Ancient References to the Fossils from the Land of Pythagoras

Abstract

Ancient people, as indicated by a few myths, knew of the vertebrate fossils from Samos, an island of Greece. The ancient Greeks interpreted these fossils as the remains of Neades, strange exotic beasts, or of the Amazons who perished in battle. Some of the fossils have been found in the ruins of a temple where they had been gathered for display. The red soil in which the fossils were found was explained as from blood spilled during a bloodbath. Furthermore, the Greeks had correlated geologic faults to earthquakes. The myths clearly state that they also had a sense of deep time (the great antiquity of the fossils). They named two bone beds because of the fossils: Panaima and Phloios respectively. These are proper names given in upper case letters in the myths. In Greek, Panaima means bloodbath and Phloios means thick and hard crust. Phloios is located in a ravine named Adrianos, which is a non-Greek name. Small ravines rarely have names in Greece, especially foreign names, and we explain the name as the renaming of Phloios by the Roman emperor Hadrian. Hadrian is known to have collected fossils near Troy and may have visited Samos.

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