Griffins, Centaurs, Cyclopes, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.
 As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.
 Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology. As Peter Dodson writes in his Foreword, "Paleontologists, classicists, and historians as well as natural history buffs will read this book with the greatest of delight--surprises abound."

The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times.

Politics & Social Sciences

Adrienne Mayor

Archaeology

Princeton University Press

With talk of bio-terrorism and chemical weapons in the news, Adrienne Mayor's exploration of the origins of biological and unethical warfare is an attention-grabber that follows through with fascinating illustrative episodes. At once timely and historic, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs is a meticulously researched page-turner that makes draws extraordinary connections between the mythical worlds of Hercules and the Trojan War, the accounts of Herodotus and Thucydides, and modern warfare. Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs is the first book to trace biological and chemical warfare to its ancient roots and Mayor's thought-provoking findings are as riveting in their gruesomeness as they are surprising in their historical precedence. Drawing on a wide array of sources, both ancient and modern, Mayor recounts ancient recipes for concocting arrow poisons; she describes boobytraps rigged with plague; toxic honey, poisoned wells, and spiked wine; petroleum-based combustibles, choking gases, and incendiary bombs; and the deployment of dangerous animals and venomous insects. The author also explores the ambiguous moral implications inherent in this kind of warfare: if intelligence and cunning are to be valued, as well as physical courage on the battlefield, then are these nefarious forms of warfare ingenious or cowardly? Admirable or reprehensible? Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs is a timely and engaging book, sure to hit its mark.

Greek Fire,Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs

History

Ancient Civilizations

Gerald Duckworth & Company

Flamethrowers, poison gases, incendiary bombs, the large-scale spreading of disease - are these terrifying tools of warfare modern inventions? Not by a long shot. Weapons of biological and chemical warfare have been in use for thousands of years, and "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, & Scorpion Bombs", Adrienne Mayor's fascinating exploration of the origins of biological and unethical warfare, draws extraordinary connections between the mythical worlds of Hercules and the Trojan War, the accounts of Herodotus and Thucydides, and modern methods of war and terrorism. "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, & Scorpion Bombs" will catapult readers into the dark and fascinating realm of ancient war and mythic treachery - and their devastating consequences.

Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs: Biological Warfare in the Ancient World

Duckworth & Co.

Mithradates

İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları

Il re Veleno. Vita e leggenda di Mitridate, acerrimo nemico dei Romani

Einaudi

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Books by Adrienne Mayor