Cetus (mythology)

Other versions describe a cetus as a sea monster with the head of a wild boar[4][5] or greyhound and the body of a whale or a dolphin with divided, fan-like tails.

Ceti were said to be colossal beasts the size of a ship, their skulls alone measuring 40 feet (12 meters) in length, their spines being a cubit in thickness, and their skeletons taller at the shoulder than any elephant.

[8] Queen Cassiopeia boasted that she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than the Nereids, which invoked the wrath of Poseidon who sent the sea monster Cetus to attack Æthiopia.

After finding Andromeda chained to the rock and learning of her plight, Perseus managed to slay the Cetus when the creature emerged from the ocean to devour her.

Tanninim (תַּנִּינִים) (-im denotes Hebraic plural) appear in the Hebrew Book of Genesis,[13] Exodus,[14] Deuteronomy,[15] Psalms,[17] Job,[18] Ezekiel,[19] Isaiah,[20] and Jeremiah.

[21] They are explicitly listed among the creatures created by God on the fifth day of the Genesis creation narrative,[13] translated in the King James Version as "great whales".

[22] The Septuagint renders the original Hebrew of Genesis 1:21 (hattanninim haggedolim) as κήτη τὰ μεγάλα (kētē ta megala) in Greek, and this was in turn translated as cete grandia in the Vulgate.

"[28] Art historian John Boardman conjectured that images of the kētos in Central Asia influenced depictions of the Chinese Dragon and Indian makara.