← Glossary · Named giants (glossary) · All races · Nephilim
Giants appear across scripture, the Qumran scrolls, myth and saga, ancient historiography, and the modern medical record. This section lists the ones that are named — the individuals a source actually calls by name — and keeps each one tied to the kind of source it rests on.
The source class is the point of the page. A giant named in Genesis, a giant named in a Qumran fragment, a giant reported by Pliny, and a man measured by physicians at Washington University are four different kinds of claim, and mixing them is how this subject usually goes wrong. Heights are shown as recorded by that source, in that source’s own units, never converted into an assertion of fact. Where two traditions give different figures for the same person — Goliath is the standard case — both are shown.
Every card carries two icons: opens that giant’s own page, and opens the glossary definition.
For giant races and lineages rather than individuals (Nephilim, Anakim, Rephaim, Emim, Zamzumim, Gibborim), see All races. For the Watchers named as the fathers of the Nephilim — Shemihazah, Azazel and the rest of the two hundred — see Fallen Angels and Grigori / Watchers.
Named individuals reported by a named ancient or medieval historian who states where, when and how large. These are records of a claim, not verified measurements.
Lineage: Human of extreme stature (reported) · race detail
Where & when: Arabia, brought to Rome · Reign of Claudius, AD 41-54
Stature as recorded: Pliny: nine feet nine inches (Roman measure, about 2.9 m)
References: Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.16
Lineage: Human of extreme stature (reported) · race detail
Where & when: Rome (Gardens of Sallust) · Reign of Augustus, 27 BC - AD 14
Stature as recorded: Pliny: half a foot taller than Gabbara, so about ten feet three inches (Roman measure)
References: Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.16
Lineage: Human of extreme stature (reported) · race detail
Where & when: Rome (Gardens of Sallust) · Reign of Augustus, 27 BC - AD 14
Stature as recorded: Pliny: half a foot taller than Gabbara, so about ten feet three inches (Roman measure)
References: Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.16
Also known as: Eleazar
Lineage: Human of extreme stature (reported) · race detail
Where & when: Parthia to Rome · Reign of Tiberius, AD 14-37
Stature as recorded: Josephus: seven cubits (about 10 ft 6 in / 3.2 m)
References: Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.4.5
Also known as: Orestes son of Agamemnon
Lineage: Heroic-age remains (reported)
Where & when: Tegea, Arcadia · Reported c. 550 BC; identified as the heroic age
Stature as recorded: Herodotus: a coffin seven cubits long containing a body of the same length (about 10 ft 6 in / 3.2 m)
References: Herodotus, Histories 1.67-68
Also known as: Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus
Lineage: Human of extreme stature (reported) · race detail
Where & when: Thrace; Rome · AD c. 173-238
Stature as recorded: Historia Augusta: eight feet six inches. Modern scholarly estimate: about 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m)
References: Historia Augusta, Life of the Two Maximini 6; Herodian 7.1
Also known as: The Onondaga Giant
Lineage: Hoax (carved gypsum figure)
Where & when: Cardiff, Onondaga County, New York · Unearthed 16 October 1869
Stature as recorded: Carved figure measuring 10 ft (3.05 m)
References: Contemporary newspaper record; O. C. Marsh's examination, 1869; now held at the Farmers' Museum, Cooperstown NY
76 named giants on record · 19 resting on a first-hand examination or eyewitness report. Select a class to filter.
Unnamed giants. This page lists names. Scripture also describes giants it does not name — the six-fingered man of Gath (2 Samuel 21:20), the four sons of the Rapha as a group, the Emim and Zamzumim as peoples. Those belong with the races and lineages, not here.
Unnamed skeleton reports. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century newspaper accounts of giant skeletons in burial mounds, and the red-haired Si-Te-Cah of Paiute oral tradition associated with Lovelock Cave, Nevada, describe peoples and finds rather than named individuals, and almost none survive independent verification. They are not listed as named giants.
Fiction. Figures invented for literature or advertising — Paul Bunyan among them — are excluded. The one fabrication that is listed, the Cardiff Giant, appears under historiography because the fraud itself is a documented historical event with a paper trail, and because the most famous American giant being a carved block of gypsum is the single most useful fact on this page.
Map of Named Giants All races Nephilim Grigori / Watchers Fallen Angels Glossary