Living Ape-Men

European Wildmen

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Many art objects of the Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians, and Etruscans bear images of semi-human creatures resembling wildmen. For example, in the Museum of Prehistory in Rome, there is an Etruscan silver bowl on which may be seen, among human hunters on horses, the figure of a large, ape-man-like creature (Wendt 1972, p. 15). Such imagery is, of course, subject to varying interpretations. The Russian scientist Boris Porshnev believed the humanlike creatures represented survivals of prehuman hominids. But British anthropologist Myra Shackley, who said wildmen may in fact exist in some parts of the world, asserted that the figures on classical Greco-Roman art objects represent purely mythological beings such as satyrs (1983, pp. 18-19).

The satyr is a stylized and very recognizable figure, part human and part animal, occurring mainly on Greek vases. Typically, satyrs have horselike tails and are shown engaged in some kind of sporting or licentious behavior, perhaps connected with the cult of Dionysus. The hairy humanlike figure depicted on the Etruscan silver bowl, however, is shown not with revelers but in the midst of a hunting party of well-armed humans mounted on horses. The creature has no satyr's tail and appears to be carrying a crude club in one hand and a large stone, raised threateningly above his head, in the other.

During the Middle Ages, wildmen continued to be depicted in European art and architecture. A page from Queen Mary's Psalter, composed in the fourteenth century, shows a very realistically depicted hairy wildman being attacked by a pack of dogs (Shackley 1983, p. 25). Wildmen were thought to live in caves and forests, where they subsisted on berries and roots. They were not considered ordinary humans. Instead, they were said to be members of the animal kingdom, unable to speak or comprehend the existence of God.

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From: Forbidden Archaeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race, Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson (Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, 1996).