They are basically rain gutters with ugly faces.
For thousands of years theyve been used as decorative waterspouts on buildings.
Here are 22 wild facts about these ancient stone demons known as gargoyles.
Throughout history, gargoyles were primarily used as waterspouts.
Gargoyles were designed to protect buildings from water erosion.
They are basically rain gutters with ugly faces.
The word gargoyle is based on a French word meaning throat.
The modern English word gargoyle is derived from the French wordgargouille,which means throat or gullet.
Theres a Christian legend about gargoyles involving a saint who slays a demon.
Gnarled, demonic-looking statues that dont serve as waterspouts are known as grotesques.
These sculptures are known simply as grotesques rather than gargoyles.
Sculpted creatures that are a hybrid of two or more animals are known as chimeras.
It can serve as a gargoyle if it can also serve as a drain gutter.
During the Middle Ages, some gargoyles had human faces and were modeled after real people.
The worlds oldest gargoyle is located in Turkey.
A 13,000-year-old stone crocodile found in what is now Turkey is considered to be the oldest gargoyle in existence.
In ancient Egypt, gargoyles typically took the form of lions.
Gargoyles served as drain spouts in ancient Egypt, most embodied in the shape of water-spewing lions.
The Temple of Zeus in Greece originally had 102 gargoyles.
As in Egypt, ancient Greek gargoyles typically were of lions heads.
Today 39 of the original gargoyles remain.
Gargoyles became a fixture of European Gothic architecture around the year 1200.
Saint Bernard went on record decrying gargoyles as hideous.
What is the meaning of these unclean monkeys, these strange savage lions, and monsters?
To what purpose are here placed these creatures, half beast, half man, or these spotted tigers?
I see several bodies with one head and several heads with one body.
Gargoyles were said to represent dangers from which the church would protect the faithful.
Gargoyles were also thought to ward off evil.
Some gargoyles were fashioned like pagan deities to get to lure pagans toward Christianity.
Gargoyles were typically carved on the ground and only put into place as the building was being finished.
The screeching winged gargoyles at Notre Dame are perhaps the worlds most famous.
The concept of gargoyles as monsters who come to life is a fairly recent one.
For most of antiquity until, oh, a hundred years ago, stone gargoyles remained just thatinanimate objects.
There have been several movies featuring gargoyles as main characters.
In 1932sMaker of Gargoyles,a stonemason builds two gargoyles who ransack a town and later murder their maker.
In 1972sGargoyles,they are depicted as a race of demons created by Satan to torture mankind.
A French chapel replaced its gargoyles with gremlins.
Theres a Darth Vader gargoyle in Washington, DC.
