Pausanias was a Greek scholar who lived during the second century A.D. Well educated and well connected, he traveled in Greece and Asia Minor and took in the local antiquities. Some historians believe that he was also a doctor. Pausanias believed in the Greek mythology of the day, including creatures like griffins, giants and satyrs, but he made practical interpretations of organic remains, arguing that the the skeletons of supposed giants he encountered had belonged to mortals, not dieties. Historian Adrienne Mayor describes his Guide to Greece as "a rich source of paleontological discoveries and interpretations made in his own day and in the more ancient past."
Pausanias once interviewed a man who lived along the banks of the Hellespont, in what is now Dardanelles, Turkey, and who had seen what he believed to be the giant skeleton of the Greek champion Ajax. Pausanias recounted the man's description of the hero's kneecap as "exactly the size of a discus for the boy's pentathlon." Considering discuses thrown by adult athletes range from 6.5 to 9 inches, this would put the size of Ajax's kneecap at 5 to 6 inches across. Two things about this description are important. One is that it's about the same size as the patella of a Miocene mastodon or rhinoceros. The other is that it's not exactly the estimate you would make for a hero's kneecap if you were trying to impress with hyperbole.
The learned man also paid a visit to the famed shoulder blade of Pelops, believed to have been cut into small pieces and sacrified to the gods. By the time Pausanias saw the bone, its glory days were long gone. Pausanias ventured that the bone had worn away from travel, "centuries on the sea floor, and other processes of time." (The bone may have belonged to a mammoth.) He also made pretty matter-of-fact observations about fossil shells, describing fossiliferous limestone as "soft and extremely white, with seashells all the way through it."
Pausanias, like Herodotus, recorded finds that may be explained by modern paleontology. The areas that he covered are known to contain fossil remains of mastodons, mammoths, rhinos, giraffes, cave bears, and saber-toothed tigers. Combining folklore with level-headed observation, Pausanias left for later generations an account of Greek antiquities both colorful and useful.
For more information:
The First Fossil Hunters by Adrienne Mayor
Narrative text and graphic design © by Michon Scott - Updated October 1, 2005