Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Orientalist Joseph Assemani (director of the Vatican Library) in the 18th century believed that the Cross was found by Elena on May 3, 326 (according to the Julian calendar) [23].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Russian theologian, Professor M. N. Skaballanovich, based on the Alexandrian chronicle of the VI century, refers the acquisition of the Cross to 320 [24].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

At the same time, he categorically disagrees with the date of this event in 326, since according to a number of data, St. Helena died in 325, and not in 327, as previously believed [23].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Excavation site


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

All the few instructions of historians closest to the search boil down to the fact that the crosses were found near the Holy Sepulcher, but not in the Tomb itself.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Although there was a Jewish ritual prescription that required that the tree on which someone was crucified be buried with the executed, it could not be filled by reverent disciples Christ, they would not put the instrument of execution in His Tomb as a criminal [25].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

There was a possibility that all three crosses used in the execution that day could have been buried near the place of the crucifixion [26].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Sozomen in his work makes the following assumption about the possible fate of the Cross after the removal of the body of Jesus from it: “The warriors, according to history, first found Jesus Christ dead on the cross and, having removed Him, they gave it up for burial; then, intending to accelerate the death of the robbers crucified on both sides of it, they killed their lower legs, and threw the crosses one by one, at random” [27].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Eusebius of Caesarea describes the excavation site as follows:


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Some atheists and wicked intended to hide this saving cave from the eyes of people, with the insane intention of hiding the truth through it.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

After a lot of work, they brought land from somewhere and filled up the whole place with it.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Then, raising the embankment to a certain height, they paved it with a stone, and under this high embankment they hid a divine cave.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

After finishing this work, they only had to prepare a strange, truly tomb of souls on the surface of the earth, and they built a gloomy dwelling for dead idols, a cache of the demon of voluptuousness Aphrodite, where unclean and vile altars were made hated sacrifices [28].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

—Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

III, 36


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Socrates Scholastik also mentions the presence of the sanctuary of Aphrodite (Venus) on the site of the Holy Sepulcher in his work, saying that the whole of Jerusalem has fallen into desolation:


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

“Those who wise about Christ have honored this tomb since the time of passion; and those fleeing from Christ buried that place and, having built the temple of Aphrodite on it, erected an idol to destroy the very memory of the place” [22].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The Temple of Venus in Jerusalem did exist.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

It was built in the 130s by Emperor Hadrian, which led to a rebellion among the local population [29].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

It is believed that the coins minted under Emperor Antonina Pie in Caesarea Palestine depict a statue of Venus the Victorious standing in her temple in Jerusalem [30].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Theophanes also mentions the fact of the construction of the Temple of Aphrodite on the site of the Holy Sepulcher: “After that, soon God indicated to Macarius the place where the temple of unclean Aphrodite was built and her statue was erected. God-married Elena, by her royal authority, immediately ordered a great many craftsmen to dig up to the ground and clean the site of the temple of Aphrodite, built for a lot of money by Elius in ancient times Adrian” [31].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The place where the Cross was found is located in the side-chapel of the Discovery of the Cross of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem, in a former


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

It is marked by a red marble slab with the image of an Orthodox cross embedded in the floor, the slab is surrounded by a metal fence on three sides, and the Cross was stored here for the first time.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

22 metal steps lead down to the chapel of the Discovery of the Cross from the underground Armenian Church of St. Helena, this is the lowest and easternmost point of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, two floors down from the main level [ 32].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In the side chapel of the Discovery of the Cross, under the ceiling near the descent, there is a window marking the place from which Elena watched the excavations and threw money to encourage the workers.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

This window connects the side chapel with the altar of St. Helen's Church [33].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Eusebius of Caesarea wrote in the most detail about the excavations of the Holy Sepulcher, but he reports only one tomb cave [34].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In fact, at least two of them were found during excavations.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The second cave is a crypt carved into a monolithic rock with two burial niches from the Second Temple period.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

This crypt was included in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher when it was built and today it can be seen in the Syrian chapel, 17 meters in a straight line west of the Holy Sepulcher.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to legend, secret disciples who buried Christ, Saints Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, were buried here [35].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to researchers, a small Jewish cemetery could have been found during the excavations, and when Eusebius arrived in Jerusalem, he was probably shown only one tomb, which was identified like the Holy Sepulcher, and its neighbors have already been torn down or destroyed in order to highlight the right one [30].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Judas Kyriac's Help


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to the Golden Legend, the Jew Judas helped in the search for the Cross (after being tortured).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Later baptized under the name Kyriak (Quiriak), he later became Bishop of Jerusalem and was martyred during the time of Emperor Julian the Apostate [4] (the same story is given by church historians Sozomen and Grigory Tursky [36]).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Information about him as a bishop of Jerusalem is not confirmed by historians [37].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to the Golden Legend, Judas was one of the Jewish sages, whose ancestor was the Protomartyr Stephen.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

After learning from his father about the location of the Cross, he said at the council of elders after Elena arrived in Jerusalem that the discovery of the Cross would destroy their religion and deprive Jews of superiority over Christians.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

At that time, the Jews forbade telling the Empress about the whereabouts of the relic, but after Elena threatened to burn them alive, they gave Judas.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Elena threw him into a dried well, held him there for seven days, after which “he came to one place, raised his voice and prayed that a sign would be sent down to him. Immediately, the earth moved in that place, and a smoke of such marvelous sweetness came out that when Judas felt it, he struck his hands with joy and exclaimed: “Truly Jesus Christ, You are the Savior of the world! “” [30].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The story of Judas is based on Sozomen's report about a knowledgeable Jew who lived in the East [38], it became part of the official legend of the discovery of the Cross, only from a new perspective created by Yakov Voraginsky.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Rufin, Pauline Nolansky [39] and Sulpicius Severus [40] also wrote about the involvement of local residents in the search for the Cross. However, later in the 7th century, John of Niki reported that the person who found the Cross for Elena was a certain Ablavius, “a zealous Christian, one of the most famous people [of the empire]” [41].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Identifying the authenticity of


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

During the excavations, accompanied by the appearance of a fragrance, three crosses were found — “one is the blessed one on which Christ hung, and the others on which two robbers were crucified and died” [42].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Bishop Macarius I of Jerusalem helped Elena in determining the True Cross:


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

He resolved his bewilderment by faith, that is, he asked God for a sign and received it.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

This sign was this: in that country, a wife was obsessed with a long-term illness, and was finally on the verge of death.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The bishop intended to bring each of those crosses to the dying woman, believing that by touching the precious cross, she would recover.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Hope did not deceive him.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

