me, doing all sorts of tricks.

We call him Cochyn.

on account of him being red.

http://www.scarlets.co.uk/images/wallpaper...yn-1024-768.jpg

The Phoenicians of Pliny's time were thoroughly hellenized, a fact you should know. And we see they worship the goddess Ketos, NOT some foreign sounding reptilian goddess like Asheroth. So here is another source that proves you were wrong when you said the 'greeks' didn't worhip Ketos. This region was considered throughly 'Greek' in culture, save for the Jews. Those Greek coins with Ketos head on them were obviously honoring the goddess, and it would be prudent for seafaring people to honor the sea dragons that they certainly believed existed....... creatures that as we have seen, look surprising like the lake and sea monsters seen by thousands of witnesses in modern times.

But as for Pliny, he does described the long necked drakons in the water, NOT confusing them with sharks or whales, though as real creatures. And he mentions in one account ways of repelling them from ships, though I have never seen this account translated in English, only alluded to. Your account confirms the worhip of sea dragons continuing into the time of Pliny, though Pliny himself believed they were only natural animals, like the shark s and whlaes he describes... but these are long necked reptilian ones.

Edited by draconic chronicler
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The Phoenicians of Pliny's time were thoroughly hellenized, a fact you should know. And we see they worship the goddess Ketos, NOT some foreign sounding reptilian goddess like Asheroth. So here is another source that proves you were wrong when you said the 'greeks' didn't worhip Ketos. This region was considered throughly 'Greek' in culture, save for the Jews. Those Greek coins with Ketos head on them were obviously honoring the goddess, and it would be prudent for seafaring people to honor the sea dragons that they certainly believed existed....... creatures that as we have seen, look surprising like the lake and sea monsters seen by thousands of witnesses in modern times.

But as for Pliny, he does described the long necked drakons in the water, NOT confusing them with sharks or whales, though as real creatures. And he mentions in one account ways of repelling them from ships, though I have never seen this account translated in English, only alluded to. Your account confirms the worhip of sea dragons continuing into the time of Pliny, though Pliny himself believed they were only natural animals, like the shark s and whlaes he describes... but these are long necked reptilian ones.

Thoroughly Hellenized correct....absolutely....

This is the Imperial Roman period we are talking about here.....hellenization took place from 323bc onwards.....300yrs or so of hellenization....

but we need you to provide proof from the bronze-age Greek culture. Thats before Hellenization, when mainstream Greek culture mixed readily with those of eastern and orientalized Hellenistic communities.

The Greeks equated Melquart with Herakles in Tyre, they always did this sort of thing.

And no, my account confirms that Pliny regards the ketos as 'fabulous', meaning 'untrue' and 'not real', but mythical.

so how can the ketos be both real (whale) and mythical?

pliny believes they are just normal creatures, rather than magical monsters.....those magical monsters of myth, are to him...myth.

he does not believe the levantine ketos (which still isnt quadrupedal) really exists.

Edited by lil gremlin
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Yes, the sophisticated greeks and romans knew the difference between whales, dolphins, sharks and sea dragons. Their contemporary art of these animals is very clear on the subject as everyone reading this thread have seen.

Yes that is because what they called a sea dragon we call a weever fish.

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Edited by Mattshark
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here's another ref to ketos in pliny....

and for us mere mortals.....

whilst the Greeks didnot worship ketos (she was a seamonster to them), these levantine folk did worship her as a goddess......or rather, we have a composite mythical creature worshiped as a god by the phoenicians of Joppe, that the greeks/romans equated with ketos.

notice pliny's use of the word fabulous....

.....not meaning, great/wonderful/splendid,

but 'fantastical'/make-believe/crazy/mythical/not real.

pliny does not believe in your ketos dc,

that's the last nail in the coffin on that one.

Anyways i have to confess.......I see dragonses....

i see one almost every week running around infront of me, doing all sorts of tricks.

