The Phoenix and the Fossil

Engraving of an early archaeopteryx fossil: Florida Center for Instructional Technology

Bones of Contention:
The Archaeopteryx Scandals
by Paul Chambers.
John Murray Publishers Ltd, 2002.

Phoenix-like, from stone
it rises, wings raised, renewed,
the stuff of legend.

A few years ago I had a notion about the legend of the grail as it appeared in medieval Germany. The Bavarian poet Wolfram von Eschenbach described the grail (grâl or graal he called it) by the strange term lapsit exillis, by which he meant a stone rather than the more familiar dish or chalice. Wolfram had his own conceit about this object:

By the power of that stone the phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes give him life again. Thus does the phoenix [moult] and change its plumage, which afterwards is bright and shining and as lovely as before.¹

When reading this I had a sudden vision of the deceased phoenix on its stone as an archaeopteryx fossil, the first of which had been discovered in Bavaria in the middle of the nineteenth century. Checking the map I later discovered that Wolfram’s home town, now re-named Wolframs-Eschenbach in his honour, is not that far distant from the Altmühltal, a river valley where the Solenhofen limestone quarries that first revealed these winged and feathered creatures are situated. Was it possible that this medieval poet had seen a now vanished archaeopteryx fossil, that it too reminded him of the legend of the phoenix, and that he subsequently co-opted that legend for his version of the wondrous quest object?

I included this notion in a short story I wrote, and passed the hypothesis by the odd mildly intrigued expert, but in the absence of evidence it remains mere speculation, however much I’d like to believe it may be true. And there it stayed until this account of archaeopteryx (from the Greek for ‘ancient’ and ‘wing’) by palaeontologist Paul Chambers started me wondering about it again.

The fossils on their beds of stone display odd features for dinosaurs, most obviously the presence of feathers, and have caused, and continue to cause, controversy ever since their discovery and resurrection from the rocks: is archaeopteryx (and its ilk) a missing evolutionary link between extinct dinosaurs and modern birds?

This is a riveting narrative directed at the general reader. Chambers’ commentary makes it clear that even for a palaeontologist like himself there are a lot of questions still to be answered: research since the book was first published has already moved the discussion on, and will of course continue to do so, as science never stands still.²

It is also as much a study of the humans involved with archaeopteryx over its 150 years of exposure as with the beast itself and its place in the fossil record. From Richard Owen to Fred Hoyle, and from Thomas Huxley to John Ostrom, the students of archaeopteryx are no less fascinating than this creature from the Jurassic. Chambers splits Darwinians who accept its existence roughly into two groups, palaeontologists or BAD adherents (from ‘Birds ARE Dinosaurs’) and some ornithologists or BAND supporters (‘Birds are NOT Dinosaurs’). Then there are those who believe the various existing specimens were faked: they consist mostly of Creationists and conspiracy theorists.

Meanwhile, a swift trawl through the web using the key words ‘grail’, ‘palaeontology’ and ‘archaeopteryx’ will reveal journalists’ frequent recourse to the relic as a metaphor for the ultimate or the unattainable in this field. According to one commentator “the holy grail of species evolution” underlines the importance of archaeopteryx to palaeontology and biology; the remains of feathers represent “the Holy Grail that demonstrated … that birds are highly derived dinosaurs” according to another; and, declares a third, “part of the Holy Grail [is] how the development of the limb changed during evolution of birds from their theropod ancestor”.

My hunch that Wolfram’s concept of the grail as a resurrection stone for the phoenix could be based on a medieval archaeopteryx fossil may well be shown to be false, or deemed inconclusive from lack of proof; yet in popular culture the archaeopteryx is, indeed, already the grail.³

Phoenix fire insurance plaque, Pickering (© Pauline Eccles).

This review – now with annotations – was first posted on January 20th, 2013 and reposted 10th September, 2016.

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¹ Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, translated by Helen M Mustard and Charles E Passage, Vintage Books, 1961; also translated by A Hatto, Penguin Classics, 1980.

² See also ‘Birds are dinosaurs’ by Lev Parikian. The RSPB Magazine, Spring/Summer 2024, 24–30;
‘The oldest Archaeopteryx’ by Fer Castano. Letters from Gondwana: Paleontology, books and other stuff. 26th January 2018:  Paleonerdish.wordpress.com. https://wp.me/p3ihHu-3cB

³ Griphosaurus was the original taxonomic name proposed in 1862 for archaeopteryx by the sceptic paleontologist Johann Andreas Wagner: his term Griphosaurus problematicus meant ‘problematic riddle-lizard’, derived from the Greek word for a riddle, γρῖφος (grîphos). Grîphos also indicated a fishing basket, perhaps a metaphor for something to catch you out; but possibly he also had in mind the notion of a griffin- or gryphon-lizard, from Greek γρύψ (gryps), meaning a hybrid beast with a lion’s body and the head and wings of an eagle – though of course archaeopteryx lacks the leonine attributes!