When two crosses not of the Lord were brought to her wife, the dying one was no better, and as soon as the third, genuine, was offered, the dying woman immediately strengthened and returned to perfect health.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The same story is given by Rufin [19], Theodorite [43] and Nikephoros [44] This version of the definition of the true Cross has become the most common in the East, and is also cited by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes (760— 818): “To one woman of a noble family, desperately ill and half-dead, Macarius offered all the crosses, and recognized the cross of the Lord. As soon as his shadow touched the patient, breathless and motionless with divine power, she immediately stood up and glorified God in a loud voice” [14].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In the West, a more common version of the miracle that occurred during the establishment of the authenticity of the Life-Giving Cross is the story contained in the Golden Legend about the resurrection through its laying a dead man swept past the excavation site [26].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to Armenian legend, the difference between the True Cross and the other two was that it flourished — flowers appeared on it, so the famous Armenian cross-khachkars have a floral pattern.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The discovery of the cross, according to church historians, impressed not only Christians, but also Jews, so that some of them, like Judas from the Golden Legend, were baptized.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

An apocryphal story about the first discovery of the Cross


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The apocryphal story of the first acquisition of the Life-Giving Cross is contained in the Syrian Teaching of Adday the Apostle, the full text of which is preserved in a manuscript of the 6th century (while excerpts dating back to the 5th century are known century).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

This apocrypha refers the acquisition of the Cross to the reign of Emperor Tiberius, who, according to the apocrypha, the future Emperor Claudius “made the second person in the state” [45].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Claudius's wife, called Protonics in the apocrypha [46] (probably the name is associated with the Greek expression “Ancient Greek: prtis nika”), which, according to the author of the apocrypha, was to emphasize the primacy of this legend in relation to the history of the acquisition of the Cross by Empress Elena [47]), converted to Christianity in Rome by the sermon of the Apostle Peter, wanted to “see Jerusalem and the places where our Lord performed His feats” [48].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Protonica took her two sons and only daughter on a journey.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Upon arrival in Jerusalem, she was greeted with imperial honors, but when asked to show her Calvary and the Holy Sepulcher, the Apostle James told her that they were under the supervision of Jews who “do not allow us go there and pray before Calvary and the tomb.”


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Upon learning this, Protonica met with the Jewish elders and ordered them to hand over Calvary and the Holy Sepulcher to Christians, and then went there and found three crosses in the tomb.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

When she entered the tomb with her children, “her young daughter fell and died without pain, without suffering, without any cause for death.”


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The death of her daughter was used to determine the true Cross of the Lord — Protonics prayerfully laid crosses on her daughter one by one, and after the laying of the True Cross, her daughter came to life and “glorified God who gave her life back through His cross.”


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The life-giving Cross was handed over by Protonics to James, the first bishop of Jerusalem, and later buried during the time of Trajan (reigned 98—117) under Simon, the second bishop of Jerusalem.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Queen Elena found the Cross for the second time.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The legend of the first discovery of the cross exists only in Syrian literature and under its influence in Armenian literature.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The image of Protonica is completely borrowed from Empress Elena, and the apocrypha itself was used (as part of the meeting of Protonics with Jewish elders) by Yakov Voraginsky when he wrote the Golden Legend [30].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Researchers came to the conclusion that the legend of the first acquisition of the Cross by Protonica is a later version that appeared in Byzantine Syria under the influence of the Greek legend of Elena and Kyriak [49].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

There is also a Coptic version of this legend, which attributes the acquisition of the Cross to Empress Eudokia, wife of Emperor Theodosius II, who was the last decades of her life (441/443—460). spent in Jerusalem and spent large sums to improve the city.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Historicity of the traditional version of finding the Cross


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

As mentioned above, the earliest evidence of the opening of the Holy Sepulcher is contained in the works of Eusebius of Caesarea, a contemporary of this event.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

However, Eusebius, who talks in detail about the opening of the tomb, does not report either about the discovery of the Life-Giving Cross, nor about the participation of Queen Helena in this event.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to Eusebius, Elena arrived in Jerusalem after the opening of the Holy Sepulcher.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Describing Elena's construction activities, Eusebius also does not talk anywhere about her participation in the construction of the “temple to the Savior” on the site of the tomb [50].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Most modern historians, relying on the testimony of Eusebius, consider the version about the discovery of the Cross by Elena legendary [51].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Supporters of the legend of this version note that the first mention of the finding of the Cross by Elena appears only in texts of the late 4th century: a fragment from the “Church History” of Gelasius of Caesarea (about 390 ), preserved in the Latin translation of Rufin, and “The Word on the Death of Theodosius” by Ambrose of Milan (395).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Many researchers also consider the fact that the Cross was found during excavations carried out during the reign of Emperor Constantine as legendary.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In addition to the testimonies of Eusebius, the legend of this fact may be indicated by the absence of mention of the Life-Giving Cross in the Itinerarium Burdigalense, the oldest surviving guides to the Holy Land, compiled by an anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux who visited holy sites in 333—334 The pilgrim reports on the location of Calvary and the tomb of Christ, over which “a basilica was built by the order of Emperor Constantine”, but does not say anything about the veneration of the Cross [52].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to many authors, the cult of the Life-Giving Cross arose between 333, when a pilgrim from Bordeaux visited Jerusalem, and the middle of the 4th century, when Cyril's “Public Words” Jerusalem (X, 19; XIII, 4) [53] the first evidence of this cult appears, and a little later, in his letter to Emperor Constantius, there is the first mention of the acquisition of the Cross at the time Konstantin [17] [30].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

As for the legend about the discovery of the Cross by Elena, it was long believed that it originated in the west, but recent studies have shown that its origins are more likely to be sought in Jerusalem in the middle or the second half of the 4th century [54].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

At the same time, a number of works published in recent decades [55] proposed a new justification for the historical reliability of the version about the discovery of the Cross during the reign of Constantine, however, by a significant part of researchers.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Celebration


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Exaltation of the Holy Cross


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In honor of the discovery of the Cross, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was established, which got its name from the fact that Bishop Macarius I, in order for all believers to see the Cross, erected (that is, raised) it, turning to all sides of the world.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The same was done with the Cross after its return in 629 from Persia after 14 years of captivity back to Jerusalem under Emperor Heraclia.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Honest and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord is celebrated by both Orthodox and Catholic churches on September 14 (according to the Julian calendar in some Orthodox churches, and Gregorian calendar in Catholicism).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Separately, there is a celebration in memory of Queen Elena's discovery of the Holy Cross and nails.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In the Orthodox Church, it is celebrated on March 6 (according to the Julian calendar), in the Catholic Church on May 3.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The origin of the Honest Trees of the Life-Giving Cross


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Since the 9th century, a tradition arose in Constantinople “to wear out the Honest Tree of the Cross to roads and streets to sanctify places and avert diseases” [56].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In the 12th-13th centuries, this tradition entered the rituals of all Orthodox churches and the holiday was called “The Origin (Wear out) of the Honest Trees of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord” [57].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The celebration takes place on the first day of the Assumption Fast — August 1 according to the Julian calendar.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to the Charter, it refers to small holidays “with praise”, but has one day of pre-celebration.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Transfer of a part of the Holy Cross to Gatchina


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Since 1800, the Governing Synod has established for a feast in honor of “the transfer from Malta to Gatchina of a part of the tree of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, the Filerme Icon of the Mother of God and the gum hand of St. John The Baptist.”


