The monstrous creatures of Greek myth, such as the giant one-eyed Cyclops, may have been inspired by large fossils of extinct animals, which are plentiful in Greece. Scholars surmise that fossil hunting may have begun during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600–1050 b.c.), but until recently, evidence of this has been spare. Now, in the artifact collection at the site of the Bronze Age city of Mycenae, zooarchaeologist Jacqueline Meier of the University of North Florida and her colleagues have retrieved a four-inch-wide fossilized astragalus, or anklebone, which was excavated in 1974 from a Late Bronze Age basement storage room in Mycenae’s citadel. Meier determined that the fossilized bone belonged to a two-horned rhinoceros, a species that was widespread in Eurasia before going extinct within the last 100,000 years.
The fossil was found along with what may be a collection of gaming pieces that includes 545 marine snail shells and several lead objects. Ancient Greeks are known to have employed astragali as dice for divination rites and gambling, and it’s possible Mycenaeans threw the rhinoceros bone during rituals or games of chance. Meier notes that the fossil was probably brought to the city at roughly the same time that inhabitants extended its walls to include already ancient burials within their perimeter. “The Mycenaeans were deeply interested in honoring their own past and they must have known this was a remnant of an old animal,” she says. “Using the fossil could have been a way of hearkening back to a more distant time.”
