Talk:Centaur

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 February 2019 and 3 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MilliGrams.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled

I found this sentence at the bottom of "Theories of Origins" section: 'The last known legitimate sighting was in Allamuchy, NJ circa October 1976.' Removing it now.Sully716 18:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed the part about Centaurs being in TESIV:Oblivion. There is not a Centaur anywhere in the game. MusashiExtra 08:20, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Not to be rude but this article is not written in a style suitable for the wikipedia. LordFenix 19:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

"As children of Apollo, they are taken to signify the rays of the Sun." I removed this statement which embodies several misleading misconceptions. Wetman 00:44, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"Many centaur legends state that they are very fickle creatures, and often look to the sky to determine the fates. They are great astrologers and have a love for divination." This may be a modern pop astrology use of centaurs. Fickle astrologers, eh? Can anyone give a concrete instance that would support any element of these statements? --Wetman 22:28, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've no clue as to where that came from, I was just moving it. Although come to think of it, the centaurs in Harry Potter are quite like that. Maybe that's what the tidbit's contributor was getting at. [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 23:12, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ah! "Centaurs in the Harry Potter series" is a perfectly good subsection, at a Harry Potter entry-- with a linking note here: "Modern centaurs have been reimagined in the Harry Potter books." or somesuch. Would a Potterite do this for us? --Wetman 00:16, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'd be willing to try, being that I'm something of a closet Potterite. The only problem is that I haven't touched the books in at least a year, but that's easily fixed; I read fast. Edit: None of the other magical beasts in Potter are actually included in the article; they have separate entries elsewhere. Maybe we should make the Centaurs in Harry Potter subsection on the Centaur article itself, and link from Harry Potter? [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 00:30, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I could swear the Narnian centaurs were stargazers too. It stems from the story of sagittarius, I'm sure, and the idea that one of their number is living in the sky with other creatures.. naturally they'd give it a look.

I believe you are speaking of Chiron? Wikidragon 21:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The "fickle creatures" bit was added by User:Premeditated Chaos 17:49, 27 Nov 2004. I've deleted it. --Wetman 00:51, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed the incoherent nonsense of the second and third paragraphs and the two single sentences that followed. Why was this reverted? 15.195.185.76 16:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

For the same reasons it was put there to begin with: vandalism, or thinking that Wikipedia is a joke encyclopedia. Twit happens. Coyoty 19:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Could we mention the similarity between the centaurs and the gandarewa-Gandharvas? I am not skilled at editing the Wikipedia. Quote from the Ghandarvas page: In Hinduism and Buddhism, the Gandharvas (Sanskrit: गंधर्व, gandharva) are male nature spirits, husbands of the Apsaras. Some are part animal, usually a bird or _horse_(my emphasis). They have superb musical skills. They guarded the Soma and made beautiful music for the gods in their palaces. Their name may be cognate with that of the Greek centaurs. Gene K 08:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

They may be anthropomorphic, but unless they have a mainly human body from the waist up with an animal body from the neck down, they wouldn't be centaurs. Also, the Gandharva page is unsourced and may not be accurate. The one non-hearsay source I could find about gandharvas and centaurs, The Religions of India by Edward Washburn Hopkins, says, "The Gandharva, moon, is certainly one with the Persian Gandarewa, but can hardly be identical with the Centaur." Coyoty 17:40, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

'Did centaurs actually exist?' article is non-sense!

External links: Did centaurs actually exist? - Article from Pravda.ru in English

This article is full of non-sense. There isn't any sort of scientific credibility in it. It's obviously - and very ridiculously - made up. I think this link should be removed because it provides false and irrelevant information regarding Centaurs. Haisook 17:09, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks go to the user who removed it. Haisook 13:01, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Narnia book order

I am changing this back to first novel. the Narnia books (as well as in the movie adaptation of its second novel, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe),

See the section on Reading order in The Chronicles of Narnia regarding this. (esp. the bottom of the section. The guy who first persuaded publishers to change the numbering of the books is co-producer of the movies. And they are being made in order of original publication...) VikÞor [[User talk:Vik-Thor|Talk]] 07:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Unorthodox theories on Centaur page moved here

I have removed all of the following information from the article. --Theranos 19:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

A few small portions of this might be reasonable to reinclude: e.g. the stuffed Centaur is an amusing curiosity - from Pliny's Natural History or Phlegon's Book of Marvels, or some such? As for the rest, it is far to speculative and off-beat for a Wiki article. There is clearly also alot of confusion between the mythic Greek centaur and the Greek word "onocentaur" (= an African baboon). --Theranos 20:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The section was a copyright violation from here and here and has been removed. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Different Picture Please!