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The relics were presented to Emperor Paul I in 1799 by the Knights of the Order of Malta who arrived in Gatchina (45 km south of the center of St. Petersburg).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

From the Priory Palace built for the Order of the Priory Palace in the fall of the same year, the shrines were transported to St. Petersburg, where they were placed in the Great Church of the Winter Palace [58].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The holiday is celebrated not only by the Russian Church [58], but also in a number of other autocephalous local Orthodox churches, including the Serbian Church [59].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In Russia, according to the current Typicon, St.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

John the Baptist; this holiday does not have a special liturgical following [60].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Locations


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The period before the Crusades


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Constantine's contemporary Eusebius of Caesarea, in describing Constantine's deeds, does not say anything about the acquisition and division of the cross, nor about Elena's role in the opening of the tomb, only notes that “in the most excellent of all the temples of the royal halls, in the gilded recess of the ceiling, in the very middle of it, he [Constantine] ordered the approval of a magnificent painting depicting the symbol of saving suffering [the cross], which was made up of various precious stones richly set in gold” [61].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to Socrates Scholastica, Empress Elena divided the Life-Giving Cross into two parts: she placed one in a silver vault and left in Jerusalem “as a monument for subsequent historians”, and the other sent it to her son Konstantin, who placed it in his statue installed on a column in the center of Konstantinova Square.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Information about this, according to Socrates himself, was written by him “by ear” with reference to the conversations of residents of Constantinople.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Byzantine chronicler Theophanes in his Chronography describes the division of the Cross as follows:


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The most benevolent Elena, with fear and great joy, erected a life-giving tree, took part of it with nails to her son, while the other, putting it in a silver ark, handed it to Bishop Macarius, in memory of the future generations.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

At the same time, she ordered the erection of churches on the Holy Sepulcher, the frontal place, and in the name of her son where the life-giving tree was found; also in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives, and then returned to the glorious Konstantin.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

He greeted her with great joy, put part of the life-giving tree in a golden ark and gave it to the bishop for preservation, forged some nails into his helmet, and inserted others into the bridle of his horse [31].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The remaining part of the Cross in Jerusalem stayed there for a long time and was exhibited for worship by the people [62].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

This is evidenced by the message of Cyril of Jerusalem, as well as the story of the noble pilgrim of the IV century Sylvia (or Etheria).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

It tells about the rite of worship of the tree of the Holy Cross on Good Friday, as well as measures that were taken against the theft of particles of the tree by pilgrims.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

At Calvary, a pulpit is delivered to the bishop behind the Cross before six o'clock in the morning.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The bishop sits on this pulpit, a table covered with a handkerchief is placed in front of him, deacons stand around the table and a silver gilded ark is brought, in which the holy tree of the Cross is located; is taken out; both the tree of the Cross and the plank (titulus) are placed on the table.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

So, when it is laid on the table, the bishop, sitting, holds the ends of the holy tree with his own hands; the deacons who stand around guard.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

It is so protected because there is a custom according to which all the people, coming alone, both faithful and announced, lean to the table, snatch the holy tree and pass.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

And since, they say, I don't know when, someone gnawed off and stole a particle of the holy tree, that's why now the deacons standing around are guarding so that no one of the suitable ones dares to do the same.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

And so all the people come one by one, all admiring and touching first with their brows, then with the eyes of the Cross and the plank, and kissing the Cross, pass; but no one reaches out to touch [63].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

However, these precautions did not prevent the separation of the Cross wood.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Church tradition believes that the practice of separating particles from it began under Empress Helena — on the way to Constantinople, she left its particles in the monasteries she founded.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Thus, according to legend, in 327, when the Stavrovouni Monastery (Mount of the Cross) was founded in Cyprus, she, at the behest of an angel who appeared to her in a dream, left a particle of the Life-Giving Cross in it [64].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

As Cyril of Jerusalem (IV century) testifies, already in his time small parts of the Life-Giving Cross were distributed among Christians [65].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

John Chrysostom also said that many believers had particles of the Life-Giving Cross: “Many, both husbands and wives, having received a small particle of this tree and overlaid it with gold, hang it around their necks” [26].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Pauline Nolansky in 403 sent a particle of the Holy Cross to his friend Sulpicius Severus, telling in a letter the history of its discovery.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Pauline also reports that although many particles separate from the Cross, its original most of it is miraculously preserved [66].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In Constantinople, a special stavroteka (known as Limurg) was created in the imperial treasury during the reign of Konstantin Bagryanorodny, where many particles of the Life-Giving Cross were stored Christ, which were taken for placement in a reliquary, donated on behalf of the emperor [67].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The “disappearance” of the tree


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The Jerusalem part of the Cross continued to be kept in the Church of the Resurrection, as evidenced by the presence in the 9th century among its clergy of two elders, guardians who guarded the Cross of the Lord.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

A brief history of the Life-Giving Tree in Jerusalem is described in a letter dated 1108 or 1109 by Ansell, cantor of the Holy Sepulcher:


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The left [cross] was kidnapped by Kosdroy [the Persian king of Khosrov], during the ruin of Jerusalem, and took him to Persida.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Which Eraclius [Byzantine Emperor Heraclius], after the murder of Cosdroy, returned to Jerusalem and established in the Frontal Place for the worship of the Christian people.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

However, after the death of Eraclius, the people of infidels suppressed Christians so much that they intended to eradicate the name of Christ and destroy the memory of the Cross and the Tomb.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

So, after laying a pile of logs, they burned part of the Tomb, and they wanted to burn the Cross in a similar way, but the Christians hid it, which caused many of them to be killed.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Finally, the Christians, after consulting, cutting them, divided them into many parts and distributed the faithful to churches... So, in Constantinople, in addition to the imperial cross, there are three crosses from here, in Cyprus there are two, on Crete — one, in Antioch — three, in Edessa one, in Alexandria one, in Ascalon one, in Damascus one, in Jerusalem — four; Syrians have one, Greeks of Saint Sava — one, monks from Jehoshaphat valley — one ; we Latins, at the Holy Sepulcher have one, which has one and a half span of length and one finger of width and thickness as much.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Patriarch Georgianov also has one; Tsar Georgianov [Georgian King David] had one, which you now have by the grace of God [Notre Dame Cathedral] [68].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Thus, the Jerusalem Cross was in Persian captivity from 614 to 628 [69], until it was given back by the Persian commander Horyam in exchange for a promise by the Byzantines to help him with troops in internal turmoil.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

However, 10 years later, in 638, Jerusalem surrendered to the Arab army, which began the victorious spread of Muslim faith in the East.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The cross was divided into parts and taken by ships to Constantinople and other places.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

