The 'Stegosaurus' of Ta Prohm
On a doorway of a jungle temple at Angkor, a small carving seems to show a stegosaurus, an animal extinct for 150 million years.
What was reported
Ta Prohm is a temple at Angkor in Cambodia, famous for the giant trees growing out of its walls. Among the carvings on one doorway is a small circle containing an animal with a bulky body and a row of plates along its back.
Some people have claimed it shows a stegosaurus, which would mean the temple's builders had seen a living dinosaur.
Explanations offered
Historians point out that the 'plates' match the leafy decorative background found around many other animals carved on the same doorway. The animal itself is probably a rhinoceros, boar or chameleon, all familiar to the Khmer. Dinosaurs died out about 66 million years before humans existed.
- When
- Temple built in the late 1100s
- Where
- Ta Prohm, Angkor, Cambodia
- Witnesses
- Visitors and researchers
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.