[mysterious tribal music] ♪ ♪ >> Nimoy: Dragons, legendary beasts that thrash the skies and oceans into torrential storms. Monsters that spew fire, devour maidens, and battle knights. For thousands of years, dragons have haunted the human imagination. >> "Dragons do abide in deep caves. Sometimes, they come out of their holes, and beating the air with their wings, they forsake the earth and fly aloft." --Edward Topsell, 1658. >> Nimoy: If dragons are mere fantasy, why do dragon stories abound in ancient civilizations as far-flung as Greece, Scandinavia, and China? What can explain sightings by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus and mysterious reports by the explorer Marco Polo? >> It may be that dragons really did exist, and they were so valuable, they were simply hunted to extinction. >> Nimoy: Are dragons extinct? Could these be the bones of an ancient dragon? Might dragons prowl remote corners of the globe to this day? >> Of course, it's very possible that there are large animals still unknown to science in different parts of the world. >> Nimoy: Join us as we probe the shadows of the ancient past to enter the mysterious lair of the dragon. "Here be dragons," warned early European map makers. And indeed, there are few corners of the earth where the fabled creature has not surfaced in one form or another. In the West, multiheaded dragons have battled heroes since ancient times. The primitive beast has slithered through English folklore in the shape of a giant worm. Other age-old tales describe dragons with huge bat-like wings. For thousands of years, serpent-like dragons have shadowed the dreams of India and the Americas. And in Asia, dragons with an even older lineage have sported whiskers and pearls. With an ancient history and countless varieties, dragons are the most widespread and enduring of all legendary beasts. And yet dragons remain a mystery. Despite their prehistoric origins, cave art shows no signs of dragons. When did they emerge in human history? The answer is elusive. In the West, dragons may have first appeared in ancient Babylon some 4,000 years ago, with a myth that attributes the formation of the very universe to a dragon. Before the earth was created, according to Babylonian legend, a ferocious she-dragon called Tiamat thrashed across the void. All the gods of Babylon scattered before Tiamat's reign of terror. Why would this, the earliest known dragon, be female? What terrible force lay behind her power? >> I think it's very interesting that we find the dragon linked with femaleness. It seems to symbolize, at least in some stories, male fear of sexuality, male fear of the disorder that the polluting female body seems to represent in traditional societies. >> Nimoy: In her fury, Tiamat destroyed all who challenged her--all, that is, except the Babylonian sun god Marduk. In a cosmic battle, Marduk slew Tiamat. Then, from her dismembered body, he fashioned the heavens and the earth. From dragon blood, Marduk created man. The brutality of Tiamat's death is striking. Why must the universe begin with such a vicious act of carnage? >> The dragon is the personification of chaos, or the forces of nature which are opposed to civilization, and in order to found civilization, these forces have to be mastered. Hence, you have the slaying of the dragon as the mastery of these chaotic forces. >> Nimoy: Hundreds of years later, writers of the Hebrew Bible describe a dragon with chaotic power almost identical to Tiamat, and yet, there are surprising differences. Rather than slay a dragon in order to form the cosmos, the God of the Old Testament actually creates one. The mighty sea dragon Leviathan is fashioned on the fifth day of Creation. He is a fearsome monster. It was said that no mortal weapon could penetrate Leviathan's scales. No living being could oppose its gargantuan power. Why would the Hebrew God unleash such an abomination on the world? >> It tells me that the Hebrew God is not nearly so worried about control as the gods we find in Mesopotamia, and this may be because He has been disconnected from nature and is much more of a metaphysical or cosmic God in the sense of ruling through law, ruling through words, ruling through relationship rather than simply ruling because He conquered everything and killed it. >> Nimoy: And yet, the Hebrew God does kill Leviathan, but in another puzzling twist, God slays the dragon not as the world begins, but as it ends on Judgment Day. >> "On that day, the Lord, with His cruel and great and strong sword, will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and He will kill the dragon that is in the sea." --Isaiah 27:1. >> Nimoy: In the first centuries after Jesus, Christianity swept the Middle East. Countless ancient beliefs and mythical animals died out. Remarkably, the dragon survived. In fact, rather than fade into obscurity, dragons