After a while, one of the units was returned back to Jerusalem, where it was kept until the Crusades.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The Jerusalem part of the Cross was lost in 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, when, after the defeat of the knightly army, the shrine was apparently captured by Muslims, according to Frank Yernul, a participant in that battle [ 70].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Yernul also tells the story of a Templar who, a few years after the battle, reported that he had buried the Cross and could indicate that place.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

However, the search was unsuccessful.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The Constantinople part of the Cross was stolen in 1204 after the crusaders looted the capital of Byzantium [71].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

It became a source for some particles of the Life-Giving Cross of Western Europe.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Academician F. AND. Ouspensky, in his work “The History of the Crusades”, describing the theft of relics from churches in Constantinople, also mentions the stolen particles of the Cross [72].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Reliquaries


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

At the Orthodox Church


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Reliquary crosses with a particle of the Life-Giving Cross have been known for a long time.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Many Byzantine emperors and other members of the royal family had them.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In Russia, this relic probably became known for a long time — in one of the earliest monuments (1st half of the 11th century) of Old Russian literature, Metropolitan Hilarion's Tale of Law and Grace, there is a mention of the Life-Giving Cross: “He [Emperor Constantine] and his mother Elena brought the Cross from Jerusalem [and], having sent out all over the world, confirmed the faith.”


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

One of the first relics of the Life-Giving Tree in Russia was a particle in the cross of Euphrosyne of Polotsk, brought in the 12th century from Jerusalem, among other relics [73].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

A particle of the tree of the Cross was placed in the Ark of Dionysius, which in the wills of the Moscow Grand Dukes of the 15th century topped the list of inherited shrines [74], and in the 17th and early 20th centuries was one of the most important shrines of the Annunciation Cathedral.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

During the period of Nikon's Patriarchate, reliquary crosses began to be made in Russia “by the measure and likeness of the Cross of Christ” [75].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

One of them was the Kiysky Cross, where, in addition to a particle of the Life-Giving Cross, 108 particles of the relics of saints and 16 stones from the sites of biblical events were placed [76].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Since the first half of the 19th century, Russian pilgrims to the Holy Land, from among especially eminent persons, received crosses from the Patriarch of Jerusalem with a particle of the Tree of the Cross of the Lord as a blessing, and later awards [77].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The Order of the Cross with a particle of the Life-Giving Tree is currently the highest award of the Church of Jerusalem.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

At the Catholic Church


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The Jerusalem and Constantinople parts of the Life-Giving Cross became the source for the creation of relics revered in Western Europe.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

As a rule, reliquaries were made in the form of a cross, sometimes richly decorated.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Particles of the Life-Giving Cross formed a fragment of the relic, or were embedded inside.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The origin of four such relics from a fragment of the Life-Giving Cross taken by the Crusaders from Byzantium is documented.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

They are kept in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, Notre Dame Cathedral and the cathedrals of Pisa and Florence.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

When studying these relics, it was confirmed that all particles of the Life-Giving Cross consist of olive wood [78].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The fragment of the Cross, which is kept in the reliquary of the Austrian Cistercian monastery Heiligenkreuz, is one of the few that comes directly from the Jerusalem part of the Tree.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

This fragment was presented by King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem to Duke Leopold V of Austria [79].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The most famous relics containing parts of the Cross are also kept in the Spanish Franciscan monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana in Cantabria, Vienna's Hofburg, Brussels and Venice.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The particles of the Life-Giving Cross are currently


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Throughout its history, the tree of the Life-Giving Cross has been divided into particles of different sizes, which can now be found in many temples and monasteries around the world.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

It is possible that there are counterfeits among them, but their number is difficult to determine.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Church reformer Jean Calvin polemically stated in the 16th century in his Treatise on Relics that a cargo ship could be built from numerous parts of the Cross [80] [81].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

However, a researcher of the late XIX century in his work “Memory of the Instruments of Christ's Passion” (French: “Mémoire sur les instruments de la passion de la N.-S. J.-C.”) [82] reports that the total weight of all documented fragments of the Cross is only about a third of the volume of the Cross [83] [84].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Storage locations by country


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

This short list presents the most famous places in Christendom for storing particles of the Life-Giving Cross.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

CountryTemple (Monastery) AustriaHeiligenkreutz [79] ArmeniaEtchmiadzin [85] BelgiumOnthaalkerk Church in Bruges [86] GermanyChurch of Saint Cecilia, Dusseldorf [87] GreeceAthos monasteries: Iveron, Dionysios, Kotlumush, Xiropotam (part pierced with a nail), Philotheos, Simonopetra, St. Paul, Stavronikita and Esphygman are single particles; Great Laurus, Vatopedus, Hilandar, Pantocrator, Zograph and Caracal are several particles [88] , Sarmago Monastery [89] GeorgiaSvetitskhoveli Cathedral (particle).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

According to legend, part of the Cross, one of the nails, as well as the foot of the Cross were presented to Georgia by Emperor Constantine.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The foot was lost under the Georgian king George XII [90] IsraelChurch of the Holy Sepulcher is the largest known part of the Cross [90] SpainSanto Toribio de Liébana Monastery, Cantabria [91] ItalyRome: Cathedral Peter's Basilica, Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme [92], Pisa Cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore in FlorenceCyprusStavrovouni Monastery (a particle, according to legend, left by St. Helena at the foundation Monastery), the Church of the Holy Cross in the village of Lefkara, the church in the village of TokhniLatviaCathedral of the Old Believers Grebenshikov Community in Riga.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

RussiaAlexander Svirsky Monastery [93], Annunciation Monastery (Nizhny Novgorod) [94], Holy Cross Monastery (Nizhny Novgorod), Epiphany Cathedral in Yelokhovo [95], Voskresensko-Fedorovsky Monastery, Holy Cross Monastery (Yekaterinburg) [96], Pokrovsky Alexander Nevsky Monastery, Trinity Cathedral of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Anastasia Uzoreshitelnitsa Church (Pskov), Krestovozdvizhensky Kyltovsky Convent [97], Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

UkraineCross Exaltation Church (Vinnitsa) [98], Holy Cross Cathedral (Uzhgorod), Assumption Cathedral (Mukachevo) [99], Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra Holy Cross Church (Holy Assumption Kiev- Pechersk Lavra) FranceNotre Dame Cathedral [100], Abbey of the Holy Cross, Poitiers (particle, since 568) [101], Church of St. Claudius, Paris (a particle brought from Jerusalem on July 28, 1109) [102] MontenegroCetinje is a particle that previously belonged to the Order of Malta, then located in Russia (Winter Palace and Gatchina, until 1917) [103]


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In painting


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The most famous account of the history of the Cross is the Piero della Francesca cycle in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Of the cycles that preceded the work of Piero della Francesca, the most famous are the frescoes by Agnolo Gaddi, commissioned by the Franciscans in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, the frescoes by Chenny di Francesco in the Church of San Francesco in Volterra, as well as the later History of the Life-Giving Cross, written by Masolino in Sant'Agostino in Empoli (1424).


