h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, that's not it.

I know, it was an illustration for a Nostradamus prediction saying (loosely translating) that a 21st Century scholar* would try (successfully) to convince some sort of Guild (?) that they are worthy of joining them.

* a clumsy waitress? The text seems obscure here.

I thought it would have been a bit off the mark.

A study of how erosion brings to light objects?

I think that's my last stab in the dark for now though.

That is, the scholar would use these pictures to convince the Guild, etc.

Ah, but which objects, Vip?

(, toybox)

Uh... historical finds? Remains of previous cultures?

Rubbish?

Fossils?

Yay, KB said the magic word! The scholars did, indeed, believe that anything that comes out of the ground - including antique statues and vases - was a fossil.

This is symptomatic of their view of natural history - which was merely descriptive, because they didn't realise it could change and develop. The world was not a process. (Also the reason that biblical scenes painted in those times always have everyone dressed in current and local fashions.)

So now for picture 2...

Something that had not been seen before......

A vague description....'looks like'.......'I think it was.......'

(Something with an arm for a nose) a 'living fossil' maybe????




GT

Nope

Is it like the Easter Bunny: The lop-eared, one footed, cycloptic fossil-dropper?

Didn't I already give out a for the easter bunny? If not, have one now

(Though that would make a good comic )

Yeah - you gave it to jwf for post 29.

Mea culpa for not reading the thread thoroughly enough* - no backsies or reverses!


* and I was only being

big foot

gimme

But it's got to be related to fossils (or remains etc.) somwhow.

It is an artist impression of something they found (a skeleton, say)?

There's already been a point for "Elephant" for Pic #2, so unless theres a load of 1-eyed, no-trunked, 2-legged pachyderms somewhere in the world...

As the pictures are linked, could this be drawn from an "elephant fossil" (from Mala's description) ... i'm guessing skeleton or part of one given its missing a couple of legs?

its an artist impression of a wooly mamaoth drawn from reference to fossil data

the skull has a big hole where the trunk and all sorts connects and early pioneers thought it was an eye socket

Yes, you've got it, more or less.

It's a reconstruction of a Cyclops based on a fossil find - the skull of a long-extinct dwarf elephant in Sicily. The scholar was unaware of the possibility of dwarf elephants that were no longer around, but they knew about cyclopses from ancient Greek writings. (The Greeks probably made the same mistake when they found the skulls, thinking the hole for the trunk was a huge eye socket.)

This was a good, odd one.