became more fearsome than ever, the very embodiment of evil. In the New Testament, the dragon often represents the devil. [thunder cracking] >> "I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil, and bound him for 1,000 years and threw him into the pit." --Book of Revelation 20:1,2. >> Nimoy: Yet, the Bible is filled with cryptic messages. Did early Christians actually accept dragons as fact? >> Medieval Christians absolutely believed in the dragon because they were, first of all, believers, and they believed what they read from the Bible. >> It may be that because dragons were found within the pages of Holy Scripture, it was practically heresy not to believe in them. >> Nimoy: No one was ever tried as a heretic for disbelief in dragons, and yet, church leaders have left history with a puzzling mystery. If dragons were considered the actual embodiment of evil, why did they adorn medieval cathedrals, the very houses of God? When we return. >> Nimoy: The Christian and Hebrew Bibles lend credibility to ancient dragon myths, yet the animal's infamy also thrived beyond the Scriptures. How did this monster of the Middle East come to infest Europe? Although the answer is shrouded by time, it might begin in Libya during the third century. According to legend, that's when a huge dragon was terrorizing this outpost of the Roman Empire. In futile efforts to placate the beast, desperate townspeople began sacrificing their children. Finally, as the king's daughter awaited her fate, a Christian soldier named George resolved to end the bloodbath. In a life-sapping struggle with the dragon, George landed a mortal blow. He then dragged the animal to the nearby town. Upon seeing the beast, the townspeople abandoned the religion of Rome and converted to Christianity. But how did the dragon legend spread all the way to England? [horse sputtering and whinnying] During the Crusades, a battalion of European soldiers was fighting a desperate battle in the Holy Land. Surrounded and vastly outnumbered, the crusaders resigned themselves to death. Suddenly, an army of angels joined their ranks. The ghost of St. George led the charge. When the crusaders returned home, George became England's patron saint, and the dragon became a fixture in medieval life. Across the continent, tales multiplied of marauding dragons that scourged the countryside, blighting crops and devouring maidens. Noble knights in the ultimate test of their valor confronted beasts with daunting characteristics. >> "Dragons do abide in deep caves. Sometimes, they come out of their holes, and beating the air with their wings, they forsake the earth and fly aloft." --Edward Topsell, 1658. >> Nimoy: Of all the alarming behavior attributed to dragons, most deadly of all was fire. Dragons were often depicted as flame-throwing horrors. Where did this strange and terrifying behavior begin? Although there is no certain answer, some think the paintings of the Middle Ages provide a clue. >> In Medieval art, the mouth of hell is so often depicted as the mouth of a great monster with flames inside it and the damned dropping down the monster's throat into the flame. So it seems natural that there is an association between hellfire and dragon fire so far as Christian dragons are concerned. >> Nimoy: Images of dragons flooded the medieval world. They appeared in folk art, popular legends, and illuminated manuscripts. But of all the dragon images, none is more incongruous than the gargoyle. How did a monstrous dragon come to guard the very house of God? >> It's fascinating to consider that at the same time the church is slaying dragons, trying to put down old religions, perhaps, or control sexuality, at the same time, it flings open the doors of its cathedrals and asks the dragons in in the form of gargoyles. It's really quite mysterious to wonder how they get from the dragon as evil to the dragon as the protector of the cathedral. >> Nimoy: According to legend, it all started in medieval France in the city of Rouen. One morning, a monstrous water dragon emerged, vile and slime-covered, from the Seine River. The beast surveyed the city. Then, from its gaping mouth, it spewed a torrent of water. The townspeople called him "the gargler," and all fled before it fearing a watery death--all, that is, except the archbishop. He confronted the beast with the sign of a cross. Instantly, the water dragon sank down, its fury extinguished. From that day on, the drain spouts of the cathedral were carved to depict the gargler. We call them gargoyles. >> Nimoy: Chinese dragons: they dominate architecture, fabric, and ceramics. Since dragons are thought to bring good fortune, they have long been honored in ancient folk festivals and traditional new year's celebrations. For thousands of years, Chinese dragons have been sacred symbols of change, able to make themselves as small as