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Other details


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

In 2006, a particle of the Life-Giving Cross was delivered to Earth orbit [104].


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

See also


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Media related to Holy Cross at Wikimedia Commons


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Judas Kiriac


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Kiysky cross


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Crucifixion (arts and crafts)


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

The Crucifixion of Christ


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Santa Croce in Gerusalemme


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Jesus' Execution Instrument


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Christian relics


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Notes


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Literature


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Barbara Baert.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

, Leiden: Brill, 2004, ISBN 90-04-12469-1


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

References


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Derevensky B.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

G.: a selection of evidence on the history of the discovery of the Cross.


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Category:Christian relics


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Category:Instruments of Passion


Question: In what year did Empress Elena find the Lord's Cross?

The Life-Giving Cross

Category:Cross in Christianity


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

The physiology of dinosaurs has historically been a popular subject of discussion among many paleontologists and has caused a lot of scientific controversy, especially regarding thermoregulation and metabolic rate of dinosaurs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Recently, many new evidence has been found regarding the high level of organization of dinosaurs, refuting traditional ideas about the physiology of these animals.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

The new data include not only evidence of the metabolism and thermoregulation of dinosaurs, but also the reconstruction of their respiratory and cardiovascular systems.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

In the early years of paleontology, dinosaurs were presented as sluggish, bulky, and clumsy cold-blooded reptiles.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

However, with the discovery of fuller dinosaur skeletons in the western United States since the 1870s, scientists have been able to offer better interpretations of anatomy and physiology dinosaurs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Edward Drinker Cope suggested that at least some dinosaurs were active and mobile animals, as depicted in the painting of two fighting driptosaurs by Charles R. Knight [1].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

In parallel with the development of Darwinian doctrine of evolution, the discovery of archaeopteryx and compsognate led Thomas Henry Huxley to the conclusion that dinosaurs were closely associated with birds [2].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Despite these considerations, the image of dinosaurs as large lizard-like creatures is already rooted in culture, and most aspects of their paleobiology have still been interpreted as typically “reptilian” until the end of the first half of the twentieth century [3].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Beginning in the 1960s, with the advent of Robert T. Becker's “Renaissance of Dinosaurs”, ideas about dinosaurs and their physiology have changed dramatically.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

This was facilitated, among other things, by the discovery of feathered dinosaurs in the Early Cretaceous deposits of China, which maintains the connection of birds with small maniraptors.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Study history


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Early ideas about dinosaurs: 1820s — early 1900s


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

The study of dinosaurs began in the 1820s in England.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Pioneers in this field, such as William Buckland, Gideon Mantell, and Richard Owen, described the first and very fragmented findings belonging to large four-legged animals.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Their early works are now on display at the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, built in the 1850s, where dinosaurs known at the time are depicted as a kind of mixture of lizards and elephants [4].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Despite the fact that dinosaurs were classified as reptiles, Owen suggested that the hearts of dinosaurs and their respiratory systems were similar to those of mammals, and not in modern reptiles [5].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Changing views and the Renaissance of dinosaurs


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

In the late 1960s, ideas arose that dinosaurs were not organized in the same way as modern reptiles.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

It all started with John Ostrom's work on Deinonich and the evolution of birds [6].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

His student, Robert Becker, popularized the idea in a number of works, starting with Dinosaur Supremacy in 1968 [7].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

In his publications, Becker argued the idea that dinosaurs and many others, even earlier archosaurs, were active warm-blooded animals capable of long periods of activity.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Becker also pointed out that such ideas were widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but then (as well as assumptions about the connection of dinosaurs with birds) were abandoned - which gave he has reason to call the 20th century the era of “dinosaur depression”, and the scientific revolution that took place with his participation - the “Renaissance of dinosaurs”.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

In April 1975, Scientific American published an article with the appropriate title, “The Renaissance of the Dinosaurs”.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

In his works, Becker used many anatomical and statistical arguments to prove his point of view [8] [9].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

This methodology was desperately criticized by scientists of the time [10], but has begun to be confirmed in modern research.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

This debate sparked interest in new methods for determining the characteristics of the paleobiology of extinct animals, such as bone histology, which was studied to determine the growth rates of many extinct animals archosaurs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Today, it is believed that many or perhaps all dinosaurs had a much higher metabolic rate than cold-blooded reptiles, but also that the picture may be more complex and diverse, than Becker originally suggested.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

In particular, it was suggested that large dinosaurs maintained a relatively constant body temperature due to inertial endothermia [11] [12], or had an intermediate level of metabolism substances (so-called mesothermy) [13].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Food consumption and digestion


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

On the left|mini|skulls of large theropods were an ideal tool for killing and eating large prey.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

The earliest dinosaurs were almost certainly predators and shared several anatomical features in common with immediate relatives such as Lagosuchus, including: relatively large razor shaped teeth located in large, wide-opening jaws that form a scissor-like bite; relatively small abdominal cavities, as carnivores do not need large digestive systems.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Later, predatory dinosaurs reached much larger sizes, but retained the same set of traits.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Instead of chewing food, these predators ripped off pieces and swallowed them whole, like modern crocodiles or birds of prey [14].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

The eating habits of ornithomimosaurs and oviraptorosaurs are not obvious: although they developed from predatory theropods, their jaws are relatively small and they do not have the blade teeth of typical predatory dinosaurs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

There is also no evidence of their diet in the form of petrified stomach contents [14].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

The characteristics of other groups of dinosaurs clearly indicate that they were adapted to eat plant-based foods.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

These traits include:


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

jaws that had a small opening angle and teeth that were close to each other;


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

large abdominal cavities that can accommodate a large amount of plant material and store it for a long time necessary for digestion;


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

long intestines, which probably contained endosymbiotic microorganisms that released enzymes to digest cellulose: no vertebrate can digest this tough material its own enzymes [14].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Herbivorous sauropods did not grind food, as their teeth and jaws were only suitable for removing leaves from plants.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Bird dinosaurs, also herbivores, show many different adaptations for the consumption of plant foods.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Armored ankylosaurs and stegosaurs had small heads, weak jaws and teeth, and most likely fed like sauropods.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Pachycephalosaurids had small heads, weak jaws and teeth, but the absence of large abdominal cavities suggests a different diet, possibly consisting of fruits, seeds, or young shoots that were far more nutritious than leaves.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

On the other hand, some ornithopods, such as hypsilophodons, iguanodonts and various hadrosaurs, had horn beaks to tear off vegetation, jaws and teeth adapted for chewing food.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Horned ceratops had similar adaptations for feeding [14].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

