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Multiple Facebook accounts claimed that a half-human and half-horse skeleton was discovered in Greece in 1876.
One of the Facebook pages, Archaeology Revealed, on May 8, 2025, posted that a half-human, half-horse skeleton was discovered in Greece in 1876.
The post reads, “Greece: The Astonishing Discovery of A Half-Human, Half-Horse Skeleton in 1876”.
An image depicting a female centaur and a centaur skeleton was posted with the claim. As of May 28 2025, the post has garnered over 6,800 likes, 883 comments and 434 shares.
Some Facebook users shared their comments on the post. Robert Cole wrote, “Wow what fantastic news why is it not on all the news channels!!! Because it’s bullshit” (sic).
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James Chester also commented, “So that’s how those pranksters led us to believe there were mythical creatures. By mixing the bones of humans and animals. Then drawing pictures of them in their dwellings.”(sic)
The post can also be found on Facebook here, here, here and here.
ROUNDCHECK worked on this claim due to its virality and the potential to mislead the public about historical and archaeological facts.
What is Centaur?
Centaurs, also known as half-human half-horse, are mythical creatures from ancient Greek mythology, and were frequently represented in Greek architectural sculpture and pottery decoration.
It is one of the most intriguing myths associated with Chiron, which continues to appear in modern fantasy, like in Harry Potter.
ROUNDCHECK Findings
ROUNDCHECK verified the claim on DUBAWA Chatbot, a WhatsApp fact-checking bot. The verdict reads, ‘‘The statement is false. No half-human, half-horse skeleton was discovered in Greece in 1876. No such finding exists in historical records.’’
According to Study.com, Centaurs have never existed; they are mythical beings first described in Greek mythology thousands of years ago.
We investigated the merged images of the claim used to depict the centaurs’ images on InVid, an open-source verification toolkit. The results showed that the image was altered, and that the lady’s image was conjoined with the horse.
The wavelet analysis in the traces filter on InVid indicated the images were manipulated. The interpretation explains that the region with firm white is likely to originate from other images and differ from the rest of the image.
The result was the same in the case of the image depicted as a centaur skeleton.
We further traced the origin of the images through reverse image search. The results revealed that the lady attached to the horse is Tamannaah Bhatia, an Indian actress.
The particular image was traced to a 2017 Indian movie titled ‘Baahubali 2’ where Bhatia, as Avantika, played the role of a skilled female warrior. This was also confirmed here and here.
The original image of the manipulated horse can be found here and here.
We also found the original horse skeleton using reverse image search. The exact skeleton was traced to a French discussion forum, Francefurs, where the discussion, when translated on Google, centred on drawing/painting/anatomy tutorials.
The horse skeleton image with the caption, ‘Chevaux’, which translates as ‘Horse’ on Google, was found in a post by Bongawonga dating back to 2006, tagged “The animal photo reference site”.
Also, the image of the original horse skeleton was labelled, ‘Copyright Bone Clones 2004’. This can be found here, here and here.
Verdict
The claim about the half-human, half-horse skeleton discovery in Greece in 1876 is INCORRECT.
There is no historical record of such a finding, and the images were manipulated visuals from different cases. Analysis showed that the merged image, which depicted a female centaur and a centaur skeleton, was manipulated.
