Have you ever wondered if the ancient tales of legendary creatures might have a hint of scientific truth? Dr. Adrienne Mayor, a renowned historian and folklorist, takes us on a riveting journey to uncover the possible inspirations for these mythical beasts.
But the adventure doesn't stop there. We venture further down the rabbit hole, examining how the tales we tell today predict the future we create tomorrow.
Topics:
- The scientific basis of legendary creatures
- Repeating motifs in folklore beasts
- How fiction influences future technologies
- "What books have had an impact on you?"
- "What advice do you have for teenagers?"
Adrienne Mayor’s books include The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology, and The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World, Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities (all Princeton). She is a research scholar in classics and the history of science at Stanford University.
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Taylor's Blog: https://www.taylorgbledsoe.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Taylor Bledsoe (00:00):
Well, welcome Professor Mayer to the interview
.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Adrienne Mayor (00:04):
Thank you for having me.
Taylor Bledsoe (00:06):
Thank you.
So you are a historian andfolklorist and you study
basically how the origins ofmyth, the scientific origins and
what you think influenced howthese myths were created, right,
and is that a good way torepresent your work?
Yeah, well, great.
So the thing that I foundfascinating about it is,
(00:27):
whenever you read aboutclassical mythology and some of
the other myths, you alwayswonder are these things that the
cultures believe, or thesethings almost like bigfoot in
our society, things that somepeople believe but the vast
majority is questioning?
So do you know what therelationship between these myths
and their societies are?
Adrienne Mayor (00:49):
That's a really fascinating question and I can
tell you there are classicalscholars who work on that very
question and of course we don'treally know, because so much
literature and art fromclassical antiquity has been
lost.
I mean, we only have what tipof the iceberg, things that have
survived, texts that havesurvived, and it's random
(01:12):
whether or not they survived ornot and it even the art which
can really help us understandwhat people believed in or what
kind of stories they like tolisten to.
Even that is really patchy andrandom.
A curator of ancient vasepaintings at the Getty Museum in
(01:35):
Los Angeles once told me thatof the thousands of vase
paintings that have survivedthat we have beautiful vase
paintings of mythology, and hesaid that represents about 1% of
what really existed inantiquity.
So you can see the problem infiguring out what people really
believed.
I know there is a book.
(01:56):
Actually I can't think of theauthor's name right now, but it
the title of the book is did theancient Greeks believe their
myths?
So we don't really know, butthis guy has written an entire
book on that topic, if you wantto look further into that.
We just don't really know.
I really am interested inmythology because I think it I'm
(02:21):
more interested.
Actually I should go backmythology about gods.
I'm in antiquity.
I'm not that interested in whatI'm really interested in our
legends and things that don'tactually include the gods but
actually talk about mysteriousthings in nature or things that
(02:41):
seem like they could be true orhave a little germ of truth or a
little nugget of truth.
That's what I'm always lookingfor just ferreting out Just sort
of kernels of reality that areembedded in legends and popular
folklore from antiquity, themyths all about gods and gods
(03:02):
and demigods and heroes.
That's not really asinteresting to me because I
don't really know whether peoplebelieved in the gods or not.
I know they did the rituals.
As a lot of people practicetheir religion today, it's the
rituals that are most important.
But I'm really interested inlegends and popular folklore
(03:23):
about nature, especially becauseI think those things would be
perpetuated if people could seeand touch something that seemed
real to them, that confirm thosestories.
So that's actually what I'mmostly interested in.
Taylor Bledsoe (03:39):
So then, let's get into that a little bit more.
What are some of the origin?
What are some of these legends?
And then what are some of theorigins that you've looked into?
The one that your books namedafter that I read for this are
the flying snakes and theGriffin claws.
So I guess let's just startthere.
Adrienne Mayor (03:58):
Well, flying snakes has always fascinated me
because it was first writtenabout flying snakes, winged
serpents, supposedly in Egypt orin the area bordered between
Sinai Desert and Egypt.
So Arabia, ancient Arabia, andHerodotus is the first to have
(04:20):
written about this in the 5thcentury BC, so about 470 BC,
2,500 years ago.
He actually traveled around theMediterranean and went to Egypt
and he was a really curious guyand he pestered priests and
storytellers and elders andordinary people about the
(04:45):
folklore that he heard in allthe various places he went to.
And so he says in his bookwhich I'll talk about later
because you're going to ask meabout what books influenced me
and I love Herodotus he was socurious he said in his writings
I went to Egypt and I went tospecifically inquire about the
(05:09):
flying snakes of Arabia, and sohe actually went to a temple
where he heard that wasdedicated to a goddess of flying
cobras.
But he also wanted to find outif there were really flying
snakes in Arabia.
