Stegosaurus in Cambodian Jungle? Ancient Carving.

Scientists decided long ago decided that Marsupial species where only ever present on the Australian mainland.....then in 2007, it was discovered that certain marsupial species (previously considered extinct); where thriving in an isolated valley in West Papua.
Just one example how anomalies can change the perception of mass accepted hypothesis'.

Was thinking that if this carving is from a buddhist temple in cambodia then maybe the armored plated on the back are really an artistic representation of Lotus peddles which are highly considered in buddhist culture.

If I actually saw a stegosaurus in the wild with its huge size of around 30 feet in length and 12 feet in height I would most likely assign it a more prominent and important role in my set of carvings than what was given here. Even without knowledge of dinosaurs I am sure it would be obvious that this creature would be something unusual and special so much so that I feel certain it would get a little special treatment.

Originally posted by iforget
If I actually saw a stegosaurus in the wild with its huge size of around 30 feet in length and 12 feet in height I would most likely assign it a more prominent and important role in my set of carvings than what was given here. Even without knowledge of dinosaurs I am sure it would be obvious that this creature would be something unusual and special so much so that I feel certain it would get a little special treatment.

edit on 8/1/2012 by iforget because: (no reason given)

I agree.

I personally don´t believe dinosaurs survived to modern times (except for birds, that is), although I would be the happiest man in the world if they had.
What bugs me about most supossed depictions of dinosaurs in ancient art is that they always seem to show the same famous species (or, if we get technical, genera) of dinosaurs once and again; Stegosaurus, Triceratops, "Brontosaurus" (paleontologists would call it Apatosaurus)... I think the same, famous dinos were depicted in the Ica stones? (btw, are those already widely considered a hoax, or do they still have defenders?)

Not only is it suspicious that these depictions show only the famous dinos; it is also illogical. Why would the Ica stones, for example, depict Triceratops or Stegosaurus, if those dinosaurs were exclusive of the Northern Hemisphere? (Stegosaurus from North America and Europe, Triceratops thus far only known from the USA and Canada). There is good evidence that South America had a separate fauna ever since the Cretaceous, and if dinosaurs had survived to modern times in South America, we would expect to see depictions of descendants of the South American dinosaurs that made it to the latest Cretaceous, wouldn´t we?
That would be titanosaurs, abelisaurs, noasaurids, unenlagiines, and now it seems, carcharodontosaurs, but no ceratopsians or stegosaurs at all.

(I'm new to the forum and I guess there must be a thread on the Ica stones somewhere, but I'm just making a point here, so I apologize for going slightly off topic).

The so called "stegosaur" from Cambodia looks little like a stegosaur to me; it has a short tail, its four legs are about the same length, and it has a huge heavyset head; real stegosaurs (as evidenced by fossils) had long necks carried upright like a bird (this is according to the newest paleontological findings; they didn´t have horizontal necks as popularly depicted), had very long and powerful tails armed with spikes, and their forelegs were a lot shorter than their hindlegs.
Even if we admit that ancient carvings don´t have to be particularly accurate, wouldn´t the artist, if inspired by a real stegosaur, add at least the tail spikes which would be the animal's most impressive trait aside from its size?
To me, the carving looks like some sort of mammal; the tail is short and hangs behind the body (instead of being horizontally suspended in the air like that of a real stegosaur). The head is big and heavy and oriented downwards. It may be depicting some sort of bovid (if you look closely the head seems to have two big horns).

Also, here's a pic of a carving found around the same place; as you can see, what look like plates in the "stegosaur" carving are simply ornamental figures used here to surround another animal figure:

geochristian.files.wordpress.com...

I don´t think there's any reason to assume this is a stegosaur, and I agree with iforget that if any sort of giant dinosaur had survived to modern times, they would probably be depicted very frequently in ancient art, as they would be the biggest, scariest, most powerful animals around, the ones that would capture imagination and inspire myth and legend over all others. The fact that south east Asian civilizations revered elephants, lions and other such creatures over all others should be enough proof that dinosaurs were nowhere around.

geochristian.files.wordpress.com...

I mostly agree with your post, but the linked picture you provided shows ornamentation that is more angular and farther apart than the mystery animal's "plates." Both the "water buffalo" and the crypto have the same ornamentation on the ring that surrounds them, but there is a definite difference between the plates on the back and that ornamentation.

There's been a suggestion that the plates are lotus leaves, but real lotus leaves are even more round than the "stegosaurus" plates in the sculpture, and in this case, they run solely along the back of the creature and nowhere else. Hindu art frequently shows beings completely surrounded by lotus, not just leaves along their backs.

Yes, the tail and head are wrong. But I doubt the carver was able to get whatever it was to stand still long enough to capture its image perfectly. He may have been working by word of mouth himself.

I've had the pleasure of going to Ta Prohm in person, and I can say that the Cambodians are not hyping this thing one bit. The faker something is, the more people try to hype and exploit it, and they are really laid back about it. The reason that it looks "newer" than the sculpture around it is because the entire area is undergoing constant cleaning and renovation, which the Cambodians can only do in bits and pieces.

Do I think this is a dinosaur? no, but it's not easily explained, either. It's damn weird.

Considering that in the jungle can live almost everything, I would not be surprised by some stegosaurus. The question is the time period. I mean, that for so many millions of years, especially in this kind of isolation, this thing should not be true Stegosaurus. Should any changes occur in its the physiology, maybe in its behavior. But in general, it all depends on what its needs to survive. Of course, the animal may be is not stegosaurus. It could be some kind of mammal or something. Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction.