Stegosaurus in Cambodian Jungle? Ancient Carving.

This discovery is about a year old, but I couldn't find thread about it on ATS...



This carving is one of many carvings in an ancient Cambodian temple at Angkor Wat. The jungle temples of Cambodia were produced by the Khmer civilization, beginning as early as the eighth and extending through the fourteenth century A.D.

What appears to be a Stegosaurus stenops is found between other animals like monkeys, buffalo, parrots, deer and many more "ordinary" animals. People are suggesting that the stone carvers of the tenth century "saw" dinosaurs (a stegosaurus) just as they've seen monkeys, buffalo and other jungle animals.

This of course can have several implications.
1. One group uses this "stegosaurus" as proof that dinosaurs lived among man, as supporting "proof" of creationism.
This is what the SOURCE of the pictures would like us to believe. (Many more pictures and close-ups on the site.)
2. This on the other hand can indicate that there are still dinosaurs (or an animal that resembles a stegosaurus) living in the Cambodian Jungles. Well, at least at the time the carvings were made.
3. The sceptics say that it's a "mythical creature", i.e. not a real beast, like Chinese dragons, unicorns, etc. But then again, why put a mythical beats up with real animals?
4. Others say it's a merely a rhino (the Sumatran rhino?) and the plates that resembles the plates on the back of a Stegosaurus are purely the result of a bad carving. Or even the work of modern man, i.e. hoaxers deliberately changed the carving with a hammer and chisel to resemble the dinosaur. But then why no horn and how did they "create" a tail if it's a hoax?
5. Or can we be so bold as to suggest time travel?

There are two (additional) independent sources that supports the idea of a stegosaurus:

At least two very significant books testify to the authenticity of the stegosaurs carving. Ancient Angkor was first published in Thailand in 1999 by River Books Ltd., Bangkok. A small picture of the carving is seen at the bottom of page 143. On page 144 we read, "Along the vertical strip of roundels in the angle between the south wall of the porch and the east wall of the main body of the gopura there is even a very convincing representation of a stegosaur."

The large, beautiful 320 page book, Angkor, Cities And Temples, by the same author and photographer, includes a half page picture of the stegosaur sculpture. On page 213 the author describes it as "an animal which bears a striking resemblance to a stegosaurus".

Again, the source with many more pictures and high-quality, detailed photographs:
SOURCE

Edit: To fix images.


[edit on 18-5-2007 by Gemwolf]

While the general body does resemble a stegosaurus, the head is what bothers me the most. It's too large quite frankly. And the mouth itself has little resemblence. It doesn't seem like the 'plates' over the ridge of this carving was unintentional or a mistake. Perhaps it was like decorative additions or representing something that is unknown, but could be anything like stones. Now, I don't think it looks much like a rhino, because rhino's have a strong shoulder ridge. To me the modern animal that most resembles that is a hippopotamus, because the ridge on their back is more curved like and the head is large. The long tail in the carving is the only discrepency that I see, minus the 'plates'.
Another theory is that they could have discovered the fossil remains of a stegosaurus to a -point, because the neck and head have little if any resemblance to the actual creature. Nonetheless an interesting find.

Originally posted by laiguana
While the general body does resemble a stegosaurus, the head is what bothers me the most. It's too large quite frankly. And the mouth itself has little resemblence. It doesn't seem like the 'plates' over the ridge of this carving was unintentional or a mistake. Perhaps it was like decorative additions or representing something that is unknown, but could be anything like stones.

The first thing most sceptics have to say about this, is the anatomical differences between popular Stegosaurus restorations and the Cambodian sculpture. This is what the site have to say about that:

The head is too large Stegosaurs had no horns or frills on the head" The sculpture has no spikes on the tail... Therefore, they conclude that the sculptor never saw a Stegosaurus.

