Bishop Bell's Behemoth, Or The Paleontological Prelate

The following would appear to be facts:* Bishop Bell died in 1495 or 1496.* The brasswork of Bishop Bell's tomb is decorated with a number of animal images; the images below are clearly meant to be more animals. * If we had to identify these animals from the rather crude engravings, then certainly the one at the front of the picture looks more like a standard quadrapedal dinosaur than anything else.* Tampering with the image would involve removing whatever was engraved there and engraving something else, while the brass was affixed to the foloor in the middle of Carlisle Cathedral. Besides the implausibility of any such hoax, there is also no evidence whatsoever that anything like this ever happened.* All the geological evidence we have suggests that dinosaurs went extinct around the end of the Cretaceous period.* No chronicler records dinosaurs or anything like them roaming around fifteenth century England.* The Cathedral and other old buildings of Carlisle are built out of red sandstone quarried locally. ** In the late fifteenth century, the Fratry (monastic institution) just opposite the Cathedral, was almost entirely rebuilt *, out of this same red sandstone. A picture of the Fratry can be seen here.* Looking at a geological map, *, we find that Carlisle is situated in an area of Upper Triassic bedrock. (Carlisle is not marked on the map, but you can find it here By looking at the geological map in the same spot, we can see that it's built on stratum 15, i.e. the Upper Triassic.* Basal dinosaurs such as the Melanorosauridae [Palaeos: Page not found] are known from English rocks of the Upper Triassic, and were quadrapedal like the dinosaurs on Bishop Bell's tomb.* People who have never seen living dinosaurs can still draw pictures of them, as demonstrated by the picture of a melanosaurid below. ---The following is conjecture:* In the late fifteenth century, Cumbrian quarrymen unearthed the fossil bones of a Triassic dinosaur. They drew this to the attention of the local clergy, who were able to make a crude reconstruction of the beast by studying its bones.It is, however, a conjecture which fits the facts.What do you think? Is this plausible?Does anyone have an explanation which fits the facts better?

I'm not sure what's going on there, or why the beast's back doesn't seem to be drawn in. I'd like to see another photograph --- AiG have some, but their website isn't working. (Honestly, I sacrifice goats, I pray to Beelzebub, and then when their website does finally go down I want to look at it --- there's no justice, is there?)Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I love the cute little wyvern.

My information about Bell is scanty; I think the only things I know that I haven't mentioned are that his first name was Richard and that he took over as Bishop in 1477, before which he was prior of Finchale.I can tell you what the inscription says --- in Latin.I have small Latin and less Greek, so I'm not sure what all of it means.

quote:

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In the middle of the choir is a monument to Bishop Bell. On a blue slab under a triple canopy, the centre pediment of which has I.H.S., and its point the Deity and Christ, is a brass figure of a bishop in pontificalibus, mitre and gloves; his right hand holds on his breast an open book inscribed”

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Hec mea
Spes in sinu meo

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His left hand, over which hangs the maniple, has a rich crosier. On a semi-circular scroll over his head”

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Credo qd redemptor meus vivit et novissio die de terra surrectur
su et in Carne mea videbo deu salvatore meu.

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Under his feet”

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Hac marmor fossa Bell presulis en tenet ossa
Duresme dudu prior his post pontificatu
Gessit atq' renuit primum super omia querit
Dispiciens mudu poscendo pramia fratru

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On the ledge round the slab”

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Hic jacet Reverendus Pater Ricardus Bell quondam Episcopus Karleolensis qui ab hac luce migravit videlicet vicesimo Quarto die ... Anno Domini.... Et omnium fidelium defunctorum. per misericordiam dei requiescant in perpetua pace. Amen.

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Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But this one looks like a dinosaur.Well ... more like a dinosaur than anything else. Well that's a wussy dragon.Real dragons throttle elephants, St Isidore of Seville says so.

I know, you said, they're on misericordes.That doesn't change the fact that a dragon fighting a mere lion is a lightweight lizard, a wimpish wyrm, and a feeble firedrake.