We call him Cochyn.

on account of him being red.

http://www.scarlets.co.uk/images/wallpaper...yn-1024-768.jpg

Too cute for words, Grem. Here in the US we almost had the former DC Basketball team (the Bullets) renamed the Dragons, but people choose the Wizards instead. Still, it was a close thing...

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Yes that is because what they called a sea dragon we call a weever fish.

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Not Matt, people believed the ketos were fearsome, intelligent monsters, and there are very good examples from the time of Pliny such as the very dragonish one on the Augustus Peace monument, already posted in this froum. Pliny describes them with very long necks that stick out of the water, just like so many later sea monster sightins, some by scientists.

You should know better as a marine biologist. The long necked sea monsters with their heads periscopted high above the water have been reported for THOUSANDS of years, and they cannot be a fish or whale.

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You should know better as a marine biologist. The long necked sea monsters with their heads periscopted high above the water have been reported for THOUSANDS of years, and they cannot be a fish or whale.

Yes, surely the more logical explanation is that they're dragons. Good grief. :no:

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Thoroughly Hellenized correct....absolutely....

This is the Imperial Roman period we are talking about here.....hellenization took place from 323bc onwards.....300yrs or so of hellenization....

but we need you to provide proof from the bronze-age Greek culture. Thats before Hellenization, when mainstream Greek culture mixed readily with those of eastern and orientalized Hellenistic communities.

The Greeks equated Melquart with Herakles in Tyre, they always did this sort of thing.

And no, my account confirms that Pliny regards the ketos as 'fabulous', meaning 'untrue' and 'not real', but mythical.

so how can the ketos be both real (whale) and mythical?

pliny believes they are just normal creatures, rather than magical monsters.....those magical monsters of myth, are to him...myth.

he does not believe the levantine ketos (which still isnt quadrupedal) really exists.

Wrong again Grem and you know it. But in fairness, by this time the terms drakon and ketos had begun to be interchangable.

Pliny described Drakons that grouped together floating in the water, and using their long necks as sails to move them at leisure. No fish or marine mammal has a neck like that.

To the original subject, we do see the high gods of Greece transform into drakons/serpents for fights among themselves, and when copulating with each other. This strongly suggests these stories go back to the times when the Greeks, just like the Sumerians, Chinese, Mesoamericans, and everyone else in between worshipped serpent-drakon deities. Nothing else makes sense of these stories. At least some people here can see this.

And you had denied the Greeks EVER had dragon like deities, and espicially said that of Ketos, and now you see I was correct.

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Too cute for words, Grem. Here in the US we almost had the former DC Basketball team (the Bullets) renamed the Dragons, but people choose the Wizards instead. Still, it was a close thing...

Yes Arch, I am afraid the dragons were ditched in DC due to the powerful but often very ignorant , 'religious right' who know so little about their own religion's origins that they are unaware that 'dragons' are the highest heavenly creatures as sated right in the Bible.. They have turned the fiery flying serpents into humanoid swan-winged angels oblivious to all of the supporting evidence that proves they are wrong.

For example, Hobby Lobby is filled with oriential made art, yet amazingly the only decorative imagery they don't have there are dragons. This is a Christian run store that closes on Sundays so everyone can be in Church.

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Not Matt, people believed the ketos were fearsome, intelligent monsters, and there are very good examples from the time of Pliny such as the very dragonish one on the Augustus Peace monument, already posted in this froum. Pliny describes them with very long necks that stick out of the water, just like so many later sea monster sightins, some by scientists.

You should know better as a marine biologist. The long necked sea monsters with their heads periscopted high above the water have been reported for THOUSANDS of years, and they cannot be a fish or whale.

I'm going by Plinys book Natural History here. Care to source yours?

Not seen any good evidence for any long necked sea monsters yet.

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Yes, the sophisticated greeks and romans knew the difference between whales, dolphins, sharks and sea dragons. Their contemporary art of these animals is very clear on the subject as everyone reading this thread have seen.

so does everyone else in the real world

apart from you apparently

:w00t:

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Wrong again Grem and you know it. But in fairness, by this time the terms drakon and ketos had begun to be interchangable.