I'm sorry, I love Mortal Kombat, I really do. But this should be an academic article about mythology, and for the first picture people see it should be something a little more conservative, like a classical painting or sculpture or something.

On top of that, the "centaurs" in Mortal Kombat have features that are not part of the traditional description, like the giant bull horns and the metal tail that shoots fireballs. Maybe include the picture in a section on centaurs in popular culture, but not as the basic image.

By the way....

If you're looking for an additional picture for anything, there IS a picture of the Hodges Library centaur available under Creative Commons license on Flickr that I took a couple of weeks ago. I didn't want to insert it without discussion, however!

If anyone's interested, you can see the picture on My Flickr Photostream, linked here. It's there if you want it!

Wyoming Jackrabbit (talk) 23:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)Wyoming_Jackrabbit

Content is inapropriate for a serious reference work

This article has a box with so-called "data" on centaurs, treating them as real creatures (I'm using the ordinary definition of "real" here). I think this is inappropriate: the box appears near the top of the article, and it does not label itself in a way that would indicate that the vast scientific and lay consensus of the present-day world is that centaurs are mythological/imaginary creatures.

Of course, the photo of the statue in the box is very informative, so it should stay, provided it's legal. S. Neuman 20:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Photo is NOT of a Centuar

The photo of the archer is not a centuar, the creature has the body of a leopard. It's an Indian Myth...can't remember the name...anyway, not a centuar, so I'll be removing it. 209.193.50.217 22:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Portrayal

Centaurs are sometimes shown as wearing armour or other clothing, but in most modern images and films, male centaurs are shown wearing nothing. At a certain cultural level it's hard to distinguish a jokester from an earnest illiterate: we can thank User:82.7.42.34 for this assertion, perhaps from a remembered comic book. A lot of sensible text has eroded from this article, and some illustrations too. --Wetman 10:09, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

That is not entirely true, but you are basically correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Knowledgeabletome (talk • contribs) 03:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

POV

As a centaur, I find portions of this article highly offensive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grammaticus VII (talk • contribs) 09:47, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

As a centaur???

For one,you couldn't even handle a DAY as a centaur,you'd be tripping over your own hooves the second you became one.

Beside,there is only ONE centaur that is alive today... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.154.50.52 (talk) 05:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Scott Bailey appears as a centaur

There is a commerical where actor Scott Bailey appears in,I think it should be noted in the modern day things,here is my proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtN9CW01QDM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nudist1 (talk • contribs) 02:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Mad etymologies

I put the perfectly zany dream of Alexander Hislop into a footnote, as it was too promi9nent. This is nonsense: (In Greece, Mot became the constellation of Lupus. No, the Greek constellation was Therion, the animal. The Babylonian connection is unsourced: Babble-on -ian?--Wetman (talk) 06:56, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Warfare?

The warfare section seems weird, and I have my suspicions--it sounds more like something out of an RPG or Harry Potter than real mythology. At any rate it should be "colt" not "fawn", although I'm not going to waste my time correcting it if it's just going to be deleted later. 97.104.210.67 (talk) 03:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

File:Centaur skeleton.jpg Nominated for Deletion

	An image used in this article, File:Centaur skeleton.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Deletion requests June 2011 What should I do?
	A discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise consider finding a replacement image before deletion occurs. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 10:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Archers

