Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws
And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities
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Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws
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Narrated by:
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Nancy Crane
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Adrienne Mayor
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By:
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Adrienne Mayor
About this listen
Adrienne Mayor and Nancy Crane narrate this treasury of astonishing mythic marvels
Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights—glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth—embedded in myth, legends, and folklore. Combing through ancient texts and obscure sources, she has spent decades prospecting for intriguing wonders and marvels, historical mysteries, diverting anecdotes, and hidden gems from antiquity, medieval, and modern times. Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a treasury of fifty of her most amazing and amusing discoveries.
The book explores such subjects as how mirages inspired legends of cities in the sky, the true identity of winged serpents in ancient Egypt, how ghost ships led to the discovery of the Gulf Stream, and the beauty secrets of ancient Amazons. Other pieces examine Arthur Conan Doyle’s sea serpent and Geronimo’s dragon, Flaubert’s obsession with ancient Carthage, ancient tattooing practices, and the strange relationship between wine goblets and women’s breasts since the times of Helen of Troy and Marie Antoinette. And there’s much, much more.
Showcasing Mayor’s trademark passion not to demythologize myths, but to uncover the fascinating truths buried beneath them, Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a wonder cabinet of delightful curiosities.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Marco Polo
- From Venice to Xanadu
- By: Laurence Bergreen
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 737
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 631
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 630
As the most celebrated European to explore Asia, Marco Polo was the original global traveler and the earliest bridge between East and West. A universal icon of adventure and discovery, he has inspired six centuries of popular fascination and spurious mythology. Now, from acclaimed author Laurence Bergreen, comes the first fully authoritative biography of one of the most enchanting figures in world history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Educational and Entertaining but a bit repetitive
- By PETER on 01-02-13
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Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs
- 100 Discoveries That Changed the World
- By: Ann R. Williams - editor, Douglas Preston - introduction
- Narrated by: Mari Weiss
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
Blending high adventure with history, this chronicle of 100 astonishing discoveries from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the fabulous “Lost City of the Monkey God” tells incredible stories of how explorers and archaeologists have uncovered the clues that illuminate our past.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just what I wanted
- By Amazon Customer on 01-16-22
By: Ann R. Williams - editor, and others
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Odyssey of the Gods
- The History of Extraterrestrial Contact in Ancient Greece
- By: Erich von Däniken
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 188
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 176
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Story4 out of 5 stars 173
Legendary UFO expert Erich von Daniken stirs up another controversy with an imaginative supposition: What if the myths of ancient Greece were attempts to describe events that really happened? What if ancient peoples were visited, not by imaginary gods and goddesses, but by extraterrestrial beings who arrived on earth thousands of years ago? The author's research into both ancient mythology and current archaeological discoveries leads him to some explosive hypotheses.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good Research, but Draw Your Own Conclusions
- By Troy on 07-18-13
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Primitive Mythology
- The Masks of God Series, Volume I
- By: Joseph Campbell, David Kudler - editor
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 19 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 124
The author of such acclaimed books as The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth discusses the primitive roots of mythology, examining them in light of the most recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Epic speculation into the origins of our mythic consciousness
- By BGZ on 01-10-19
By: Joseph Campbell, and others
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Red Land, Black Land
- Daily Life in Ancient Egypt
- By: Barbara Mertz
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 431
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 325
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 323
Esteemed Egyptologist Barbara Mertz updates her widely praised social history of the people of ancient Egypt, which was originally published in 1968. Combining impeccable scholarship with a delightfully personal style, the author reconstructs the life of the Egyptians from birth to death, and beyond death, too.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant
- By Elizabeth on 04-03-10
By: Barbara Mertz
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A Voyage Long and Strange
- Rediscovering the New World
- By: Tony Horwitz
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 251
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 187
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 185
On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz makes an unsettling discovery. A history buff since early childhood, expensively educated at university - a history major, no less! - he's reached middle age with a third-grader's grasp of early America. In fact, he's mislaid more than a century of American history, the period separating Columbus' landing in 1492 from the arrival of English colonists at Jamestown in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between?