silkworms or large enough to fill the space between heaven and earth. Even more remarkably, dragons were thought to govern the essential rhythms of Chinese society. Ancient tradition says that dragons water the rice fields, providing the cornerstone of Chinese civilization. [thunder cracking] Yet Chinese dragons have a destructive side too. They're also thought to deliver the devastating storms that regularly batter China's shores. Why would the life-giving dragon release such deadly tempests? What affront could humans have committed to merit this punishment? In fact, according to Chinese folklore, mortal behavior has nothing to do with it. Peasants tell stories of dragon kings, noble animals that live in aquatic palaces on the ocean floor. In the spring, dragons ascend to the heavens. In the autumn, they return to their undersea homes. These seasonal passages are said to stir up China's destructive storms. Far from the tempests of everyday life stands China's Forbidden City, the emperor's exclusive palace. It is adorned with dragons. Why? How was this idol of the peasantry welcomed into the royal household? Thousands of years ago, a lowly soldier of fortune named Liu Pang rose to the pinnacle of Chinese society. He was poised to become emperor, the son of heaven, but Liu Pang had a problem. His common origins did not bode well in tradition-bound China. The founder of a great dynasty needed a great lineage. So Liu Pang invented one. He claimed to descend from dragons. >> When Liu Pang and his associates took power, they felt the need to justify, to legitimize this new dynasty and to upgrade Liu Pang's nobility. Therefore, they give this new component of dragon mythology, and from that day onward, the dragon become the symbol of imperial power. >> Nimoy: Curiously, the emperor's dragon was always depicted with five claws. This creature became so wedded to the imperial identity that before long, every feature of the Chinese court was described in terms of dragons. The emperor was called "the true dragon." He sat on the dragon throne and wrapped himself in dragon robes. So jealously did the royal household guard its five-clawed dragon that anyone who displayed the symbol without approval was punished by death. Why did Chinese dragons become civilized, even regal, while their Western cousins remained marauding brutes? >> My best guess for why Chinese dragons are different from Western dragons has to do, probably, with the way that the two cultures regard nature. We in the West have tended to regard nature as something to be conquered and overmastered by force, whereas the Chinese, on the other hand, tend to be much more in accord with nature. >> Nimoy: Some experts object to comparisons between Eastern and Western dragons. China's dragon mythology may have developed 6,000 years ago, long before dragon stories emerged in the West. Chinese and Western dragons act differently, these scholars say, because they are totally unrelated. >> We have to start at the very basic question that the Chinese dragon and the Western dragon are not the same thing. The Chinese--because, by using the very English term, the English word "dragon," we have a wrong impression that dragons are all over the world the same in nature. In fact, they are not. >> Nimoy: Perhaps cultural attitudes toward nature are less important than nature itself. Might Eastern dragons be unique because they're based on Eastern animals? And if so, might other continents harbor different creatures? When we return, could this skeleton be the remains of a real dragon? >> Nimoy: It was August 1675. The French missionary Father Jacques Marquette and a group of explorers were canoeing down the Mississippi River. As they rounded a bend, the men fell into the shadow of a tall cliff. They cast their gaze upwards. There, the astonished party beheld two monstrous dragons painted on the limestone rocks. The picture, according to their Indian guide, had been painted hundreds of years earlier. It depicted a monster called Piasa, a huge, winged animal said to devour humans. How could this creature of ancient American folklore look and act so much like the dragons of Europe? What can explain the baffling similarities between Old and New World dragons? >> And that's quite a mystery to us. Are the people there thinking of them on their own? Or have they had some sort of contact with the cultures of the Old World? >> Nimoy: The Piasa wasn't the only dragon-like beast of the New World. Other European explorers reported myths throughout the Americas featuring snakes with horns or wings. The most striking New World dragon of all, however, arose further south in the land of the Aztecs. These are the pyramids of Teotihuacan. Standing just 25 miles outside Mexico City, it was here that Aztec priests worshipped their gods and practiced human sacrifice. The monuments at Teotihuacan