These snakes were supposed tohang out or be around the
(05:32):
Frankincense bushes where peoplegathered Frankincense, which
was a really costly, preciousincense that only came from
these certain trees in Arabia.
So he was investigating thestory.
Were there really flying snakesaround these trees, and one
(05:54):
possible explanation is that thepeople who gathered the
precious Frankincense maybe theymade up that story just to keep
people away from this reallyprecious resource that they were
in charge of.
So there is that, butHerodotus' description of the
(06:14):
flying snakes that he heard fromvarious people in Egypt and the
Sinai Desert.
It's so detailed that I feltthat this is a folklore about
nature.
That must have something realto it.
What could the flying snakes be?
Some people have suggested thatit was a kind of insect, really
(06:36):
large, maybe a very largedragonflies.
Herodotus says that as theymigrated through Egypt, these
flocks of ibis birds large waterbirds would actually eat these
flying snakes.
So that's a suggestion that itcould be something like a
(06:57):
dragonfly or insect or maybesome kind of snake.
There are flying snakes in theother parts of the world, in the
tropics, in Asia, but thosedon't exist anywhere in the
desert.
So unless there was somespecies of flying snake with a
membrane, wings that we don'teven know about, then it's
(07:20):
probably not a living flyingsnake.
On the other hand, herodotustold us he was taken to a valley
or a sort of gorge where he sawheaps and heaps of the bones,
of remains, the skeletons offlying snakes.
So what could that be?
Is it some kind of fossil thathe saw?
Or was it maybe washed up bythese lakes that would recede
(07:45):
and then wax and wane over timeand they would wash up skeletons
of something that looked likeflying snakes?
So I don't want to have aspoiler for that chapter, but I
think I propose about six orseven different ideas for what
those snakes with wings couldhave been, and we'll never know
(08:05):
for sure.
And the other thing about myresearch is, I'll never know for
sure.
It's always circumstantialevidence, but some of it can be
pretty convincing.
Taylor Bledsoe (08:13):
So yeah, that's very interesting.
I'm curious so when you'reresearching these ancient
animals and these ancient, theother ancient creatures in
biology that people havediscussed, where do you draw the
line between okay, maybe thisexisted, but they're extinct and
that's why we don't see themtoday, and then maybe these are
(08:36):
just takes on other animals?
So how do you determine that inyour research?
Adrienne Mayor (08:42):
Well, one of the fantastic or fabulous creatures
that I have researched is theancient griffin, which I'm sure
everybody knows what a griffinlooks like now, since Harry
Potter and various othergriffins appear a lot these days
.
But in antiquity people believethat it was a real animal and
(09:06):
that it had four legs.
But four legs are like a lionor a wolf or something like a
mammal, a quadruped but its headwas like that of a raptor, an
eagle or a vulture or some kindof raptor with a beak.
So when I first startedresearching that I I found out
(09:28):
that there is no myth aboutgriffons.
So that's one reason what Isaid earlier I'm not as
interested in the official mythsof antiquity, more interested
in the folklore and the legends,and griffons were legendary,
not part of myth.
There is no myth about griffons, but there are lots and lots of
(09:49):
griffons in ancient Greek artand they're always shown with
four legs and a beak, sometimeswings and weird formations on
the back of their necks.
They were said to live in thefar, remote lands of Asia and
(10:09):
that they made their nests onthe ground and that they laid
their eggs on the ground like aground bird, but not like a
mammal, because mammals, ofcourse, have live birth, and
that we even have some art thatshows mother griffons with baby
griffons.
We have some art that showsgriffons guarding their nest
(10:32):
filled with golden eggs, and inthe legends, griffons were said
to guard or defend or be aroundthe area where the nomads of
Asia would gather gold, and thatthey were supposedly protecting
those lands.
So once again, it could bestories told by the nomads who
(10:56):
gathered the gold.
Right, they may be made upthese stories just to keep
people away from their preciousresource.
But the fact that the detailswe have, all these details that
there are nests with eggs andthat they guarded their nests
with babies and that sometimesthat you would come across them.
But one thing that made mebelieve in the story is that,
(11:18):
first of all, no myths aboutthem.
It's legends about a farawayland and the kind of fauna that
we live in that land.
Also, all the details abouttheir nests on the ground with
eggs.
And no one ever claimed.
Over a thousand years ofwriting about griffons Greek and
Roman authors no one everclaimed to see a live one.
(11:41):
So that made me think.
Is there some kind of evidencethat made people believe in it,
even though no one ever saw alive one, and I started thinking
four legs and a beak.
What living animals has fourlegs and a beak?
Can you think of what?
Taylor?
Taylor Bledsoe (11:57):
There.