Pliny described Drakons that grouped together floating in the water, and using their long necks as sails to move them at leisure. No fish or marine mammal has a neck like that.

To the original subject, we do see the high gods of Greece transform into drakons/serpents for fights among themselves, and when copulating with each other. This strongly suggests these stories go back to the times when the Greeks, just like the Sumerians, Chinese, Mesoamericans, and everyone else in between worshipped serpent-drakon deities. Nothing else makes sense of these stories. At least some people here can see this.

And you had denied the Greeks EVER had dragon like deities, and espicially said that of Ketos, and now you see I was correct.

wrong? about what specifically?

are you about to provide evidence in the form of a source ref?

you are writing a book on dragons, your telling me you havent got the info handy?

i denied that the greeks ever worshiped quadrupedal winged reptiles, you have done nothing to support your statement (repeated in my 1st post and a few other times) by this i mean show evidence....any at all.....of quadrupedal winged reptiles in greek culture, and you have not been able to do so....well nothing except speculate as if it were really true.

you keep refering to the hellenistic period and beyond into the imperial roman one....but you say that dragons largely left man's attention after the end of the bronze age (when they had previously seen them daily).

Why then do you present evidence dated after this event? Evidence which is either incorrect anyway, or so horribly taken out of context.

is it because there is no evidence at all?

All the ketos images you've posted, besides the carian coin (which isnt greek) are from the Hellenistic period, so they are useless in proving the bronze age greek ketos was winged and quadrupedal.....besides their late dates......they are not even quadrupedal!!!!

I denied that the Greeks ever worshiped ketos as a goddess. You have not done anything to change my opinion.....its not my problem if you dont understand Hellenization.

why are you beginning to use the term 'serpent/drakon'?

what exactly do you mean by this, it is too vague to use properly in debate, please clarify.

do you mean, big mythical snake or gigantic quadrupedal winged reptile?

are you now changing your tack to save face?

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I'm going by Plinys book Natural History here. Care to source yours?

Not seen any good evidence for any long necked sea monsters yet.

Æthiopia produces dragons, not so large as those of India, but still, twenty cubits in length . . . We are told that on those coasts four or five [dragons] are found twisted and interlaced together like so many osiers in a hurdle, and thus setting sail, with their heads erect, they are borne along upon the waves, to find better sources of nourishment in Arabia. [book 8, ch 13]

Source

By now you should have seen numerous ancient depictions of long necked reptilian 'sea dragons' on this thread, creatures which look surprisingly like the sea and lake monsters seen by hundreds of reliable people (including scientists) in modern times.

Edited by Saru
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wrong? about what specifically?

are you about to provide evidence in the form of a source ref?

you are writing a book on dragons, your telling me you havent got the info handy?

i denied that the greeks ever worshiped quadrupedal winged reptiles, you have done nothing to support your statement (repeated in my 1st post and a few other times) by this i mean show evidence....any at all.....of quadrupedal winged reptiles in greek culture, and you have not been able to do so....well nothing except speculate as if it were really true.

you keep refering to the hellenistic period and beyond into the imperial roman one....but you say that dragons largely left man's attention after the end of the bronze age (when they had previously seen them daily).

Why then do you present evidence dated after this event? Evidence which is either incorrect anyway, or so horribly taken out of context.

is it because there is no evidence at all?

All the ketos images you've posted, besides the carian coin (which isnt greek) are from the Hellenistic period, so they are useless in proving the bronze age greek ketos was winged and quadrupedal.....besides their late dates......they are not even quadrupedal!!!!

I denied that the Greeks ever worshiped ketos as a goddess. You have not done anything to change my opinion.....its not my problem if you dont understand Hellenization.

why are you beginning to use the term 'serpent/drakon'?

what exactly do you mean by this, it is too vague to use properly in debate, please clarify.

do you mean, big mythical snake or gigantic quadrupedal winged reptile?

are you now changing your tack to save face?