It has often been suggested that at least some dinosaurs swallowed stones known as touring to grind food in their stomachs, a feature they shared with birds.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

In 2007, Oliver Wings reviewed descriptions of tours in scientific literature and found significant confusion, including even the lack of an agreed and objective definition of touring.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

He found that ingested hard stones or sand can help digestion in birds that feed mainly on grain, but may be insignificant to birds that eat insects in summer and seeds in winter, and usually get rid of rocks and sand in summer.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Touring was often described as important elements for sauropods, whose diet of vegetation would require very careful rubbing in the stomach.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

But Wings came to the conclusion that this idea was wrong: tours met only a small percentage of sauropod fossils; the number of tours found was small, and in many cases the stones were too soft to effectively grind food; most tours are heavily erased and relatively smooth, but touring used by modern animals to grind food is, on the contrary, like the rule is rough from wear and tear and destroyed by the acidic environment of the stomach.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Therefore, the tours of the sauropods were probably swallowed by them by accident.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

On the other hand, Wings concluded that tours found together with theropods fossils, such as Sinornithomimus and caudipteryx, resemble those found in birds, and that the use of touring for grinding food could appear at an early stage of development of dinosaurs, leading to birds [15] [16].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Reproductive biology


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

When laying eggs, females formed a special type of bone tissue in the limbs between the hard outer part of the bone and the bone marrow [17].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

This so-called medullary bone that stores calcium, which is used to create eggshells.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

This bone dissolves in modern birds after they have laid eggs [18].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Medullary bone was found in fossils of tyrannosaurus and allosaurus theropods, as well as in Tenontosaurus ornithopode [18] [19].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Since the dinosaur evolutionary line, which includes the allosaurus and tyrannosaurus, separated from the line leading to Tenontosaurus at the dawn of dinosaurus evolution, the presence of medullary bone in both groups indicates that all or most dinosaurs most likely produced medullary bone tissue.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

On the other hand, crocodiles, which are the second closest relatives of dinosaurs after birds, do not produce medullary bone tissue before laying eggs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

This tissue may have first appeared in basal representatives of ornithodyres (a group of archosaurs that includes two evolutionary lines: dinosaurphs and pterosauromorphs) that precede dinosaurs [18].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Medullary bone was found in adolescents, which suggests that dinosaurs reached puberty before they fully grew up.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's “Dinosaur Renaissance”?

Dinosaur physiology

Sexual maturity until full size is found in modern reptiles, as well as in medium and large mammals, but birds and small mammals reach puberty only after they're fully grown.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Early puberty is usually associated with characteristics of the life cycle of animals: young individuals are born relatively well developed and independent, rather than helpless; and adult mortality can be quite high [18].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Respiratory system


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Air bags


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Since 1870, scientists have generally agreed that the postcranial skeletons of many dinosaurs have a large number of air-filled cavities that are particularly common in vertebrae.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Pneumatization of the skull (for example, paranasal sinuses) occurs in both synapsids and archosaurs, but postcranial pneumatization occurs only in birds, non-bird dinosaurs, and pterosaurs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

For a long time, these structures were considered simple cavities for weight loss, but Becker suggested that they could be associated with air bags, resembling those present in modern birds [9].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Among modern vertebrates, birds have a unique respiratory system in complexity, characterized by a combination of small, weakly stretchable lungs, spacious pulmonary air bags that form cavities in the bones of the postcranial skeleton (that is, pneumatization), unidirectional ventilation of the lungs and effective cross gas exchange.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Crocodiles, other modern archosaurs, also have unidirectional ventilation of the lungs, but do not have air bags and pneumatization of the postcranial skeleton [20].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Similar unidirectional ventilation with cross gas exchange was later discovered in representatives of lepidosaurs, leading an active lifestyle and somewhat remote from the typical “reptile” level organizations — monitor lizards [21].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

John Ruben, one of the main critics of the Renaissance of the Dinosaurs and a supporter of traditional views, along with other authors (1997, 1999, 2003 and 2004) challenged the presence of air dinosaurs bags and suggested that dinosaurs had a respiratory system similar to that observed in modern crocodiles and is driven by a kind of hepatic piston - a muscle attached to mainly to the pubic bone and move the liver back, which causes the lungs to expand to breathe oxygen; and when these muscles relax, the lungs return to their former size and shape, and the animal exhales.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

They also provided their arguments as reason to doubt that birds come from dinosaurs [22] [23] [24] [25] [26].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Critics argue that rather modest modifications of the respiratory and circulatory systems would allow modern reptiles to achieve between 50% and 70% of the volume of oxygen flow passing through the lungs mammals of this size [27], and that the absence of air bags would not prevent an increase in metabolism in dinosaurs [28].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, the main argument of John Ruben et al.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

in favor of dinosaurs having a hepatic-piston mechanism of lung ventilation, are Sinosauropteryx fossilized remains with soft tissue prints that have been severely deformed.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Further studies have shown that it was impossible to determine from them whether the liver retains its correct shape and whether it is able to act as part of the hepatic piston mechanism [29].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Some authors still mention the point of view of Ruben et al.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

, but do not give any comments. [30]


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Subsequently, various authors provided convincing evidence and arguments in favor of the presence of air sacs in sauropods, prosauropods [31], coelurosaurs [32], ceratosaurs [30] and theropods Aerosteon [33] and Coelophysis [34].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In advanced sauropods (“neosauropods”), the posterior dorsal vertebrae show clear signs of the presence of air sacs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In early sauropods, only cervical vertebrae have these features [35] [36].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The Coelophysis theropod comes from the Late Triassic and is one of the earliest dinosaurs whose fossils demonstrate the presence of channels for air sacs [34].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Aerosteon, a Late Cretaceous megaraptoride, had the most bird-like air sacs known to any non-bird dinosaurs [33].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Early sauropodomorphs, members of a group traditionally called “prosauropods”, could also have air bags.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Although possible pneumatic depressions were found in Plateosaurus and Thecodontosaurus, they were very small.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

A 2007 study indicates that prosauropods probably had abdominal and cervical air sacs, based on evidence of their presence in nursing taxa (theropods and sauropods), although it is not known what structure their lungs had [31].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Another argument in favor of the presence of air bags and their participation in the ventilation of the lungs in prosauropods is related to the reconstruction of the air exchange volume (the volume of air moved with each act of breathing) Plateosaurus, which was supposed to have a ratio of inhaled air to body weight of about 29 ml/kg, which is similar to the values of geese and other birds, but much higher than in typical mammals [37].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Calculation of the volumes of various parts of the respiratory system of the Apatosaurus sauropod generally confirms the presence of bird air bags in sauropods:


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

It is assumed that Apatosaurus, like its closest modern relatives - crocodiles and birds, did not have a diaphragm, similar in structure to the diaphragm of mammals.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The dead space volume of a 30-ton sample would be about 184 liters.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

This is the total volume of the mouth, trachea, and air tubes.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