I mean I would assume they'redinosaurs throughout all of the
yeah Right once living right,but any living animal today that
they might have seen?
Adrienne Mayor (12:06):
no, the only thing I could come up with as a
turtle.
But a turtle has four legs,right, a kind of beak-like face,
but that doesn't fit thegriffon, right?
These are supposed to be veryfierce animals that preyed on
stags and horses and humans.
So it's not a turtle.
So that just, I had the sameimpulse that you did.
(12:29):
Maybe a dinosaur, because youcan think of lots of dinosaurs
that you've seen in naturalhistory museums, that four legs
and they have beaks, becausethey combine the features of a
bird and a mammal in.
But these things all wentextinct 65 million years ago,
(12:50):
except for birds, which stillexist.
They are dinosaurs and theyhave a beak, but they don't have
four legs.
So I focused on dinosaurs.
So that's basically how I sortof winnow it down to what could
possibly be real about thisstory.
And if people came acrossdinosaur skeletons in that area
(13:12):
where those nomads were lookingfor gold, that might explain the
evidence.
That would keep the storyperpetuating.
And sure enough, I found outthat in the region where the
ancient Greeks and Romans saidthat ancient prospectors for
gold came across dinosaurs, thatwas a vast nesting ground of
(13:33):
dinosaurs with beaks and fourlegs and they make their nests
on the ground and they lay theireggs in the nests and you can
find the nests there too.
In fact, paleontologists havetold me you cannot walk through
that area without coming acrossnests with petrified eggs and
even hatching babies, andthey're some of the most
(13:54):
exquisitely preserved dinosaurskeletons in the world.
So they're fully articulatedand they erode out of the cliffs
there, usually the beak firstand then the rest of the
skeleton, and some of them arestanding up.
So you can just imagine howeerie that would be for
prospectors going through thatarea and early travelers.
(14:15):
I think that's the evidencethat kept the story going, and
we don't know which came firstthe story of an animal with four
legs and a head like a bird,because you can see those in
ancient art, but we don't knowthe stories which came first the
, the image and the idea ofsomething that was a hybrid, or
(14:36):
the observation of fossils.
Never know which came first,but I think they might be
related in some way, kind of afeedback loop.
Taylor Bledsoe (14:44):
Yeah, that's, that's very fascinating.
Have any of these Stories cometo influence, influence us today
and how we think about theworld and how we think about new
discoveries?
I don't know if you'veresearched that, but it's kind
of interesting because if youthink about some of these ideas
that have Gone throughout ourcultures and the closest one now
(15:06):
obviously this is not a faircomparison but Star Trek, and
then how we kind of developtechnologies around what we saw
there, have any of these mythsInfluenced the ways we have
innovated or the way we havethought about animals?
I'm not sure.
Adrienne Mayor (15:25):
It's the way we think about animals.
But in a pre my previous bookwas called gods and robots and
it was about ancient automatonsand we have actually ancient
Greek myths and stories aboutautomatons and those in those
ways of imagining makingartificial life and and animated
(15:48):
statues in mythology.
It was really shocking to mostpeople to to realize that people
could imagine things like that.
Building things like that with,with technology was built by
the god of technology,prometheus and Hephaestus, who
are the gods of innovation andtechnology, and yet they were
(16:11):
mad.
People in antiquity wereimagining these things Long
before the technology to makeanything like that existed.
But in antiquity, after thosemyths had circulated for
Centuries or millennia, theybegan building Automated statues
that could raise their arms,close their eyes, open their
(16:34):
mouths, even make sounds move.
They were inventing thosethings as early as the fourth
and third century BC.
So many people have said whereimagination, if you think of
these Myths about automatons asthe first science fiction
(16:57):
stories.
Many people have said wherescience fiction Leads,
technology often follows.
So I think that in the case ofI mean we're not talking about
my most recent book, about me,but the book before that was
really did have that featurethat you, that you just brought
up, that it has affected.
(17:17):
It affects technology later.
So by the Middle Ages, peoplewere making clockwork mechanisms
and real robots and they wereinfluenced by the ancient
stories, ancient myths and evenartistic base paintings of of
the first robots in myth.
(17:38):
So I think that I think it'svery true that If you imagine
Ancient science fiction in thosemyths, that really has affected
how, how people have Tried toimitate nature, improve a nature
and then even surpass nature.
(17:59):
So it doesn't apply to, I think, how we think of animals.
So much Thanks.
But it certainly does fortechnology like Automation and
AI.
Taylor Bledsoe (18:11):
Yeah, the other.
The last question I had beforeyou wrap up is Sometimes
throughout cultures you seethese similar motifs of folklore
and Legends, that kind of goaround.