From the onset I stated that attributes of serpents and Dragons have been intermeshed, and this is echoed in the Wikipedia article and by many other sources, and you know this. This is no better illustrated than in Greek/Hellenistic culture where either intelligent, bearded serpents that served the gods (or became the gods, as we seen in numerous legends), or winged and footed creatures by the identical name Drakon as we clearly see by the Hellenistic era.

The Ketos were considered fearsome beasts that Pliny stated would attack ships. Few people that got a close look probably lived to tell about it. Yet we see in them an undeniably close resemblance to dragons depicted before and since this time. Many of these creatures are clearly depicted with clawed "arms". It would be difficult to know if the creatures had hind feet because they would be submerged under water.

The Hellenised people of Western Asia would have considered themselves 'Greek'. They spoke Greek, reead and wrote Greek, and worshipped Greek deities.i They even took the Greek name for their dragon god and not a local one. It wold be appropriate then to state that 'Greeks' worshipped a 'dragon goddess', and not speculation, but a contemporary ancient account. To state they were not "Greek" is as absurd as to say that anyone from a foreign culture that moves to America and adopts american culture, is not an American.

Therfore you CANNOT support the argument that "Greeks" did not worship a "dragon" deity whcich by this time is clearly recognized as a clawfooted, winged, long necked reptile. And the Ketos shown on coins that obviously honored the deity look distinctively reptilian/dragon-like, though I do agree that some artists who have never seen a "sea dragon" might depict the ketos like a shark that he was more familiar with, but these images are clealry in the minority, compare to long necked reptilian sea dragons.

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Æthiopia produces dragons, not so large as those of India, but still, twenty cubits in length . . . We are told that on those coasts four or five [dragons] are found twisted and interlaced together like so many osiers in a hurdle, and thus setting sail, with their heads erect, they are borne along upon the waves, to find better sources of nourishment in Arabia. [book 8, ch 13]

By now you should have seen numerous ancient depictions of long necked reptilian 'sea dragons' on this thread, creatures which look surprisingly like the sea and lake monsters seen by hundreds of reliable people (including scientists) in modern times.

Nice lack of first hand accounts, you know the first parts refers to the reticulated and the rock python don't you.

Also, in science, all witness are unreliable and you have never evidenced any of these sightings.

Edited by Mattshark
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From the onset I stated that attributes of serpents and Dragons have been intermeshed, and this is echoed in the Wikipedia article and by many other sources, and you know this. This is no better illustrated than in Greek/Hellenistic culture where either intelligent, bearded serpents that served the gods (or became the gods, as we seen in numerous legends), or winged and footed creatures by the identical name Drakon as we clearly see by the Hellenistic era.

The Ketos were considered fearsome beasts that Pliny stated would attack ships. Few people that got a close look probably lived to tell about it. Yet we see in them an undeniably close resemblance to dragons depicted before and since this time. Many of these creatures are clearly depicted with clawed "arms". It would be difficult to know if the creatures had hind feet because they would be submerged under water.

The Hellenised people of Western Asia would have considered themselves 'Greek'. They spoke Greek, reead and wrote Greek, and worshipped Greek deities.i They even took the Greek name for their dragon god and not a local one. It wold be appropriate then to state that 'Greeks' worshipped a 'dragon goddess', and not speculation, but a contemporary ancient account. To state they were not "Greek" is as absurd as to say that anyone from a foreign culture that moves to America and adopts american culture, is not an American.

Therfore you CANNOT support the argument that "Greeks" did not worship a "dragon" deity whcich by this time is clearly recognized as a clawfooted, winged, long necked reptile. And the Ketos shown on coins that obviously honored the deity look distinctively reptilian/dragon-like, though I do agree that some artists who have never seen a "sea dragon" might depict the ketos like a shark that he was more familiar with, but these images are clealry in the minority, compare to long necked reptilian sea dragons.

No it doen't. NO large constrictor swims in salt water oceans as pliny describes, but the ketos dragons, with their long periscoping necks in the air were believed to. I thought you said you were a biologist?

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