The Griffin and the Dinosaur: How Adrienne Mayor Discovered a Fascinating Link Between Myth and Science by Marc Aronson (review)

Accompanying her fiancé Josh on his studies in Athens in the 1972, Adrienne Mayor took the opportunity to research ancient myths she had always found fascinating, and she noticed that early descriptions of monstrous beasts sounded more lifelike than later ones. Particularly intrigued by the depiction of griffins, Mayor pursued a personal theory that the classical image may have been based on imaginative mental reconstructions of fossilized bones of extinct animals, which would have been accessible to ancient storytellers. Largely self-taught in classical languages and paleontology, Mayor ultimately connected the griffin with the skeleton of protoceratops, earning scholarly respect and launching her own career as a researcher at Stanford University. The theme of tracking the factual underpinnings of folklore has much in common with Aronson’s earlier collaboration with Scott Reynolds Nelson on Ain’t Nothing but a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry (BCCB 2/08). This title, however, is somewhat padded, with reminders of Mayor’s shyness, prairie roots, and academic outsider status frequently interrupting the flow of her research process and discovery. The blend of fantasy-style paintings, color photos of artifacts and fossilized remains, and diagrams that re-imagine the beasts from reality into mythology give the book crossover appeal to dino and fantasy fans alike. An annotated map, combined glossary and index, and suggestions for further print an online reading are included.