If the animal exhales less than this, stagnant air cannot be released and will be sucked back into the lungs the next time it breathes in.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Estimates of tidal volume — the amount of air transported to or from the lungs in one act of breathing, depend on the type of respiratory system of the animal: 904 liters if it is like a bird; 225 liters if like a bird; 225 liters if like a bird mammal; 19 liters if like a cold-blooded reptile.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Based on this, the apatosaurus could not have a “reptilian” respiratory system, since in this case the tidal volume would be less than the volume of dead space.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Similarly, the mammalian respiratory system would provide the lungs with only about 41 liters of fresh, oxygenated air with each breath, which was very small.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Therefore, the apatosaurus must have a respiratory system unknown to modern animals, or like birds, with several air bags and unidirectional ventilation of the lungs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In addition, with a bird respiratory system with air sacs, an apatosaurus would have enough lungs with a volume of about 600 liters, while in a respiratory system like mammals, an apatosaurus would need an apatosaurus The lung volume would be about 2,950 liters, which would exceed approximately 1,700 liters of space available in the chest of the apatosaurus [38].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

So far, no clear signs of the presence of air sacs in poultry dinosaurs have been found (data is limited to implicit evidence of the possible presence of non-invasive air sacs in Scelidosaurus and Mantellisaurus, and one hollow finding of an alleged pneumatic hole in the rib of the Iguanodont Delapparentia).


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, it is assumed that they may have air bags that do not form cavities in the bones, or the circulation of large volumes of air in the lungs was achieved in a different way.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Air bags have been described for pterosaurs, which may indicate that some features of the respiratory system inherent in modern birds may have appeared in the common ancestor of pterosaurs and dinosaurs among basal ornithodiers [39] [40].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

If the sequence of development of air sacs in dinosaurs corresponds to the sequence of their development found in bird embryos, air bags appeared even before the formation of cavities in the skeleton, which appear in later forms of lizard dinosaurs, but may not have developed in poultry dinosaurs [34].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Interestingly, many Triassic taxa of archosaurs and even developed archosauromorphs (for example, Erythrosuchus) have a complex set of plates and depressions on the vertebrae, which are most likely homologous similar structures in ornithodires.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

They are not associated with cavities in the bones and, as shown in earlier works, cannot be considered a real pneumatization of the skeleton and the development of an air bag system in these animals is unequivocally proved.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

On the other hand, the system of small non-invasive pulmonary air sacs that could theoretically be present in these taxa may be a basal feature for archosaurs as a whole, and be secondary lost in crurotarzes or at least in crocodiles [41] [42] [43].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In general, three explanations were proposed for the development of air bags in dinosaurs [33]:


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Increased breathing capacity.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

This is probably the most common hypothesis and fits well with the idea that dinosaurs had a fairly high baseline metabolic rate.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Improved balance and maneuverability by reducing the center of gravity.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, this does not explain the expansion of air bags in quadcopal taxa.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

As a cooling mechanism.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Dinosaur breathing systems with bird air bags may have been able to maintain a higher level of activity than is available for mammals of similar size.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In addition to a very efficient supply of oxygen to the blood, a rapidly circulating airflow would be an effective cooling mechanism that is necessary for animals that are active lives but are too large to get rid of excess heat through their skins [44].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Paleontologist Peter Ward believes that the evolution of the air bag system, which even the earliest dinosaurs had, may have originally been a response to the very low (11%) oxygen content in atmosphere in the Triassic period [45].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Rib hook-shaped processes


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Birds have bone outgrowths emanating from the vertical segment of each rib in the caudal direction and giving the pectoral muscles more levers to improve the oxygen supply.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The size of the hook-shaped rib processes is related to the lifestyle of birds and the amount of oxygen inhaled: they are the shortest in walking birds and the longest in floating birds, which must replenish quickly oxygen when surfacing.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Hook-shaped rib processes were also found in non-bird theropods of maniraptors, resembling those present in modern diving birds and indicating high oxygen requirements [46] [47].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Processes that may have functioned similarly were observed in the Thescelosaurus ornitishia and have been interpreted as evidence of high oxygen consumption and therefore high metabolic rates [48].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Nasal turbines


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Nasal (or respiratory) turbines are folded structures of thin bone in the nasal cavity.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

They are present in most mammals and birds and are lined with mucous membranes that perform two functions: they improve the sense of smell by increasing the area for analyzing odors, and heat and moisturize the inhaled air, take heat and moisture from the exhaled air to prevent the lungs from drying out.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

John Reuben and other critics argued that dinosaurs and other archosaurs (such as terrestrial crocodilomorphs), which are assumed to be warm-blooded, showed no signs of having nasal turbines.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

All the dinosaurs they examined had nasal passages that were too narrow and short to accommodate nasal turbines, and therefore, from their point of view, dinosaurs could not withstand the speed respiration necessary to ensure the metabolic level of mammals or birds during rest, otherwise their lungs would be dried [22] [23] [49] [50].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, this argument has been seriously challenged.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Nasal turbinals are absent or very small in some birds (e.g. Palaeognathae, Procellariiformes, and Falconiformes) and mammals (e.g. cetaceans, anteaters, bats, elephants, and most primates), although these animals are certainly warm-blooded and in some cases very active [51] [52] [53] [54] [55].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The respiratory systems of some ectothermic animals, such as lizards (especially monitor lizards and tegu [21], which have very high aerobic abilities [56]), also allow large amounts of oxygen to pass through, but the absence of nasal turbinalia does not lead to drying of the lungs [55].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Other studies conclude that nasal turbines are fragile and rarely found as fossils.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In particular, they were not found in fossil birds [57].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In 2014, Jason Bourke and co-authors in Anatomical Record reported the detection of nasal turbinalia in pachycephalosaurs [58].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In addition, these bones were described back in 1977 in the Saichania ankylosaurid [59].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Cardiovascular system


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

It is quite expected that dinosaurs will have four-chambered hearts capable of providing enough blood pressure to transport blood vertically more than one meter from hearts [55].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Apparently, the four-chambered heart is the basal sign of the circulatory system in all archosaurs, since it is present like crocodiles (in which it is nevertheless changed a second time for a decrease in the level of metabolism [55]), and in birds [60].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

It is currently believed that the four-chamber synapsids and archosaurs developed independently of the mixing of arterial and venous blood of the three-chambered heart of lepidosaurs, turtles and amphibians (which in turn also developed independently of each other), and all these structures originate from the hearts of racemose fish, most likely having four incompletely separated chambers (a similar structure is present in primitive neotenic amphibians from the siren family) [61] [62].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

