The Narmer Palette
Well, we can at least say it’s a famous artifact–the Narmer Palette, produced in the time of King Narmer, the first ruler of a united Egypt, circa 3150 B.C.
But then we look at the pictures…
In the middle of the composition we find two wranglers using halters to control a pair of animals with very long necks. No, they’re not giraffes. The ancient Egyptians had zoos. Their artists depicted animals realistically.
Either the long-necked creatures on the Narmer Palette were totally imaginary,,, or they were real.
And if they were real… what the dickens were they?
I don’t know what they were. Thirty years ago, or 40, I might have had an idea- I used to be fascinated with Egypt, but no more.
Whatever they were it looks like man had them under control with some kind of noose. But wait, wasn’t primitive man supposed to be some kind of cave dweller that didn’t know jack about the natural world?
I don’t think it’s fair to call Egyptian civilization primitive. But the Palette doesn’t tell us anything about those long-necks. The rest of it is about a military campaign.
Their artists depicted animals realistically? Well, what about people? Also notice, there are two giants depicted on the Narmer Palette. No, that can’t be, giants were never real… were they? Oh, I think you should reconsider all the evidence, that once upon a time (in real time, in real history, just as the Bible tells us, giants lived among us, which we find depicted here).
It was a convention of Egyptian art to convey the pharaoh’s importance by depicting him as two or three times the size of anybody else. It was not meant to be taken literally.
That is strange. Honestly, they look like some sort of feline, with an extremely large (in diameter) and quite long neck. The face doesn’t look reptilian, and neither do the feet.
In recent years, it has come out that there are dinosaur fossils which are not actually mineralized, and contain soft tissue, and even red blood cells, bring into question the claimed age of these remains, as being millions of years old. Collagens will deteriorate much faster than that. This lends credibility to dragon legends, as being some sort of dinosaur.
The anti-diluvian world apparently had a much different climate than ours, and probably a higher oxygen partial pressure in the atmosphere, which would explain why there were some dinosaurs that grew to enormous sizes. It’s possible that young specimens were preserved on the ark, and existed for some time thereafter, although they would not have been able to grow nearly as big, and would not have thrived in the post-diluvian world, probably being hunted to extinction over the centuries.
The long necked creatures in the carving above may not, in my opinion, have been accurate depictions of anything that actually lived, but were possibly amalgams. Long necked dinosaurs had large bodies and impressive tails, to counterbalance their massive necks. The creatures depicted in the carving were imbalanced, and would have had to strain to hold their heads up. Even it this creature is an amalgam, that still suggests that the ancient Egyptians had seen something with a very large neck.
Good call on the giant, Mike. Obviously something going on with that.
But don’t forget that Egyptian art was always used for propaganda; and the long-necked creatures on the Palette may have been something like a modern political cartoon.
That makes sense.