One is tempted to respond to these claims by pointing out that our modern restorations involve some guess work, that Stegosaurs may have exhibited a significant amount of anatomical variety (like dogs), that a view of tail spikes may well be blocked by the surrounding stone circle, etc., etc. However, this line of reasoning focuses the discussion on the wrong issue. The relevant question is not, Can you find anatomical differences with today's popular restorations? Rather, the real question is, What kind of sculpture would be produced by an artist who remembered seeing a Stegosaurus?

Consider the following brave observation regarding this sculpture by an author unknown to me, posted to a web site dominated by skeptics.

"As an artist myself, I find it amusing that skeptics are picking at the anatomical incorrectness of this rendering. If I were going to draw a stegosaurus from memory, that's what it would look like, by gum. And of COURSE it was done with a chisel. Just like the rest of the wall. Sheesh. Most artists have handwriting,' and this artistic style matches the rest of the pictures, as well. Isn't the triceratops head frill a neat addition? It's actually more convincing to me than if it HAD been a perfect replica. Says that there was some confusion there. Combined legends? Conflicting sightings? Cool."
...
More

But then again, the site may be a little biased. Still they make a good point.

Maybe it's a chameleon? On that last pic it looks like it has a bulbous eye, similar to a chameleon no? Maybe it represents a chameleon sitting in a branch infront of some leaves.

Or it's head looks wierd because it's an undocumented type of stegosaurus...I think it's some type of jungle lizard though.

Some visual aid.In the form of a cheap paint over. Heck, if you look at the couple pictures, it even looks like it's on a branch(at the end of the legs).



[edit on 18-5-2007 by LordBaskettIV]

Originally posted by LordBaskettIV
Maybe it's a chameleon? On that last pic it looks like it has a bulbous eye, similar to a chameleon no? Maybe it represents a chameleon sitting in a branch infront of some leaves.

I don't see why not. A chameleon with "spikes"/plates seems less far-fetched than a dinosaur. I wonder why they assume/speculate that it's a large animal?

Edit: Clarity

[edit on 18-5-2007 by Gemwolf]

Yep, that could also be a chameleon if you interpreted that way. Though the legs are a bit stocky in the carving and it's not entirely accurate. But according to the website a 'stegosaurus' doesn't have to be accurate in a carving either. FYI: there are horned chameleons too and the ridge on the back is also curved like the carving.... so it can be a number of things apparently.

Now this is what I want to see at @3:00 in the morning. They find all kinds of critters in the jungles of Asia, why not the ultimate in living fossils? I know that dinosaurs have for the most part been extinct for many millions of years, but just for giggles let's assume otherwise.

There may not be any better place on Earth for a herbivorous dinosaur of Stegosaurs size and nutritional needs to live than the jungles of Southeastern Asia. Vast, somewhat isolated and difficult terrain, seems tailor made to me...

Odds are that it is indeed some sort of small lizard, but the "what if" factor sure is cool.

Here are a few sites that depict ancient dino carving's ---I do believe there will be a time when we will re-write the text books.

www.angelfire.com...

www.genesispark.com...

www.ancientx.com...

www.bible.ca...


www.s8int.com...

there are plenty more ..

have a nice day

how exciting! i'm surprised this hasn't been discussed before on ATS, but better late than never i guess. thanks for posting it, gem
i'm agreeing that it's irrelevent whether it's anatomically incorrect - most if not all ancient art is inaccurate.
i've never seen a chameleon with plates along it's back like the picture shows, but *shrug* i'm not a chameleon expert, so i don't mind being proved wrong!
the proposal that the plates were the result of 'bad carving' is laughable - they're as deliberate as any other part of the carving. as for the possibility that it's been tampered with, all i can say is judging by the depth of the carving compared with the others, it seems improbable that anything has been altered in that respect. of course, that's not to say that nothing has been added. however if there is any hoaxing going on it's been done by an extremely talented artist - the carving matches the others perfectly in colour, consistency and style.

