In the very first year there appeared from the Red Sea (the Persian Gulf) in an area bordering on Babylonia a frightening monster, named Oannes. . . . It had the whole body of a fish, but underneath and attached to the head of the fish there was another head, human, and joined to the tail of the fish, feet, like those of a man, and it had a human voice. Its form has been preserved in sculpture to this day. Berossos says that this monster spent its days with men, never eating anything, but teaching men the skills necessary for writing and for doing mathematics and for all sorts of knowledge: how to build cities, found temples, and make laws. It taught men how to determine borders and divide land, and also how to plant seeds and then to harvest their fruits and vegetables. In short, it taught men all those things conducive to a settled and civilized life. Since that time nothing further has been discovered.

—Berossos, History of Babylonia, Book 1
(after Verbrugghe and Wickersham 2001: 44)

Paleolithic art offers very few examples of what might be construed as flights of the imagination. Its monsters can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

—André Leroi-Gourhan, Gesture and Speech, 1993 [1964]: 393