Case file · Folklore / legend
Gobi dinosaurs and the griffin
Historian Adrienne Mayor proposed that gold-guarding griffins, first told of by Aristeas around the 7th century BCE, were inspired by Protoceratops skulls in the Gobi.
675 BCE · 44.14, 103.73 · status: disputed
The sceptical view
Palaeontologists such as Mark Witton argue the griffin's history and the fossil sites do not support the idea.
Connections in the atlas
- The gold-guarding griffins