Dinosaur What?

Science has said that the dinosaurs lived and died long before humans evolved on this planet.

Then why does nearly every ancient religion and mythology have tales of gigantic lizards and other fantastical large creatures? If those ancient peoples did not exist until thousands (even millions) of years after the dinosaurs died and were burried deep in the Earth's crust, where did they get their ideas for the mythological creatures they described?

The image above is from a temple in Angkor Wat that is about 900 years old. The image looks very much like a stegosaurus, yet those who built the temple shouldn't have had contact with such a creature, according to our "known timeline" of Earth. Even if they had found the skeleten of one, how would they know what it had looked like? It is only through more modern methods of reconstruction and computer estimations that we think we know what the dinosaurs looked like while they were alive.

Dragons, Leviathans, Behemoths and other 'fantasy' creatures have both a following of people who believe they are or were real and science saying they are fictitious creatures. It isn't such a stretch to consider the possibility that dinosaurs did exist simultaneously with humans at one time and stories of them were passed down to become the fictional beasts we know today.


There is lots of discussion going on about this image - that it may be a rhinocerous, boar, or a hoax. While the answer of what was actually being depicted here died along with the temple's original builders, we should consider the possibilities and be open to what the answer may be. If nothing else, it opens an interesting discussion and gives us the opportunity to dream up the possibilities.