The image above captures a stone carving in the wall of Ta Prohm Temple, part of the Angkor Wat Temple Complex near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Many see the carved animal in the image above as a stegosaurus (dinosaur). I disagree for good reasons detailed below. But first, let me give some context.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat Temple was originally a Hindu temple before being “converted” into a Buddhist temple. There are actually multiple temples scattered around this area. We got to visit Bayon Temple and Ta Prohm Temple as well. Below is part of the main Angkor Wat Temple.

The temple is full of intricate carvings, reflective of the surrounding biology and religious mythology.

One of the most common themes is the lotus flower, which is abundant in Cambodia.

I would like to draw your attention to the carvings on this pillar (below) at Angkor Wat, which exemplifies the lotus flower motif commonly observed throughout the temple complex. Note the shape of the lotus flower petals.

Now below you see on an inside corner of Ta Prohm, vertical series of carvings. One animal carving of which is very famous. Can you see it?

I have taken a close-up picture of the famous carving below:

Now, there are a variety of interpretations of what animal is being represented here. I will share with you the top three candidates in my view (pictures generated by AI):

Which one do you think was the animal that the artist had in mind?

(Now if you think stegosaurus was a fake or a fraud, or want to look at what stegosaurus bones look like, I invite you to check out Sophie (Sarah), which is a ~80% complete stegosaurus skeleton which you can view at the Paleo Gallery website, including a bone map.)

Many people think that the central roundel’s animal carving looks like a dinosaur, specifically a stegosaurus, due to the plates sticking up along the back. If so, this raises a big question: How did these people know what a stegosaurus looked like… centuries before dinosaur fossils were discovered by the West? Did ancient people see or even live with a stegosaurus and preserve this memory down through the ages? That would be a tantalizing story, and many creationists, tour guides, and temple visitors are quick to latch onto it.

However, this interpretation has its drawbacks. Simply consider the anatomy:

• The carved animal’s head and neck is too large compared to a stegosaurus
• The animal’s head has ears or horns a stegosaurus lacks
• The tail is not long enough compared to a stegosaurus
• The tail lacks the Thagomizer (the spikes on the end) of a stegosaurus.

Now perhaps we can forgive the artist for making the arms, legs, and tail a bit thicker than they really were proportionally. Anciently, arms, legs, and tails of carved statues from this time (and also in Roman and Greek times) often are carved thicker than in real life to prevent the brittle, relatively weak rock from breaking off. But to say that such a proportionally big head and neck compared to the very small head of a stegosaurus is merely artistic license is stretching credulity beyond its limits for me having seen the well-proportioned carvings of other animals throughout the Angkor Wat Temple Complex, especially the galleries in Angkor Wat.

The main issue though centers around the plates on the carved animal’s back. Are they actually representing the dorsal plates of a stegosaurus? Or are they lotus petals, reflecting the common decorative pattern seen in many other carvings? Or some other decorative pieces?

I think the plates are probably lotus petals, given the abundance of the motif. However, if not, then they are other decorative pieces. If you look at the carvings above and below the carving in question, you will notice clearly decorative “plates” that are not part of the animals proper within the roundels. These “plates” are consistently interpreted as background foliage to fill up empty space.

Note especially the carving in the top roundel above, which shows decorative plates on the back of the top bovine-like animal, which is probably either a water buffalo, kouprey, or gaur. The bottom roundel animal doesn’t seem to match a known animal, but could be some sort of fantastical hybrid, dragon, or sea creature—probably a “Makara”—a mythical, aquatic creature from Hindu mythology that often looks like a fusion of a crocodile, elephant, and serpent.

Based on all the above, I conclude the animal in the center roundel is not a stegosaurus or dinosaur. If you say it is a water buffalo, you would need to interpret the triangle pointing up above the eye as a horn. For me, I view the fact that the triangle does not extend above the head itself as a sign that it is not supposed to be a horn, but rather reflects the pointed ears of a boar (wild pig).

I am not alone in this assessment. Almost a decade ago, a 2017 paper was published in the Answers Research Journal, a technical creationist publication, titled: “Is the Cambodian Stegosaur-like Carving Another Argument
Creationists Should Not Use?” which argued against the stegosaurus theory.

If creationists want to advance good historical science, using the Ta Prohm carving to say that dinosaurs and man lived together based on a small creature carved in stone that superficially looks like a stegosaurus but that anatomically and contextually has arguments against such an interpretation, not only does injustice to the skill of ancient Cambodian artists (who clearly knew better) but also makes creationism a laughing-stock. There are plenty of good arguments for the idea that dinosaurs and man lived together, but the “dinosaur at Ta Prohm” is not one of them.