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1 out of 5 stars
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Just Not For Me
- By Sara on 10-25-15
By: Tony Horwitz
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Mirage
- Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt
- By: Nina Burleigh
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
Little more than 200 years ago, only the most reckless or eccentric Europeans had dared traverse the unmapped territory of the modern-day Middle East. Its history and peoples were the subject of much myth and speculation: and no region aroused greater interest than Egypt.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A lesson in history
- By —- on 01-05-10
By: Nina Burleigh
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Why Homer Matters
- By: Adam Nicolson
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Story4 out of 5 stars 97
Adam Nicolson sees the Iliad and the Odyssey as the foundation myths of Greek - and our - consciousness, collapsing the passage of 4,000 years and making the distant past of the Mediterranean world as immediate to us as the events of our own time.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 05-04-15
By: Adam Nicolson
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The Colour of Magic
- Discworld, Book 1
- By: Terry Pratchett
- Narrated by: Colin Morgan, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,079
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,820
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,811
Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place that might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.
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3 out of 5 stars
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TERRIBLE Narration!
- By Kayla I on 07-08-22
By: Terry Pratchett
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Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities
- By: Bettany Hughes
- Narrated by: Bettany Hughes
- Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 184
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 156
From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City", but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city but a global story.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A daunting undertaking pulled off superlatively
- By SGS on 12-24-17
By: Bettany Hughes
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The Age of the Vikings
- By: Anders Winroth
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 235
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 214
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Story4 out of 5 stars 211
The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by medieval and modern myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and developed a vast trading network. They traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships, not only to raid, but also to explore. Despite their fearsome reputation, the Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets, and even the infamous berserkers were far from invincible.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting history. Narrator could be better
- By Castle51 on 07-09-15
By: Anders Winroth
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When They Severed Earth from Sky
- How the Human Mind Shapes Myth
- By: Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Paul T. Barber
- Narrated by: Beth Richmond
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Why were Prometheus and Loki envisioned as chained to rocks? What was the Golden Calf? Why are mirrors believed to carry bad luck? How could anyone think that mortals like Perseus, Beowulf, and St. George actually fought dragons, since dragons don't exist? Strange though they sound, however, these "myths" did not begin as fiction.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The Volcano Book
- By Stanley on 02-05-11
By: Elizabeth Wayland Barber, and others
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Conquistadors
- By: Michael Wood
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 597
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 510
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 504
Following in the footsteps of the greatest Spanish adventurers, Michael Wood retraces the path of the conquistadors from Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, and from the deserts of North Mexico to the heights of Machu Picchu. As he travels the same routes as Hernán Cortés, Francisco, and Gonzalo Pizarro, Wood describes the dramatic events that accompanied the epic sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Horrific anti-European bias
- By Anonymous User on 08-30-20
By: Michael Wood
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Classical Mythology
- Captivating Stories of Greek and Roman Gods, Heroes, and Mythological Creatures
- By: Matt Clayton
- Narrated by: Dryw McArthur
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9
Explore captivating stories of Greek and Roman gods, goddesses, and monsters in this ultimate guide to classical mythology.
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5 out of 5 stars
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great reference
- By danush on 07-09-18
By: Matt Clayton
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Egyptian Mythology
- Captivating Stories of the Gods, Goddesses, Monsters and Mortals
- By: Matt Clayton
- Narrated by: JD Kelly
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4 out of 5 stars 56
This book on Egyptian mythology is part of the best-selling series, Norse Mythology - Egyptian Mythology - Greek Mythology. In this ultimate guide on Egyptian mythology, you will discover captivating stories of the gods, goddesses, monsters, and mortals.
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2 out of 5 stars
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No lo vale
- By fer on 02-09-23
By: Matt Clayton
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The First Americans: Prehistory – 1600, A History of US, Book 1
- By: Joy Hakim
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 268
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 169
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Story4 out of 5 stars 171
Thousands of years, way before Christopher Columbus set sail, wandering tribes of hunters made their way from Asia across the Bering land bridge to North America. They didn't know it, but they had discovered a New World. The First Americans is a fascinating re-creation of pre-Columbian Native American life, and it's an adventure of a lifetime!
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2 out of 5 stars
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For Kids
- By Matthew on 01-26-05
By: Joy Hakim
What listeners say about Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ian K O'Malley
- 08-15-22
fun collection
I am a big fan of all her work... and this just adds to her scholarship in my eyes... I highly recommend...
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Austin Sailsbury
- 12-07-22
A Cabinet of Curiosity
This is a fun, quirky miscellany of information, mythology, and folklore based in the classic world. I will certainly look forward to reading / listening to more of Ms. Mayor’s thoughtful and delightful work.
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