It is curious that in monitor lizards, pythons and terrestrial turtles (some of which, in turn, have cases of optional endothermia or mesothermia), the heart is functionally close to four-chamber, almost completely excluding the mixing of arterial and venous blood [63] [64] [65].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, since their ancestors of these animals once developed a three-chambered heart, the separation of arterial and venous blood in them is not as effective as in animals with initially four-chamber hearts that completely lack it without additional modifications (as in the heart of crocodiles) [64].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In 2000, the skeleton of the Thescelosaurus dinosaurus was described, which has what has been identified as fossilized remains of a four-chambered heart and aorta.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The authors interpreted this heart structure as an indication of an increased metabolic rate and warm-blooded Tescelosaurus [66].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, their identification was challenged; other researchers published an article claiming that the “heart” was actually a simple piece of mineral.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

They note that the anatomy of this object is incorrect, and a similar mineral formation is located behind the right leg [67].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, the authors of the original description defended their position; they agreed that the formation contains some mineral inclusions, but this does not apply to the structure, which they say is partially preserved some parts of the heart and aorta [68].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Regardless of the identification of this object, this may have little to do with the metabolic rate, since the four-chambered heart only allows the animal to develop a high metabolic rate, but not necessarily means its presence [60].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Growth rates


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Dinosaur eggs are relatively small and even developed embryos of large dinosaurs have been found in relatively small eggs (for example, Maiasaura) [69].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Dinosaurs of all sizes grew relatively faster than modern cold-blooded reptiles; but the closest analogue to warm-blooded animals in terms of growth rate depends on specific size categories [70] [71 ]:


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

According to a 2004 study, Tyrannosaurus rex reached a mass of about 500 kg at the age of 10, after which it grew very quickly until the age of 20 (gaining more than 500 kg per year), where it reached weight, at the most conservative estimates, at least 5-6 tons, after which growth slowed down significantly [72] [73].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In 2008, a study of one skeleton of the Hadrosaurus Hypacrosaurus showed that this dinosaur grew even faster, reaching its full size at about 15 years of age.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The authors found that this is consistent with the life cycle theory that prey species should grow faster than their predators if they lose a lot of young animals to predation, and local the environment provides sufficient resources for rapid growth [74].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The main problem in assessing the growth rate of dinosaurs is that the so-called “tree rings” on the bone cut could actually be laid more than once a year, which is typical of modern endotherms, and thus neutralize all the results obtained in such studies [75].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In addition, the large range of estimates of the body weight of dinosaurs, given in various studies, can significantly affect the annual increase in the weight of a growing animal when assessing the growth rate.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Metabolism


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Since the discovery of dinosaurs in the mid-19th century, opinions about their lifestyle, metabolism, and thermoregulation have changed over time.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The activity of metabolic enzymes is directly related to temperature, so controlling body temperature is vital for any organism, be it a cold-blooded animal or a warm-blooded animal.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Animals can be classified as poikilothermic, which are resistant to internal temperature fluctuations, and homoyothermic, which must maintain a constant body temperature.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Further, organisms can be classified as endotherms, which regulate body temperature internally, and ectotherms, which regulate body temperature through the use of external heat sources.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

“Warm-blooded” is a complex term with many meanings, since in different contexts it can include some or all of the following features (and, accordingly, include or exclude from definitions are different organisms):


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Homeothermy, that is, maintaining a relatively constant body temperature.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Modern endotherms maintain different temperatures: from 28° C to 30° C in sloths; from 33° C to 36° C in marsupials; from 36° C to 38° C in most placental mammals; and about 41° C in birds [44].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In addition to special thermoregulation mechanisms, this is also achieved due to a mild climate, insulating covers or large sizes.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Tachymetabolism, that is, maintaining a high level of metabolism at rest.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

This requires a fairly high and relatively stable body temperature, since biochemical processes proceed about twice as slowly if the animal's temperature drops by 10° C; most enzymes have an optimal operating temperature, and their effectiveness is greatly reduced when they go beyond the preferred range [76].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Endothermy, that is, the ability to produce heat through special chemical reactions, for example, by “burning” fats, rather than through behaviors such as basking or muscle activity.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Although endothermy is the most reliable way to maintain a constant body temperature, especially in cold environments, it consumes a lot of energy; for example, modern mammals are on average require about 5-10 times more food than modern cold-blooded reptiles of the same size [44].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

It is assumed that large dinosaurs could maintain a relatively constant body temperature due to inertial homothermy.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The heat capacity of such large animals can be so high that it would take them two days or more for their body temperature to drop significantly as the ambient temperature drops, and this would smooth out fluctuations in body temperature caused by daily temperature changes without requiring heat generation through endothermic reactions.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Inertial homeothermy is currently observed in large crocodiles.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, it is calculated that this mechanism would be ineffective for dinosaurs weighing less than 700 kg. Maintaining a constant body temperature due to inertial homeothermy would be impossible for small species of dinosaurs and juveniles of large species [44].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The enzymatic breakdown of vegetation in the intestines of large herbivores can also lead to the release of a large amount of heat, but this method of maintaining a high and stable temperature would not be possible for predatory dinosaurs, small herbivores or juveniles of larger herbivores [77].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Thus, inertial homeothermy was hardly an important method of preserving heat, at least in small dinosaurs (in large ones, on the other hand, it could help preserve heat, approximately just like modern elephants).


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Since the internal processes of extinct animals are unknown, most discussions focus on the presence of homeothermy and tachymetabolism in dinosaurs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The assessment of metabolic rate, in turn, is complicated by the difference between indicators during rest and activity.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

In all modern reptiles and most mammals and birds, the maximum metabolic rate during activity is 10-20 times higher than the minimum values during rest.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, in several mammals, these indicators differ by a factor of 70.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Theoretically, a terrestrial vertebrate can have “reptile” metabolic rates at rest and “bird” during activity.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, an animal with such a low metabolic rate will not be able to grow quickly when resting.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Huge herbivorous sauropods may have been constantly on the move in search of food, and therefore their energy costs would be approximately the same regardless of whether their metabolic rates were during rest high or low [78].


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

The main assumptions about dinosaur metabolism are as follows [44]:


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Dinosaurs were cold-blooded like modern reptiles, except that the large size of some of them would help stabilize body temperature.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, more like modern birds than modern reptiles.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Dinosaurs had an intermediate level of metabolism, that is, they had only some metabolic features of warm-blooded animals.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Among the dinosaurs, there were animals with different types of metabolism.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Robert Becker, in his fundamental work, came to the conclusion that dinosaurs were warm-blooded and assumed that they inherited this trait from earlier archosaurs.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

However, since this group of sauropsids has existed for more than 150 million years (excluding birds, which most Cladists consider as one of the early separated branches of maniraptor theropod), it is quite possible that some groups have developed physiological features that differ from the original state and include different levels of metabolism and features of thermoregulation.


Question: In what year was Robert T. Becker's Dinosaur Renaissance?

Dinosaur physiology

Robert Reid in 1997 suggested that intermediate metabolism or mesothermy could be common among dinosaurs [44], conditionally calling them “failed endotherms”.