So you have stories aboutdragons and you have stories
about all different kinds ofcreatures that might have
existed.
How do you do you explain these?
(18:31):
By saying that there are, thatthey discovered bones of
dinosaurs that they thought weresimilar, or what do you guys,
what do researchers in your areaSay about these similar myths
and these motifs?
Adrienne Mayor (18:45):
and especially one.
One Really outstanding exampleof that is dragon myths, and
dragons are always like the sortof hybrid composite creature of
many, many, many differentliving animals like birds, fish,
sea creatures, land creatures,even insects a composite of that
(19:09):
, and in some places, like inChina, people can actually you
can find links between Fossilsthat are found in China, fossils
that are found in China, andyou know of long extinct
creatures and the way they drewdragons.
But there are also dragonstories in places where there
(19:32):
are no conspicuous fossils.
So we don't wanna put down thestorytelling imagination right.
Anyone can come up with acomposite creature or monster
just by a mishmash of all kindsof features of living creatures
that you know about, and thenyou add some imaginary stuff too
(19:53):
.
So there are dragons around theworld, stories that go back
millennia of dragons, andsometimes you can say that
discoveries of fossilsperplexing fossils of creatures
you've never seen, with bizarrefeatures those might serve to
influence or perpetuate thebelief seem to confirm a belief
(20:16):
in dragons.
On the other hand, in placeswhere there are no fossils,
those stories are perpetuated.
So I think that stories aboutdragons and monsters just arise
in the storytelling imaginationall around the world, in
cultures throughout time andplace.
They don't always have to beinfluenced or inspired by my
(20:41):
fossils.
We have great imaginations thatwe always have so I think that
fossils might help confirm thestory, but you don't need that
confirmation to keep telling thestory.
Taylor Bledsoe (20:57):
So, wrapping up here with the last two questions
we ask all of our guests, thefirst one is what books have had
an impact on you.
Adrienne Mayor (21:04):
Well, it's a time on classical oriented
person, I'm really interested inantiquity.
So I have to say that Homer'sIliad and Odyssey are really
influential to me and I thinkthat's those are two stories
that you can read over and overagain throughout your life.
You'll always find somethingnew in it.
(21:26):
Some people read the Iliad forthe great war stories and it has
fabulous war stories but alsopeople notice that when they
read it like the third or fourthtime, that Homer is really it's
sort of an anti-war treatiseabout how awful war is for all
generations, that you know shewas talking before the parents,
(21:51):
that kind of thing.
So you always find somethingnew in Homer.
And I mentioned Herodotus, myfavorite author from antiquity.
He's just sort of one of myheroes and guides in writing
because he was just insatiablycurious Greek historian.
He traveled to exotic lands,interviewed local people.
He was like the firstanthropologist.
(22:12):
He was always curious and heasked people about their
histories, their languages,their customs.
Then he would bring the storiesback to Athens and we have
evidence that he actually wouldread them out loud to the
Athenians.
And in the writings.
(22:33):
When you read Herodotus, hesometimes ends a chapter by
saying well, that's enough aboutthat and you know that he's.
You know it's almost like he'ssaying go ahead, ask me some
more questions.
So you know that they startedas oral stories and he kept an
open mind and he was oftenskeptical, but he could never
let a good story go and I feellike that's a great model for me
(22:54):
.
So I really love Herodotus.
Taylor Bledsoe (22:58):
Yeah, I haven't read any Herodotus, but we read
the Iliad this year for school.
Oh, yeah, it was veryinteresting because it was
surprisingly readable.
I thought it would be.
I didn't know what I wasthinking it was going to be, but
I was surprised by how readableit was.
I don't think a lot of peopleexpect that with ancient works.
Adrienne Mayor (23:15):
It depends on if you have an old translation or
a new translation, and some ofthe new translations are really
accessible and make it reallyreadable.
It's really fun to read it outloud too, and, as I say, there
are so many stories there andyou can take so many different
messages from them.
Besides just being good stories, they also have things that are
(23:38):
just really significant andimportant, and that's why it's
been perpetuated until now overthe millennia.
Taylor Bledsoe (23:46):
It's.
They're all very interesting.
And wrapping up now with ourlast question what advice do you
have for teenagers?
Adrienne Mayor (23:54):
Well, I guess I would say read.
I think reading is one of themost important things you can
rely on throughout your wholelife.
And as a child I lived in SouthDakota and I could not wait
until Fridays, when the bookmobile it was like a van with
(24:15):
books in it that would come tomy little town and I would take
out as many books as I could.
We were allowed three andfinally they let me take out
five every week and reading justsaved my life because you'll
never really be lonely and thereare adventures just between the
covers of a book.