are carved with deities, shells, and a dragon called Quetzalcoatl. Where did he come from, and why does a dragon adorn one of the most sacred sites of Aztec civilization? The answer begins with a strange paradox. While dragons of the Old World were monstrous demons, the Aztec dragon was a god. Far from threatening civilization, the dragon Quetzalcoatl was revered for founding it. According to Aztec legend, Quetzalcoatl launched Aztec culture. He brought writing and agriculture to the land that is now Mexico. Tradition held that Quetzalcoatl once actually governed the land of the Aztecs in the form of a man. The mortal Quetzalcoatl had light skin and hair. One day, stalked by enemies, he fled his native land. As he departed, Quetzalcoatl vowed to return. Hundreds of years later, in 1519, that promise seemed fulfilled. When the king of the Aztecs saw a fleet of ships arriving on his shores, he welcomed their light-skinned leader as the returning dragon Quetzalcoatl in human form. The strangers were in fact Spanish conquistadors. Within two years, the Aztec kingdom had been destroyed. European domination of the Americas had begun. But how did dragon stories predate the European invasion? What can explain the existence of dragons in the Americas at least several hundred years before Europeans first arrived? Surprisingly, some theorize that the answer may lie with an actual creature, and in 1972, a remarkable discovery not far from the land of the Aztecs lent credibility to the idea. In that year, archaeologists uncovered the fossil remains of the largest animal that ever flew. With a wingspan of 50 feet, the creature would have resembled a bat the size of a small airplane. It was categorized as a pterosaur, a flying reptile. >> It's possible that bones were found, fossils were found, of a large pterosaur, perhaps more than once, and that these were identified as a--as a flying animal, and they may have concluded these things were flying dragons, and that may well have happened, for example, in Mexico. >> Nimoy: Could the Aztecs have found similar remains centuries earlier? Some scholars are doubtful. >> Is this the motivation for the Indian myths? I say the chances of that are close to zero for the reasons that, at least, we've only discovered it very recently, and when we discovered it, we only found a few fragments of bones initially, that wouldn't look like a giant flying reptile unless you already know a lot about them. >> Nimoy: Even if the Aztecs did find a complete skeleton, it's unlikely they would have recognized the bones as those of a flying giant. By looking for dragons in the fossil record, some experts argue, we're ignoring a bigger mystery. >> Even if a dinosaur fossil was the motivation for a dragon--a bunch of people had found one of these things and said, "Golly, there's something big and giant and scary," and that led to the myth of dragons, in some respects, it's the least interesting part of the explanation, which essentially is, what have we done with dragons? The way we've embellished them, the role they play in our culture, and to my mind, that's what's particularly interesting about them. >> Nimoy: Despite modern skepticism, men of science throughout history have compiled intriguing evidence for the actual existence of dragons. >> Nimoy: Miraculous visions and ancient folklore convinced many people that dragons were real. For the skeptics, there was even more persuasive evidence: eyewitness encounters. The Greek scholar Herodotus is known as the father of modern history. In the fifth century B.C., he crisscrossed the ancient world, seeking answers to many questions of his day. >> "I went once to a certain place in Arabia to make inquiries concerning the winged serpent." --Herodotus. >> Nimoy: During his life, Herodotus pursued many insoluble puzzles. In his mind, however, the issue of flying serpents had been resolved. When he returned from Arabia, Herodotus confirmed that dragons were real. >> "Vipers are found in all parts of the world, but winged serpents are nowhere seen except in Arabia. If they increased as fast as their nature would allow, impossible would it for man to maintain himself on the earth." --Herodotus. >> Nimoy: What can explain these baffling claims? >> One of the things that's so mysterious is, why all of these cultures around the world should keep reporting this same animal that doesn't seem to exist. If you look at traditions of medicine and magic, you find that very many parts of the dragon were considered medicinally useful. If you ate the heart of a dragon, you would understand the language of animals. If you sowed the teeth of a dragon, you could raise up new citizens for your city. It may be that dragons really did exist, and they were so valuable, they were simply hunted to extinction. >> Nimoy: As the centuries passed, and European travelers scattered