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Post by lionking on Feb 15, 2011 12:36:34 GMT -4
It's only my own speculation, but I'd figure that the ancients thought about it in sort of the same terms science does now: "Most animals have legs. Snakes have no legs. Maybe they used to have them, and then lost them somehow." yes this is plausible too.. the video I posted, however, shows something more like a snake than a lizard that has legs. so, again it is speculation, this same animal might have been there thousands of years ago, and they became extinct from here, so the story originated that they didn't die out but lost their legs.. |
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Post by twik on Feb 15, 2011 15:26:07 GMT -4
lionking, I think you would be interested in a book called The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times. It suggests that many classical legends may have been inspired by typical fossils in the Aegean area (for example, giants from discoveries of fossilized elephant bones, and so forth).
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Post by lionking on Feb 16, 2011 4:05:20 GMT -4
yea, sure it would be interesting.. not to underestimate the human imagination that could come up with anythng.
by the way, when did humanity explore that the snake is deaf? the story of King Solomon and the snake ends by the snake tellign the King: what?
he told her: may you be deaf
and according to my poor grandma, this is why the snake is deaf today..
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Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 16, 2011 7:40:45 GMT -4
Snakes aren't deaf, they just have internal inner ears with no outer ear. Most of the sounds they hear are transmitted through the ground, but they can hear airbourne sounds as well, though not to the same degree we can.
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Post by lionking on Feb 16, 2011 9:28:20 GMT -4
Snakes aren't deaf, they just have internal inner ears with no outer ear. Most of the sounds they hear are transmitted through the ground, but they can hear airbourne sounds as well, though not to the same degree we can. o.k., so the ancients guessed that they are 'deaf' becasue they didn't find outside ears. |
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Post by echnaton on Feb 16, 2011 10:40:47 GMT -4
Snakes aren't deaf, they just have internal inner ears with no outer ear. Most of the sounds they hear are transmitted through the ground, but they can hear airbourne sounds as well, though not to the same degree we can. o.k., so the ancients guessed that they are 'deaf' becasue they didn't find outside ears. Who are these "ancients" and why do you assume they made this inference? Learning about what ancient civilizations believed or their basis for their knowledge requires archeological evidence. An attribution of knowledge based purely on traditional stories is bogus. Stories like Salomon and the snake are myths that the people who tell them use to provide a cultural context for their there lives. They need not have any factual relationship with the past nor can such a relationship be assumed. |
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Post by lionking on Feb 17, 2011 4:06:27 GMT -4
o.k., so the ancients guessed that they are 'deaf' becasue they didn't find outside ears. Who are these "ancients" and why do you assume they made this inference? Learning about what ancient civilizations believed or their basis for their knowledge requires archeological evidence. An attribution of knowledge based purely on traditional stories is bogus. Stories like Salomon and the snake are myths that the people who tell them use to provide a cultural context for there lives. They need not have any factual relationship with the past nor can such a relationship be assumed. thr ancietns are our ancestors. they say that the snakes are deaf. I am assuming that maybe they said that becasue they didn't see any outside ears for the snake .. the cultural context might as well take something from the surrounding. for instance, the animal in the video might have been there an dgot extinct, so to provide an explanation for this , they came out with this story. It might be that they assumed that snakes were lizards because of the resemblance to lizards and then lost their legs |
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