So I would say read, and itdoesn't matter if you're a slow
(24:40):
reader or a fast reader, itdoesn't matter what you read.
I mean read poems, nonfiction,fiction, comic books, anything.
If you can read, you will haveadventures and escape whenever
you need it.
So that's my advice.
Taylor Bledsoe (25:00):
Well, thank you so much, Professor Mayer, for
coming on the podcast.
I've really enjoyed ourdiscussion.
Thank you so much.
Well, welcome Professor Mayer to the interview
.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Adrienne Mayor (00:04):
Thank you for having me.
Taylor Bledsoe (00:06):
Thank you.
So you are a historian andfolklorist and you study
basically how the origins ofmyth, the scientific origins and
what you think influenced howthese myths were created, right,
and is that a good way torepresent your work?
Yeah, well, great.
So the thing that I foundfascinating about it is,
(00:27):
whenever you read aboutclassical mythology and some of
the other myths, you alwayswonder are these things that the
cultures believe, or thesethings almost like bigfoot in
our society, things that somepeople believe but the vast
majority is questioning?
So do you know what therelationship between these myths
and their societies are?
Adrienne Mayor (00:49):
That's a really fascinating question and I can
tell you there are classicalscholars who work on that very
question and of course we don'treally know, because so much
literature and art fromclassical antiquity has been
lost.
I mean, we only have what tipof the iceberg, things that have
survived, texts that havesurvived, and it's random
(01:12):
whether or not they survived ornot and it even the art which
can really help us understandwhat people believed in or what
kind of stories they like tolisten to.
Even that is really patchy andrandom.
A curator of ancient vasepaintings at the Getty Museum in
(01:35):
Los Angeles once told me thatof the thousands of vase
paintings that have survivedthat we have beautiful vase
paintings of mythology, and hesaid that represents about 1% of
what really existed inantiquity.
So you can see the problem infiguring out what people really
believed.
I know there is a book.
(01:56):
Actually I can't think of theauthor's name right now, but it
the title of the book is did theancient Greeks believe their
myths?
So we don't really know, butthis guy has written an entire
book on that topic, if you wantto look further into that.
We just don't really know.
I really am interested inmythology because I think it I'm
(02:21):
more interested.
Actually I should go backmythology about gods.
I'm in antiquity.
I'm not that interested in whatI'm really interested in our
legends and things that don'tactually include the gods but
actually talk about mysteriousthings in nature or things that
(02:41):
seem like they could be true orhave a little germ of truth or a
little nugget of truth.
That's what I'm always lookingfor just ferreting out Just sort
of kernels of reality that areembedded in legends and popular
folklore from antiquity, themyths all about gods and gods
(03:02):
and demigods and heroes.
That's not really asinteresting to me because I
don't really know whether peoplebelieved in the gods or not.
I know they did the rituals.
As a lot of people practicetheir religion today, it's the
rituals that are most important.
But I'm really interested inlegends and popular folklore
(03:23):
about nature, especially becauseI think those things would be
perpetuated if people could seeand touch something that seemed
real to them, that confirm thosestories.
So that's actually what I'mmostly interested in.
Taylor Bledsoe (03:39):
So then, let's get into that a little bit more.
What are some of the origin?
What are some of these legends?
And then what are some of theorigins that you've looked into?
The one that your books namedafter that I read for this are
the flying snakes and theGriffin claws.
So I guess let's just startthere.
Adrienne Mayor (03:58):
Well, flying snakes has always fascinated me
because it was first writtenabout flying snakes, winged
serpents, supposedly in Egypt orin the area bordered between
Sinai Desert and Egypt.
So Arabia, ancient Arabia, andHerodotus is the first to have
(04:20):
written about this in the 5thcentury BC, so about 470 BC,
2,500 years ago.
He actually traveled around theMediterranean and went to Egypt
and he was a really curious guyand he pestered priests and
storytellers and elders andordinary people about the
(04:45):
folklore that he heard in allthe various places he went to.
And so he says in his bookwhich I'll talk about later
because you're going to ask meabout what books influenced me
and I love Herodotus he was socurious he said in his writings
I went to Egypt and I went tospecifically inquire about the
(05:09):
flying snakes of Arabia, and sohe actually went to a temple
where he heard that wasdedicated to a goddess of flying
cobras.
But he also wanted to find outif there were really flying
snakes in Arabia.
These snakes were supposed tohang out or be around the
(05:32):
Frankincense bushes where peoplegathered Frankincense, which
was a really costly, preciousincense that only came from
these certain trees in Arabia.
So he was investigating thestory.
Were there really flying snakesaround these trees, and one
(05:54):
possible explanation is that thepeople who gathered the
precious Frankincense maybe theymade up that story just to keep
people away from this reallyprecious resource that they were
in charge of.
