The one-eyed Cyclops myth may have originated from ancient Greeks discovering skulls of extinct dwarf elephants on Sicily, whose large central nasal cavity resembles a single eye socket.
Tom Holland cites paleontologist Adrienne Mayor's theory that fossilized dwarf elephant skulls found on Sicily, with their central nasal cavity, could have inspired the one-eyed giant myth. ✦ AI generated
Tom Holland · The Rest Is History · 2026-07-13 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 35:02
“would they have seen these adventures I mean is this the stuff of fairy tales and fantasy or did they think these things really happened?”
there's a wonderful book by a paleontologist called Adrien Mayor, um, who's written about, you know, what what the ancients thought ancient fossils were. And she suggested that, um, there were dwarf elephants on Sicily, so they'd gone extinct, um, long before ancient Greek times, but their skulls might might have been discovered.
verbatim transcript · starts at 35:02
35:02thunderbolts. There is a brilliant theory about why oneeyed giants might have been identified with Sicily. Um, so there's a wonderful book by a paleontologist called Adrien Mayer, um, who's written about, you know, what what the ancients thought ancient fossils were. And she suggested that, um, there were dwarf elephants on Sicily, so they'd gone extinct, um, long before ancient Greek times, but their skulls might might have been discovered. And
35:30because you have, you know, you have the trunk, the nasal cavity, if you look at the skull of an elephant, it does look a little bit like a kind of single eye. I mean, there's no proof for it, but it's a kind of it's a wonderful idea. >> Is this not trying too hard to find a sort of benile, mundane explanation for what's clearly um a fantastical story? I
35:49mean, to me, it would seem like this isn't inspired by skulls of like elephants. This is inspired by the fear of the unknown, the fear of the monstrous, all of that kind of stuff. I think that the story of these monsters lurking on strange islands that these are anxieties that are bred of the age in which the Odyssey is being written down. And it's an age when Greek
36:11colonists are starting to settle Sicily and the western reaches of the Mediterranean. And I think that Polyphimas is a kind of nightmarish vision of a barbarian who does not live by the rules of life that the Greeks associate with civilization. So that's why Homer specifies that he drinks his wine neat. It's why he specifies that there's no agriculture. These are people who by the standards of the Greek
36:41colonists are backward and savage and kind of frightening for that reason. So clearly, as you say, I mean, Polyphimas is a figure of fantasy, one of the most memorable figures in the whole history of fantasy, but he is clearly, I think, bringing to life the anxieties of adventurers who are sailing into strange seas and and settling lands that that are often very hostile. So there is a