Many ancient tales of giants seem to have originated from seafarers. As these sailors would go from one port to another, they'd encounter peoples they'd never seen before. Those people from around the Mediterranean were shorter in the ancient world than they are today. The average height of a Roman soldier seems to have been between 5' 5" and 5' 7".
As ancient seafarers and warriors moved into the Balkan Regions and around the Black Sea, the inhabitants must have seemed enormous. The Thracians, from around modern Bulgaria, were said to be wild and savage warriors of large stature.
The Roman Emporer Maximinus was said to be of Thracian blood, or at least partially. Some accounts have him standing more than 8-foot tall and having a thumb so large as to wear his wife's bracelet as a ring. Though there's no real proof of this, the Greek historian, Herodian, provided a description of the man. He said in his History of the Roman Empire (7:1:12) that "his appearance was frightening and his body was huge".
The Bible tells stories of giants throughout Mesopotamia. Probably the most famous is that of David and Goliath. The Philistine was portrayed as a giant 9-foot tall, and to the smaller Judean tribe, it probably seemed true.
There are many stories from various Native American tribes that recount a race of giants that roamed the lands. Many were said to be of white skin and had red hair. They were quite large and very war-like. Ironically, there is a theory (The Solutrean Hypothesis) that says Western Europeans crossed the Atlantic some 3,000 years before the Clovis culture crossed the Bering Strait. Could this be the giants told of in the stories?
I can't say that I believe that there was an actual "race of giants" that populated the world. However, I do think that many of the stories about extremely large people were based in fact. And you? What do you believe? Is it possible that giants actually existed?
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© Christine Graves 2020
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