The Gryphon's Skull

The skull itself said nothing at all, of course. It only lay on the muddy ground in the middle of Kaunos' agora and stared back at Sostratos out of large, empty eye sockets. The skull itself was impressively large, too: perhaps two cubits long, and almost a cubit and a half wide at the broadest point, though it narrowed at the front to a curved beak almost like that of an eagle. Growing astonishment and awe prickled through Sostratos; gryphons were supposed to have just that sort of beak. Unlike an eagle's, though, this beak held teeth. Sostratos tilted the skull for a better look. He would have expected fangs to put a lion's to shame, but these flat-topped, square teeth looked more like a cow's or a goat's. “Isn't that interesting?” Sostratos murmured. “No matter what we've heard, the gryphon may graze instead of killing,” “What makes you say that?” Menedemos asked. “Its teeth,” Sostratos answered, and explained his reasoning. Menedemos pursed his lips as he thought, then dipped his head in agreement. “You're a clever fellow,” the Kaunian merchant said. “That never would have occurred to me.” “A clever fellow, eh?” Sostratos tossed his head. “If I'm so clever, why did I never imagine . . . this?” He reached out and rested his palm on the skull's projecting, beaky snout. The feel of it surprised him anew; it was cooler and heavier, more solid, than he'd expected from old bone. “It might almost be stone under my ringers,” he said, and glanced toward Menedemos. “You don't suppose some sculptor—” “No.” His cousin cut him off. “That's impossible, best one, and you know it as well as I do. Who could have imagined such a thing, let alone carved it? Those teeth are teeth. A man would break his heart and go blind trying to shape them. And the broken horn that sticks up and back from the skull? Don't be absurd.” Sostratos sighed. He would have loved to tell Menedemos he was wrong, but couldn't. “You have me, I'm afraid.” He straightened, picked up the skull—It weighed about a third of a talent, he guessed—and turned it all the way over, wondering if the underside would tell him anything the top hadn't. On closer inspection, he discovered the teeth weren't quite so much like a cow's as he'd first thought. But he still couldn't imagine the gryphon eating meat with them. Menedemos pointed to some reddish dirt clinging to the bottom of the skull. “There. You see? It's not carved. It's been buried underground for a long time.” “Well, maybe.” Sostratos tried to scrape off the dirt with his finger. It didn't want to be scraped. He broke a fingernail trying, in fact, and had to gnaw at it to get some sort of even edge. “It's not dirt. It's stone.” He tried scraping, more cautiously, with his other index ringer. A little of the stuff came away, but not much. “Soft, sandy stone, but stone, no doubt about it.” After reaching out himself and scraping a bit, Menedemos dipped his head. “You're right. How long do you suppose a skull would have to stay underground to have bits of stone stuck to it?” “I couldn't begin to guess,” Sostratos answered. “Herodotos says the Egyptians say their kings and priests go back 341 generations, which he makes out to be something over 11,000 years. Some good part of that time, anyway.” “Probably.” Menedemos whistled softly. “Over 11,000 years? That's a long time. I don't suppose it's been even one thousand years since the Trojan War, has it? You know things like that.”