So there is that, butHerodotus' description of the
(06:14):
flying snakes that he heard fromvarious people in Egypt and the
Sinai Desert.
It's so detailed that I feltthat this is a folklore about
nature.
That must have something realto it.
What could the flying snakes be?
Some people have suggested thatit was a kind of insect, really
(06:36):
large, maybe a very largedragonflies.
Herodotus says that as theymigrated through Egypt, these
flocks of ibis birds large waterbirds would actually eat these
flying snakes.
So that's a suggestion that itcould be something like a
(06:57):
dragonfly or insect or maybesome kind of snake.
There are flying snakes in theother parts of the world, in the
tropics, in Asia, but thosedon't exist anywhere in the
desert.
So unless there was somespecies of flying snake with a
membrane, wings that we don'teven know about, then it's
(07:20):
probably not a living flyingsnake.
On the other hand, herodotustold us he was taken to a valley
or a sort of gorge where he sawheaps and heaps of the bones,
of remains, the skeletons offlying snakes.
So what could that be?
Is it some kind of fossil thathe saw?
Or was it maybe washed up bythese lakes that would recede
(07:45):
and then wax and wane over timeand they would wash up skeletons
of something that looked likeflying snakes?
So I don't want to have aspoiler for that chapter, but I
think I propose about six orseven different ideas for what
those snakes with wings couldhave been, and we'll never know
(08:05):
for sure.
And the other thing about myresearch is, I'll never know for
sure.
It's always circumstantialevidence, but some of it can be
pretty convincing.
Taylor Bledsoe (08:13):
So yeah, that's very interesting.
I'm curious so when you'reresearching these ancient
animals and these ancient, theother ancient creatures in
biology that people havediscussed, where do you draw the
line between okay, maybe thisexisted, but they're extinct and
that's why we don't see themtoday, and then maybe these are
(08:36):
just takes on other animals?
So how do you determine that inyour research?
Adrienne Mayor (08:42):
Well, one of the fantastic or fabulous creatures
that I have researched is theancient griffin, which I'm sure
everybody knows what a griffinlooks like now, since Harry
Potter and various othergriffins appear a lot these days
.
But in antiquity people believethat it was a real animal and
(09:06):
that it had four legs.
But four legs are like a lionor a wolf or something like a
mammal, a quadruped but its headwas like that of a raptor, an
eagle or a vulture or some kindof raptor with a beak.
So when I first startedresearching that I I found out
(09:28):
that there is no myth aboutgriffons.
So that's one reason what Isaid earlier I'm not as
interested in the official mythsof antiquity, more interested
in the folklore and the legends,and griffons were legendary,
not part of myth.
There is no myth about griffons, but there are lots and lots of
(09:49):
griffons in ancient Greek artand they're always shown with
four legs and a beak, sometimeswings and weird formations on
the back of their necks.
They were said to live in thefar, remote lands of Asia and
(10:09):
that they made their nests onthe ground and that they laid
their eggs on the ground like aground bird, but not like a
mammal, because mammals, ofcourse, have live birth, and
that we even have some art thatshows mother griffons with baby
griffons.
We have some art that showsgriffons guarding their nest
(10:32):
filled with golden eggs, and inthe legends, griffons were said
to guard or defend or be aroundthe area where the nomads of
Asia would gather gold, and thatthey were supposedly protecting
those lands.
So once again, it could bestories told by the nomads who
(10:56):
gathered the gold.
Right, they may be made upthese stories just to keep
people away from their preciousresource.
But the fact that the detailswe have, all these details that
there are nests with eggs andthat they guarded their nests
with babies and that sometimesthat you would come across them.
But one thing that made mebelieve in the story is that,
(11:18):
first of all, no myths aboutthem.
It's legends about a farawayland and the kind of fauna that
we live in that land.
Also, all the details abouttheir nests on the ground with
eggs.
And no one ever claimed.
Over a thousand years ofwriting about griffons Greek and
Roman authors no one everclaimed to see a live one.
(11:41):
So that made me think.
Is there some kind of evidencethat made people believe in it,
even though no one ever saw alive one, and I started thinking
four legs and a beak.
What living animals has fourlegs and a beak?
Can you think of what?
Taylor?
Taylor Bledsoe (11:57):
There.
I mean I would assume they'redinosaurs throughout all of the
yeah Right once living right,but any living animal today that
they might have seen?
Adrienne Mayor (12:06):
no, the only thing I could come up with as a
turtle.
But a turtle has four legs,right, a kind of beak-like face,
but that doesn't fit thegriffon, right?
These are supposed to be veryfierce animals that preyed on
stags and horses and humans.
So it's not a turtle.
