Sticking out along the cornices of many Gothic Cathedrals are little beastly beings with angry madcap faces known as Gargoyles. Arising from the Latin word "gurgulio" the word literally means throat and also the sound water makes passing through the throat. It French is comes from the same root as gargle. Thus, a true Gargoyle is a fountain, or at least something that conveys water through itself, sucking it up-and spitting it out.
According to Adrienne Mayor, in her book The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times, nomads, scratching about in the dust hundreds of years before Christ was even born, much less celebrated, discovered the prehistoric fossilized remains of the protoceratops in central Asia which lived over 65 million years ago. Mayor put the mythological and historical puzzle together in a wild flash one day while in a museum, checking out bronzed Griffins for the Temple of Samos. There was something about the quality of the bronzed beasts that informed her they were not simply works of fiction, the details were too rich-too consistent-and then it came to her. They were based on the fossils found by these pre-Christian nomads. The dinosaurs were indeed about the size of a lion at maturity, had bird like beaks, as did all dinosaurs, and had little bumps on their backs that, if one squinted could easily morph into majestic wings. Sculptors in the Middle Ages delighted in creating these gnarly fellows as it was the one sure place that imagination was allowed to flourish.