The Ta Prohm “Stegosaurus”: What the Famous Angkor Carving Does and Doesn’t Show

Deep in the jungle temple of Ta Prohm, near Siem Reap in Cambodia, a column is covered with small round carvings: pigs, monkeys, water buffalo, roosters and more. One of them shows a heavy four-legged creature with an arched back and a row of rounded shapes rising along its spine. Show that photo to almost anyone raised on dinosaur books, and they will say the same word: stegosaurus.

For many creationists, that carving has become a favorite piece of evidence that people saw living dinosaurs in historical times. It is also a piece of evidence that creationist researchers have debated sharply among themselves. Both sides deserve a hearing.

The temple

According to Wikipedia, Ta Prohm was founded by the Khmer King Jayavarman VII as a Mahayana Buddhist monastery and center of learning dedicated to his mother. Its foundation stele gives a date of 1186 AD, and the temple was built largely in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Its original name was Rajavihara, “royal monastery.” The same stele records that more than 12,500 people lived at the site. Today it is famous for the giant trees growing out of its ruins, and it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1992.

The creationist case for a stegosaur

The idea that people and dinosaurs lived together is a major theme of creationist writing, including Dennis R. Petersen’s Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, whose dinosaur chapters ask questions such as “What now-extinct animals lived with man in the past?” and “Could Job have seen these?” The Ta Prohm carving has been one of the most popular illustrations of that idea.

In 2007, Creation magazine put the question directly: “how could anyone living 800 years ago have known what a dino looked like?” The same year, an article at Answers in Genesis argued that the carving belonged with its neighbors:

“There are no mythological figures among the roundels, so one can reasonably conclude that these figures depict the animals that were commonly seen by the ancient Khmer people in the twelfth century.”Kyle E. Cole, Answers in Genesis, 2007

The strongest form of the argument appeared in Creation in 2013, when John O’Brien and Shaun Doyle answered critics. They acknowledged that the head does not match fossil reconstructions and argued that the carving is an artist’s impression rather than a scientific drawing. Their key point was the plates:

“No other creature known, fossil or living, has a row of such characteristic plates along its back.”O’Brien and Doyle, Creation 35(2), 2013

Defenders also argue that the plates stand out from the background decoration, following the curve of the back and standing in higher relief than nearby leaf patterns. And there is a real point underneath the whole debate: accurate reconstructions of stegosaurs, with their tall plates, are modern. As a 2017 paper in Answers Research Journal put it, the idea that the carving was based on fossils is “highly unlikely.”

The creationist case against

That same 2017 paper, by Joshua Cedar, was written to caution fellow creationists. After comparing the carving with known stegosaurs, Cedar concluded that the features provide “more than sufficient grounds for biblical creationists to at least question the identification.” His main points:

• The “plates” are ambiguous. The water buffalo carved directly above the creature, and a swan elsewhere at the temple, have similar leafy outlines along their backs.
• No tail spikes. Every well-known stegosaur had tail spikes; the carving shows none.
• The wrong head. The head is far too large, and it carries a pair of pointed ears or horns at the back. No known stegosaur had either, and among living animals external ears are found only in mammals.

In August 2025, writing in Journal of Creation, Creation Ministries International’s Keaton Halley went further. He added that the tail hangs down rather than being held out straight, and that the front and back legs are about equal in length, unlike most stegosaurs. He also highlighted a second carving at Ta Prohm, reported by researcher Scott E. Burnett, that shows an animal with nearly the same posture, head and tail, but a smooth back with no “plates” at all. If both carvings show the same animal, Halley argues, the shapes above the first one are background ornament, not part of the animal.

Could it be a rhinoceros?

Halley’s own leading candidate is an Asian rhinoceros, probably the Javan rhino, which once lived in Cambodia. He notes that Khmer artists clearly knew rhinos: they carved them at Angkor Wat. And he lists a series of features the carving shares with rhinos, including a bulky body, thick legs of similar length, two tall ears at the back of the head, a large rounded snout and a drooping tail.

He is candid about the problems. There is no visible horn, and the tail is too long and thick for a rhino. He suggests the animal could be a young or female Javan rhino, whose horns can be small or absent, but he calls his conclusion tentative. Others have proposed a boar, a chameleon or a mythological creature, and Burnett points out that the temple’s roundels do include some mythological beings, which is a correction to the 2007 claim that there are none.

Halley’s bottom line is blunt: “at the very least, the Ta Prohm carving should not be used as evidence for dinosaur–human co-existence.”

So what should we make of it?

Here is our honest assessment, point by point:

• The resemblance is real. The carving does look strikingly like a stegosaur at first glance, and nobody has produced a perfect alternative match.
• The identification is unproven. The head, ears, legs, tail and missing spikes all fit a stegosaur poorly. The plate-like shapes may be decoration. Unconfirmed
• The broader case does not depend on it. Creationists point to many other lines of evidence for people and dinosaurs living together, from dragon legends to the descriptions of behemoth and leviathan in Job. Answers in Genesis added an editor’s note to its 2007 article making exactly that point: even if the carving were set aside, “there are many other petroglyphs and legends that support the biblical account.”

We think the debate itself is a good example for anyone who loves this subject. The researchers who raised the hardest questions about the Ta Prohm carving were not opponents of creation. They were creationists who wanted to make sure the arguments they use are sound. As Cedar wrote, “we should always strive to use the best and strongest evidences to support our arguments for the accuracy and authority of Scripture.”

If you visit Angkor, look for the carving on the column near the temple’s west entrance, and judge it for yourself. Then look at the buffalo above it.

Curious about the dragon legends? Read Dragons Around the World.