Notes: Griffins

March 9, 2006

Course goals (related to griffins)

• discovery learning - as applied to the college of natural sciences
  • i.e. believing Bump that the dragons were griffins

capable of creating a new self?

griffin/gryphon: lion's head, eagle's body, horse ears

griffins also symbolize lost love

• Dante Allegheri used gryphons in his work, to pull a chariot

guarded Holy Grail

Scythia was an area in Eurasia inhabited in ancient times by a group of Iranian people speaking Indo-Iranian languages, known as the Scythians. The location and extent of Scythia varied over time, from the Altai region where Mongolia, China, Russia, and Kazakhstan come together, across South of Ukraine to the lower Danube river area, Bulgaria and Georgia. The Saka were Asian Scythians and were known as Sai (Chinese character: 塞, Old Sinitic *sək) to the Chinese.