Ancient dinosaur depictions

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ique
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Ancient dinosaur depictions

Post by ique »

So, throughout my younger life, I was shown a variety of images of different cave art depicting dinosaurs. As a cave art enthusiast, I thought that was absolutely fantastic. Lately I've been looking at quite a bit of cave art, and started thinking again about dinosaurs, and if there were in fact as many real dinosaur depictions as I was under the impression there were, why was this not a well-established and widely held belief? I started looking into it today... and the results were disappointing.

To start out, nearly every single result I found came from specifically Christian websites. Evidence coming consistently from only one type of source isn't a good sign (such as all UFO photos coming from only extra-terrestrial conspiracy sites). When I read into these finds, I found that they were widely disputed. The famous "sauropod" depiction from Utah is thought to actually be two snakes and some form of mud smear, or the result of Pioneer vandalism. This is obviously equally as speculative as the idea that it's a dinosaur at all, but something I noticed about the image was the exaggerated proportions — very stubby legs and an oversized head. One thing I've found particularly profound about cave art in general is the accuracy of its depictions of animals, due to the fact that the people who went to the trouble to produce these kinds of images were around these creatures every single day. They really understood what they looked like. The petroglyph in question looks more like what a child would draw having seen an illustration of a dinosaur in a book, not what an adult would have rendered having seen them in day to day life. I don't know if you've noticed, but sauropods have pretty small heads relative to how huge the rest of them is.
(p.s. it's apparently a few metres up a steep cliff of some sort, and it's a petroglyph—carved, not drawn—so I don't think it was a kid that did this.)

Here is the alleged sauropod.

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Here is a bison.

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Also, I'm wondering why there haven't been more dinosaur depictions, refuted or not. Dinosaurs seem like a pretty big deal. If people thought it was important to draw so many horses and buffalo, why not dinosaurs?

If any of you are aware of any other ancient dinosaur depictions (perhaps besides the Peruvian ica stones, which apparently don't have very much credibility) that perhaps I haven't yet seen, please mention them here! I think this is a fascinating topic and I would be thrilled if I came upon anything at least a bit more convincing.
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Termite
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Post by Termite »

ique wrote:Also, I'm wondering why there haven't been more dinosaur depictions, refuted or not. Dinosaurs seem like a pretty big deal. If people thought it was important to draw so many horses and buffalo, why not dinosaurs?
Probably because the cave drawings would have been done after the flood... The force of the water would have eroded them all. :-k No doubt that's when the dinosaurs died, so I guess it was the next generation who drew all that stuff and had never seen the dinos. Of course, there would be those who had, so they were the ones who did the few that there are.

I mean, that's all speculation... But those pictures are pretty cool. \:D/
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"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?" -Albert Einstein
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