University College London, History Department, 24 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0AW, United Kingdom.
Endeavour. 2021 Dec;45(4):100798. doi: 10.1016/j.endeavour.2021.100798. Epub 2021 Nov 2.
In 1918, German archaeologist Robert Koldewey, excavator of Babylon, Iraq, observed that the depiction of the fantastical "dragon of Babylon" on the sixth century BCE Ishtar Gate must reference a real animal whose closest relatives would be dinosaurs like the iguanodon. Though ignored within archaeology, Koldewey's comments were taken up in German-American popular science writer Willy Ley's "romantic zoology" (1941), then by Bernard Heuvelmans (1955), founding figure in the fringe field of cryptozoology. Their interpretations would ultimately inspire expeditions by the International Society of Cryptozoologists in Central Africa to find the Mokele-Mbembe, a "living dinosaur," and migrate into Young Earth Creationist and ancient aliens theories. An analysis of Koldewey's marginal academic observation serves as a means of considering the process of knowledge formation and canonization and the unpredictable life of scholarly ideas.
1918 年，伊拉克巴比伦的德国考古学家罗伯特·科尔德威观察到，公元前 6 世纪伊什塔尔城门上描绘的奇幻“巴比伦龙”一定是指一种真实的动物，其近亲可能是像禽龙这样的恐龙。尽管在考古学中被忽视，但科尔德威的评论被德国裔美国科普作家威利·莱伊的“浪漫动物学”（1941 年）采纳，然后又被伯纳德·海厄姆曼（1955 年）采纳，他是边缘领域的cryptozoology 的创始人。他们的解释最终激发了国际神秘动物学家协会在中非寻找“活着的恐龙”莫克拉姆贝姆布的探险活动，并将其引入年轻地球创造论和外星古文明理论。对科尔德威边缘学术观察的分析可以作为一种手段，来考虑知识形成和经典化的过程，以及学术思想不可预测的生命。