across the horizons, they refuted many age-old assumptions, but dragons would not die. In fact, the legend grew. World-wise travelers returned with detailed descriptions of the horrible beasts. >> "Investigators of nature do say that dragons have 15 teeth of a side. Their bodies are set all over with very sharp scales, and their tongue is cloven as it were double." --Edward Topsell, 1658. >> Nimoy: Even Marco Polo, perhaps the most credible explorer of his age, told of dragon-like beasts. Upon returning from Asia, he described his first-hand encounter with enormous serpents. The beasts, he said, had two feet and a devastating claw. How can we explain such reputable reports echoing throughout the centuries? Could these men have been reporting actual species of animals? Certainly, as Europeans began to explore distant lands, many creatures would have seemed fabulous. With only hearsay as a model, elephants appeared in strange and exaggerated forms. Large reptiles also looked incredible. Might medieval sightings be explained by these exotic creatures? >> One of the characteristics of dragons are these big scales, and I would say that alligators and crocodiles easily fit that. They've got little bony pieces in their skin. They clearly look like things that are hard to penetrate. >> Nimoy: Might something even more exotic lie behind the dragon myth? In the Indian ocean, an archipelago called the Lesser Sunda Islands stretches from Java to Australia. Remote from the outside world for centuries, islanders were steeped in the supernatural. Most vividly of all, they were haunted by tales of dragons. They told of a beast sheathed in scales and armed with deadly talons, an animal said to stalk humans. Westerners dismissed these stories as superstition until 1912. That was the year a Dutch army officer came face to face with a real dragon. Awestruck zoologists identified the 10-foot animal as a monitor lizard, the largest ever encountered. They dubbed it the Komodo dragon. Is this living myth the key to dragon legends? Could there be other animals even more incredible still walking the earth? >> And it is possible that a living animal, either a giant monitor or a surviving dinosaur, however unlikely that may seem, could have given rise to dragon folklore in Mesopotamia and other Middle Eastern cultures and later in medieval Europe. >> Nimoy: A living dragon-like dinosaur? It would not be the first time in our century that a creature dismissed as extinct has been discovered alive. The coelacanth fish allegedly died out millions of years ago, but in 1938, a fisherman caught a living specimen. The short-necked giraffe depicted in ancient art was never thought to be real--never, that is, until modern Europeans caught one. The animal is now called okapi. If these fabulous animals live in the flesh, perhaps science has too rapidly dismissed the dragon. That thought has animated a new generation of explorers. Calling themselves "cryptozoologists," men like Richard Greenwell travel the globe, tracking reports of unknown animals. >> In Africa, for example, there's this animal called "mokele mbembe" that supposedly lives in the swamps of central Africa in the Congo, and people--according to the descriptions, people have proposed that it's a surviving sauropod dinosaur. >> Nimoy: Could sauropod dinosaurs, creatures resembling dragons, have survived into modern times? Richard Greenwell traveled to the Congo to find out. >> If you fly over it, it's just an enormous area, and all you see is tree canopy. There could be anything in there. That doesn't mean there is. But if you're looking for modern dragons, I guess that's one of the places to go--to a place that's very hard to get in and out of, that's still zoologically not very well known, and that's where you might find a so-called living dragon. >> Nimoy: The trek was long. The evidence, elusive. In the end, Greenwell didn't find a dragon-like creature, but he retains his belief that science still has much to learn. >> If there are unknown animals, unknown to science, there are definite reasons for that, in that some areas are very hard to get into, the animals are very--their behaviors are very elusive, and it's very hard to prove. >> Nimoy: Whether or not dragons actually prowl the jungles, the ancient animal refuses to fade from human consciousness. The question, then, is not why dragons arose but why, despite religious revolutions, natural science, and modern skepticism, they are still with us. >> I think the biggest mystery surrounding dragons is the fact that they're there, and what this tells us about human beings is that we love to create myths and tell stories about gigantic monsters to be confronted and slain. >> Nimoy: Perhaps dragons, in all their moods and incarnations, have appealed to humans for over 6,000 years precisely because they are one terror we can conquer.
