Key in a search term below to search our website.
We now know that ammonites are extinct marine molluscs that lived between 240 and 66 million years ago. Yet, folklore tells a different story...
Date
Jurassic
Found
Whitby, Yorkshire, England
Scientific name
Hildoceras bifrons
Museum reference
Did you know?
The ammonite commonly found around Whitby is called Hildoceras in honour of St Hilda.
In Medieval Europe ammonites were known as snakestones because they were thought to resemble petrified curled-up snakes.
Legend has it that St Hilda, the 7th-century Saxon abbess of Whitby, rid the area of snakes by turning them into stone. Enterprising Victorians carved heads onto these ammonite fossils in order to obtain more money for a specimen.
The ammonite commonly found around Whitby is called Hildoceras in honour of St Hilda.
Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, 1808
Fossils are particularly difficult to understand without a living equivalent. Therefore some fossils were explained as fabulous creatures having mystical origins and magical powers – others were thought to have fallen from the skies. A popular explanation within the scientific community during the Middle Ages was that fossils were the results of moulding forces in the Earth. They were thought to be crystallisations of mineral salts that sometimes bore a coincidental resemblance to a known living animal.
We now know that ammonites are extinct marine molluscs that are related to octopuses, squid and cuttlefish. They lived between 240 and 66 million years ago
A selection of ammonites from National Museums Scotland collection.