(Double post - Please delete)

[edit on 5/18/2007 by Kacen]

I agree with LordBasket, I think its a just a slightly artistic rendering of a chameleon. That seems like the most likely explanation.

Now do chameleons live in Cambodia? I just looked on google and I can't find out.

Found it on Cryptomundo. I remember someone posting that this temple was one that the Tomb Raider movie was shot at. They pointed out how much newer it looked than the rest of the temple. Probably a hoax, or a leftover movie "prop".
Cryptomundo
I'm hopeful though...

I want my own stego!!!

I think that those "plates" on its back are not actually part of the animal. if you look, you can see that the sculptor has carved a spiral of similar shapes around the image. I think that the ones above the creature's back are just a continuation of this decorative spiral of the same shapes. You can see what I mean in the image I have highlighted below:



With best wishes.

I want to be open and say that I am sceptical that any dinos survived in pockets into modern (CE) times, BUT I think it would be awesome if they did!

If this was a depiction of a steg, how are we to say that they didn't evolve into the form depicted? I understand that this is being put out by creationists so this argument doesn't mesh with their agenda, but from a real world view this would leave the dinos evloving for 100s of millions of years.

The flip side is that if you look at the lower left hand of the column in the original picture you can see that there is something else surrounded by some kind of "petals" that look like the ones in the steg image. Is this supposed to be some boney dino too? I think not, otherwise it would be getting the same attention.

Another thought: What if this is some lizard that is seen only in certain times of the day (like dawn or dusk) and that could be represented by a rising or setting sun behind it?

Those are just what I have come up with off the top of my head. As cool as it would be to think that there could have been dinos around back then, I just don't think that is the only answer to this riddle.

Originally posted by Uplifted
Found it on Cryptomundo. I remember someone posting that this temple was one that the Tomb Raider movie was shot at. They pointed out how much newer it looked than the rest of the temple. Probably a hoax, or a leftover movie "prop".
Cryptomundo
I'm hopeful though...

I want my own stego!!!

Oh boy! That is HIGHLY belivable!

I was a kid when that movie came out and when it hit VCR we all watched it again and again, because it turned out that there were a lot of wierd little things hidden in it (mostly starwars related though). Like the plane in the beginning having the markings OB1 and R2D2 flanked by matching C3PO hyroglyphs in the snake chamber.

As much as it would be nice to be true, I have my doubts.

Are there any clear pictures of the other animal carvings to use for comparison?

If the others are legitimate and resemble the same style, it may be worth a closer look.

I agree with the fact its head is the wrong shape for a stego's, but as Gemwolf said our own 'representations' of a stegosaurus are all guess work. For all we know it had a small skull but a mass of muscle over its lower jaw.

Plus if it had survived for all these years there is also the possibility that it had evolved to be more successful. Rhinos and hippos have larger jaws and thrive, so maybe any stego's that survived have adopted this trait.

I find it interesting that a dinosaur is worked into a gallery which is composed of mostly mundane animals. Perhaps there was a virulent population of them that were used as beasts of burden by the natives, but hunted by settlers.

Super interesting find.
I always felt that history is not exactly what we're taught in school.
There is so much more undiscovered information.
Or, at least, so much more less-than-accepted information.
Nice find.

That temple looks like the one from tomb raider.
Anyways I thinking that these depictions for lizard or dinosaurs found in and around temple pyramids and large structures. Maybe we don’t give those ancient people enough credit, simply look at what they constructed which still stands today. They had to get that stone from some where and even had to dig for some of it, maybe at some point they came across fossils and full skeletons and were able to construct depictions from those bones. They’d certainly be smart enough to do something of that sort, even in a contemporary manner at the time.
I’m sure even if there was creature (dinosaurs) they’d all be dead, men will kill anything that breaths.

The whole creationism deal I don’t know about that, I heard about this in church which was the last time I went too, yeah well I know the world did not evolve in a few thousand year so there has to be an explanation for all these findings. I can only speculate on the possibilities only.

I think it’s a lizard.