So that just, I had the sameimpulse that you did.
(12:29):
Maybe a dinosaur, because youcan think of lots of dinosaurs
that you've seen in naturalhistory museums, that four legs
and they have beaks, becausethey combine the features of a
bird and a mammal in.
But these things all wentextinct 65 million years ago,
(12:50):
except for birds, which stillexist.
They are dinosaurs and theyhave a beak, but they don't have
four legs.
So I focused on dinosaurs.
So that's basically how I sortof winnow it down to what could
possibly be real about thisstory.
And if people came acrossdinosaur skeletons in that area
(13:12):
where those nomads were lookingfor gold, that might explain the
evidence.
That would keep the storyperpetuating.
And sure enough, I found outthat in the region where the
ancient Greeks and Romans saidthat ancient prospectors for
gold came across dinosaurs, thatwas a vast nesting ground of
(13:33):
dinosaurs with beaks and fourlegs and they make their nests
on the ground and they lay theireggs in the nests and you can
find the nests there too.
In fact, paleontologists havetold me you cannot walk through
that area without coming acrossnests with petrified eggs and
even hatching babies, andthey're some of the most
(13:54):
exquisitely preserved dinosaurskeletons in the world.
So they're fully articulatedand they erode out of the cliffs
there, usually the beak firstand then the rest of the
skeleton, and some of them arestanding up.
So you can just imagine howeerie that would be for
prospectors going through thatarea and early travelers.
(14:15):
I think that's the evidencethat kept the story going, and
we don't know which came firstthe story of an animal with four
legs and a head like a bird,because you can see those in
ancient art, but we don't knowthe stories which came first the
, the image and the idea ofsomething that was a hybrid, or
(14:36):
the observation of fossils.
Never know which came first,but I think they might be
related in some way, kind of afeedback loop.
Taylor Bledsoe (14:44):
Yeah, that's, that's very fascinating.
Have any of these Stories cometo influence, influence us today
and how we think about theworld and how we think about new
discoveries?
I don't know if you'veresearched that, but it's kind
of interesting because if youthink about some of these ideas
that have Gone throughout ourcultures and the closest one now
(15:06):
obviously this is not a faircomparison but Star Trek, and
then how we kind of developtechnologies around what we saw
there, have any of these mythsInfluenced the ways we have
innovated or the way we havethought about animals?
I'm not sure.
Adrienne Mayor (15:25):
It's the way we think about animals.
But in a pre my previous bookwas called gods and robots and
it was about ancient automatonsand we have actually ancient
Greek myths and stories aboutautomatons and those in those
ways of imagining makingartificial life and and animated
(15:48):
statues in mythology.
It was really shocking to mostpeople to to realize that people
could imagine things like that.
Building things like that with,with technology was built by
the god of technology,prometheus and Hephaestus, who
are the gods of innovation andtechnology, and yet they were
(16:11):
mad.
People in antiquity wereimagining these things Long
before the technology to makeanything like that existed.
But in antiquity, after thosemyths had circulated for
Centuries or millennia, theybegan building Automated statues
that could raise their arms,close their eyes, open their
(16:34):
mouths, even make sounds move.
They were inventing thosethings as early as the fourth
and third century BC.
So many people have said whereimagination, if you think of
these Myths about automatons asthe first science fiction
(16:57):
stories.
Many people have said wherescience fiction Leads,
technology often follows.
So I think that in the case ofI mean we're not talking about
my most recent book, about me,but the book before that was
really did have that featurethat you, that you just brought
up, that it has affected.
(17:17):
It affects technology later.
So by the Middle Ages, peoplewere making clockwork mechanisms
and real robots and they wereinfluenced by the ancient
stories, ancient myths and evenartistic base paintings of of
the first robots in myth.
(17:38):
So I think that I think it'svery true that If you imagine
Ancient science fiction in thosemyths, that really has affected
how, how people have Tried toimitate nature, improve a nature
and then even surpass nature.
(17:59):
So it doesn't apply to, I think, how we think of animals.
So much Thanks.
But it certainly does fortechnology like Automation and
AI.
Taylor Bledsoe (18:11):
Yeah, the other.
The last question I had beforeyou wrap up is Sometimes
throughout cultures you seethese similar motifs of folklore
and Legends, that kind of goaround.
So you have stories aboutdragons and you have stories
about all different kinds ofcreatures that might have
existed.
How do you do you explain these?
(18:31):
By saying that there are, thatthey discovered bones of
dinosaurs that they thought weresimilar, or what do you guys,
what do researchers in your areaSay about these similar myths
and these motifs?
Adrienne Mayor (18:45):
and especially one.
