On Monday morning, locals and holiday makers were surprised to discover what appeared to be a giant skull of a dragon on Charmouth beach in Dorset’s Jurassic coast in England. The spectacular skull the size of a bus appeared to have been washed up on the beach famous for its treasure trove of dinosaur fossils. No need to panic. It’s just a publicity stunt by U.K. streaming video service Blinkbox who knows exactly how to celebrate the arrival of season 3 of the TV series Game of Thrones on their service.
The skull, which measures 40 feet long, 8 feet wide and 9 feet tall, took a team of three sculptors over two months to design, construct and paint. The skull was then transported across London and plonked down on Jurassic coast overnight. The choice of location was brilliant. The Jurassic coastline is home to a sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rock formations spanning 185 million years of the Earth’s history. A large number of fossils has been unearthed in this region. The last major fossil to be found was that of the Ichthyosaur, a dolphin like creature which lived 220-65 million years ago.
The dramatic skull sculpture work was inspired by a memorable scene in the series which sees character Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) discover a dragon skull in the dungeons of King’s Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms. At this point in George RR Martin’s fantasy, the dragons are supposedly long dead, but it hints strongly at their return, which is a developing theme in the story.
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