The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina is an extraordinary ancient floor mosaic discovered at Palestrina, east of Rome in central Italy. Dating to approximately the late second to first century BC, the enormous mosaic portrays the Nile Valley from Egypt southward into regions identified in antiquity as Aethiopia.
Recognizable animals include rhinoceroses, monkeys, large cats, snakes, crocodiles, hippopotamuses, and other African wildlife. Some of the animals in the upper portion of the mosaic are unusual and difficult to identify with certainty today.²
The artwork is remarkable for the variety and detail of the animals it depicts. The upper portion shows African wildlife among rocky terrain, together with groups of hunters. Greek inscriptions identify many of these animals, suggesting the artist intended to portray particular creatures rather than merely fill the scene with imaginary decorative animals.¹
But one image is particularly intriguing.
THE “CROCODILE-LEOPARD”
One unusual reptile-like animal is accompanied by the Greek inscription ΚΡΟΚΟΔΙΛΟΠΑΡΔΑΛΙΣ, KROKODILOPARDALIS, which literally translates as “crocodile-leopard.” ³
The creature has an elongated reptilian body, four prominent legs, a long tail, and an unusual head. Nearby is another reptile-like animal identified as a “land crocodile.” The mosaic separately depicts recognizable Nile crocodiles elsewhere in the artwork, making the distinction particularly interesting.¹
The “crocodile-leopard” is therefore not simply labeled “crocodile.” The ancient artist gave it its own distinctive name.
The scene is also important because it presents these animals within a landscape populated by hunters and other recognizable African wildlife. The strange creatures are not isolated mythical monsters appearing in a supernatural scene. They occur alongside animals the artist clearly intended his audience to understand as actual inhabitants of distant lands.
WHAT ANIMAL WAS THE ARTIST DEPICTING?
That raises an intriguing question: What did the ancient artist believe the KROKODILOPARDALIS represented?
The mosaic was created roughly two thousand years ago, long before modern paleontology developed and long before scientists reconstructed extinct prehistoric reptiles from their fossil skeletons.
Yet the artist depicted and named an unusual, apparently terrestrial reptile alongside other animals associated with Africa. The creature’s resemblance to an extinct reptile is striking enough that creationist researchers have proposed the image may preserve a human memory or eyewitness account of a large reptile no longer living today.⁴
This cannot establish the animal’s exact biological identity from the artwork alone. Nevertheless, the mosaic itself is genuine ancient artwork, the strange animal is genuinely present in it, and the inscription KROKODILOPARDALIS, “crocodile-leopard,” is part of the ancient depiction.
That makes the image worth examining.
If ancient artists were simply inventing fantastic creatures, similarities to extinct reptiles could be coincidental or imaginative. But if some of these depictions were based upon animals actually known to the people who produced them, they raise a much more provocative possibility:
Did ancient people encounter large reptilian animals that have since become extinct?
The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina gives us an ancient picture, an ancient name, and an ancient hunting landscape. Whatever the exact identity of the “crocodile-leopard,” it deserves careful consideration when evaluating historical claims that humans preserved memories and depictions of animals remarkably similar to creatures we now know primarily from the fossil record.
Sources
1. P. G. P. Meyboom, The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina: Early Evidence of Egyptian Religion in Italy.
Detailed scholarly study of the mosaic, its animals, inscriptions, hunting scenes, and Egyptian and Aethiopian imagery.
https://brill.com/display/title/2179
2. Bryn Mawr Classical Review, review of scholarship concerning the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina.
Discusses the upper portion of the mosaic, its Greek-labeled Aethiopian animals, hunters, and several difficult-to-identify creatures.
https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2017/2017.06.45/
3. Wikimedia Commons, detail of the Nile Mosaic showing KROKODILOPARDALIS.
The surviving Greek inscription identifies the creature as Krokodilopardalis, commonly translated “crocodile-leopard.”
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NileMosaicOfPalestrina2.JPG
4. Genesis Park, “The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina.”
Creationist discussion of the Krokodilopardalis and its possible relationship to extinct reptiles.
http://www.genesispark.com/palestrina-mosaic-page/