Why no mention of the centaurs' fame as great archers? This also ties in to their potential origin as a modification/fictionalization of real-life steppe nomads -- known for their cavalry-archer style of combat. Chuck (talk) 05:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Because no one has researched the issue and added anything about it. Go for it. Montanabw^(talk) 20:33, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Preliminary research shows that the centaurs' fame as archers is actually hard to pin down. Earliest depictions of centaurs (both in art and writing) seem to have them fighting with rocks and tree branches. Also, the centaur in Greek culture seems to predate the emergence of the steppe cavalry-archer. The only art depictions I could find of centaurs with bows seem to be Renaissance or later (that's just from doing various searches in Google Images, though). Perhaps the centaur picked up the bow when the Greeks started seeing horse archers coming off the steppes (would have been Scythians at the time). Or perhaps it was a relatively modern reinterpretation based on Chiron being described as teaching archery, among the other skills he taught. I'll look into it more. Chuck (talk) 05:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe try databases like JSTOR (you can get abstracts free, and then post over at that one research message board if you want someone to find the full article for you). "Centuar" and "archer" would probably make a good search. Someone has probably studied this somewhere... Montanabw^(talk) 19:00, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Cenotaur

Okay, I'm not sure if I should be asking this here or on wiktionary, but I was raised, and most people around me pronounce this mythical creature with three syllables and spelling it as above. Has anyone else here seen this variant, because I really can't even find it searching +cenotaur on google, except one instance that looks like a typo, or a fandom/work of fiction specific usage. Any clarity would help. Hallaman3 (talk) 02:59, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Spelling is new to me, but try wikt:Centaur and see, I guess. Montanabw^(talk) 09:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Editing

Hi everyone! I am starting to edit this page as a part of a college course. My goal right now is to reorganize the article so that it can be similar to other good articles within the Mythology WikiProject (like kelpie and brownie). I will be posting any major changes that I suggest to my sandbox before making any changes here, so feel free to take a look and talk to me about any suggestions, questions, or concerns you might have! --MilliGrams (talk) 00:21, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I am planning to start moving my edits from my sandbox into the article on Friday, but just to keep anyone who might be interested updated, here are a few of the things I am planning on doing:

• Move some information from the main part of the article up to the lead to flesh it out a little bit more
• Since the list of centaurs seems to be taking over the article a little bit right now, I am thinking it would be best to move it. It's a really informative list, though, so if anyone has ideas on where we can put it instead, that would be great!
• Organize the article with specific sections for art eras and literature to keep the information together and clear
• Remove some instances of WP:OR

Everything is up in my sandbox right now in case someone wants to see exactly what I'm planning! --MilliGrams (talk) 02:53, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

List of Centaurs

@Markx121993: The List of Centaurs section is a really cool and helpful table! I'm not sure if it really goes here, though, it seems a bit extensive/elaborate for this article. Is there anything that we can do with this, or is there somewhere it would fit better? --MilliGrams (talk) 17:52, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

For now, I'm going to move the list out of the article. It has a lot of good, specific information that I think could be useful somewhere, so I am going to put it in one of my sandboxes so that it can easily be grabbed if someone finds a better place for it! --MilliGrams (talk) 17:29, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Original research

I believe the first paragraph of the Classical literature section is original research since it makes broad claims about classical literature while only citing the literature and not another source who made those connections. I'm going to post the paragraph here for reference, and if anyone has better sourcing for the claims, please share!

Of the various Classical Greek authors who mentioned centaurs, Pindar was the first who describes undoubtedly a combined monster.[28] Previous authors (Homer) tend to use words such as pheres (cf. theres, "beasts")[29] that could also mean ordinary savage men riding ordinary horses, though Homer does specifically refer to a centaur ("kentauros") in the Odyssey.[30] Contemporaneous representations of hybrid centaurs can be found in archaic Greek art. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MilliGrams (talk • contribs) 14:00, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm gonna go ahead remove it --MilliGrams (talk) 14:21, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

according to legend , there were centaurs at Orekh Lake in the Vologda region of the Russian Federation 300 years ago 176.65.96.15 (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Etymology

Perhaps from κεντέω (kentéō, “I goad, wound”) + ταῦρος (taûros, “bull”) either from bull-fighting or from herding. (Wiktionary) --Manfariel (talk) 01:26, 2 May 2020 (UTC)