One Really outstanding exampleof that is dragon myths, and
dragons are always like the sortof hybrid composite creature of
many, many, many differentliving animals like birds, fish,
sea creatures, land creatures,even insects a composite of that
(19:09):
, and in some places, like inChina, people can actually you
can find links between Fossilsthat are found in China, fossils
that are found in China, andyou know of long extinct
creatures and the way they drewdragons.
But there are also dragonstories in places where there
(19:32):
are no conspicuous fossils.
So we don't wanna put down thestorytelling imagination right.
Anyone can come up with acomposite creature or monster
just by a mishmash of all kindsof features of living creatures
that you know about, and thenyou add some imaginary stuff too
(19:53):
.
So there are dragons around theworld, stories that go back
millennia of dragons, andsometimes you can say that
discoveries of fossilsperplexing fossils of creatures
you've never seen, with bizarrefeatures those might serve to
influence or perpetuate thebelief seem to confirm a belief
(20:16):
in dragons.
On the other hand, in placeswhere there are no fossils,
those stories are perpetuated.
So I think that stories aboutdragons and monsters just arise
in the storytelling imaginationall around the world, in
cultures throughout time andplace.
They don't always have to beinfluenced or inspired by my
(20:41):
fossils.
We have great imaginations thatwe always have so I think that
fossils might help confirm thestory, but you don't need that
confirmation to keep telling thestory.
Taylor Bledsoe (20:57):
So, wrapping up here with the last two questions
we ask all of our guests, thefirst one is what books have had
an impact on you.
Adrienne Mayor (21:04):
Well, it's a time on classical oriented
person, I'm really interested inantiquity.
So I have to say that Homer'sIliad and Odyssey are really
influential to me and I thinkthat's those are two stories
that you can read over and overagain throughout your life.
You'll always find somethingnew in it.
(21:26):
Some people read the Iliad forthe great war stories and it has
fabulous war stories but alsopeople notice that when they
read it like the third or fourthtime, that Homer is really it's
sort of an anti-war treatiseabout how awful war is for all
generations, that you know shewas talking before the parents,
(21:51):
that kind of thing.
So you always find somethingnew in Homer.
And I mentioned Herodotus, myfavorite author from antiquity.
He's just sort of one of myheroes and guides in writing
because he was just insatiablycurious Greek historian.
He traveled to exotic lands,interviewed local people.
He was like the firstanthropologist.
(22:12):
He was always curious and heasked people about their
histories, their languages,their customs.
Then he would bring the storiesback to Athens and we have
evidence that he actually wouldread them out loud to the
Athenians.
And in the writings.
(22:33):
When you read Herodotus, hesometimes ends a chapter by
saying well, that's enough aboutthat and you know that he's.
You know it's almost like he'ssaying go ahead, ask me some
more questions.
So you know that they startedas oral stories and he kept an
open mind and he was oftenskeptical, but he could never
let a good story go and I feellike that's a great model for me
(22:54):
.
So I really love Herodotus.
Taylor Bledsoe (22:58):
Yeah, I haven't read any Herodotus, but we read
the Iliad this year for school.
Oh, yeah, it was veryinteresting because it was
surprisingly readable.
I thought it would be.
I didn't know what I wasthinking it was going to be, but
I was surprised by how readableit was.
I don't think a lot of peopleexpect that with ancient works.
Adrienne Mayor (23:15):
It depends on if you have an old translation or
a new translation, and some ofthe new translations are really
accessible and make it reallyreadable.
It's really fun to read it outloud too, and, as I say, there
are so many stories there andyou can take so many different
messages from them.
Besides just being good stories, they also have things that are
(23:38):
just really significant andimportant, and that's why it's
been perpetuated until now overthe millennia.
Taylor Bledsoe (23:46):
It's.
They're all very interesting.
And wrapping up now with ourlast question what advice do you
have for teenagers?
Adrienne Mayor (23:54):
Well, I guess I would say read.
I think reading is one of themost important things you can
rely on throughout your wholelife.
And as a child I lived in SouthDakota and I could not wait
until Fridays, when the bookmobile it was like a van with
(24:15):
books in it that would come tomy little town and I would take
out as many books as I could.
We were allowed three andfinally they let me take out
five every week and reading justsaved my life because you'll
never really be lonely and thereare adventures just between the
covers of a book.
So I would say read, and itdoesn't matter if you're a slow
(24:40):
reader or a fast reader, itdoesn't matter what you read.
I mean read poems, nonfiction,fiction, comic books, anything.
If you can read, you will haveadventures and escape whenever
you need it.
So that's my advice.
Taylor Bledsoe (25:00):
Well, thank you so much, Professor Mayer, for
coming on the podcast.
I've really enjoyed ourdiscussion.
Thank you so much.
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