Your Daily Dinosaur: Moche Culture Man Loses Head to Dinosaur—You Keep Yours—Man and Dinosaurs Co-Existed
by Chris Parker

Introduction

“Not Currently on Display”. Yeah, right, of course not.

I found this dinosaur and man depiction after about an hour on my dinosaur hunt through on-line museum collections. This one is from the British Museum Online Collection—not currently one of the artifacts on display at the brick and mortar museum.

“Your Daily Dinosaur” is kind of a personal inside joke. I was planning on trying to find a new example of man and dinosaur interaction every day through the internet, searching through on-line collections, supplemented by reposting some of the hundreds of other examples we’ve collected here at s8int.com over the years.

I knew that a daily dinosaur was going to be time-consuming to actually pull off—but my point is; the examples are out there and plentiful—if you know what you’re looking for.

Let me remind you what Discover Magazine told us; despite all the dinosaur depictions in current art; no one really knows what the various dinosaurs looked like.

“Does anyone know what dinosaurs really looked like? Sure we do. We see them everywhere, not just in the museums, but in magazines, movies, even in value meals at McDonald’s. But all of these lifelike renderings are mostly artistic interpretations based on very sparse scientific evidence. To begin with, dinosaur skeletons are rarely found intact, and figuring out how scattered bones fit together is not always clear. Then, making the leap of placing tissue and skin on those bones is a process fraught with unknowns.

Some paleontologists trained in comparative anatomy are beginning to analyze microscopic marks that soft tissues make on bones in search of clues to what dinosaurs actually looked like. But taking a pile of bones and conjuring up what snarling dinosaurs about to battle each other really looked like involves at best equal parts educated guesswork and complete artistic fancy. As Mark Norell, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum puts it, dinosaur artwork “is a fantastic leap from what we know.” And most scientists say we may never know a lot more than we do now.”.  Discover Magazine, September 2000

The point is; who are you going to believe, modern science or potential, ancient eyewitnesses?

Note that this artifact’s dinosaur has the “correct” hind feet (three forward toes and a “dew” claw) for a Theropod dinosaur. Also shown with modern theropod depiction. Theropods were meat-eating dinosaurs which include dinosaurs like the t-rex. I assume eating a guys head makes this dinosaur a meat-eater.

Don’t lose your head like this guy did. That’s what science is trying to do to you. :0) s8int.com

Moche Culture
The Moche civilization (alternatively, the Mochica culture or the Early, Pre- or Proto-Chimú) flourished in northern Peru with its capital near present-day Moche, Trujillo, Peru[1] from about 100 to 700 AD during the Regional Development Epoch.
While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state. Rather, they were likely a group of autonomous polities that shared a common elite culture, as seen in the rich iconography and monumental architecture that survives today. Wikipedia

British Museum Collection

"St-sp vessel made of pottery. Painted with a scene showing a spotted reptile (?) with a tail that has a second head on the end. In one front fore leg is clutched a human head, and there is a headless body above the tail along with several images of birds and a small reptile.

o Moche
o Findspot Excavated/Findspot: Chicama Valley
o (Americas,South America,Peru,La Libertad,Chicama valley)
o Materials pottery
o Location Not on display
o Acquisition name Purchased from: Henry Van den Bergh
• Acquisition date 1920
© The Trustees of the British Museum"

 
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