Hidden and mythical organisms Flashcards
What is a sphinx?
body of a lion, wings and head of a woman (greek mythology) head of a king (Egypt)
what is a manticore?
body of a lion; face of a person; can shoot arrows from stinging tail; also a maneater
What is a basilisk?
the king of snakes; one glance at the basilisk brings death
What is a mandrake?
Root resembles a human figure; when pulled from earth, it emits a shriek that kills anyone who hears it
What was the Apple of sodom?
grows at the site of the former towns of sodom and Gomorrah, which god destroyed in his righteous wrath over lustful behaviour. when an apple from the tree is picked, it turns to ashes and smoke in the hands
what is the Ziebra tree?
a tree full of bare-breasted mystics and philosophers
When was the first mention of the unicorn?
Ctesias, Greek historian 398 BC
he wrote of the unicorn living in India. It was larger than a hourse, had a horn half a meter long.
Filings from the Unicorn horn were used for what?
an antidote to poison (wonder how well that worked)
When was the unicorn mentioned for the second time in history?
The old testament 3rd century BC
What is the Upas tree?
Also known as a Javan Tree of death, and that name gave it biblical Credibility
Where was the Upas (javan) tree first mentioned ?
by Friar Oderich of Portenau and then Sir John Mandeville, who claimed that it made the deadliest poison in the word (better get some unicorn horn for that)
What could be an explanation for all the dead animals around the Java tree?
confounding of two phenomena; a poisonous tree, and deadly CO2 emmisions from a dormant volcano.
Who was the Piltdown man?
supposed human ancestor whose cranium, jaw and teeth were excavated in sussex, south London, in the period 1908-1915
Players of Piltdown
who was Charles dawson
Amateur fossil collector; collected for the British museum; made most of the Piltdown discoveries
Players of Piltdown
Sir arthur Smith Woodward was who?
chief of the department of Natural History at the British museum; paleoichthyologist; Dawsons ally, helped with excavation
