Strange Creatures: Anthropology in AntiquityBloomsbury Academic, 2006 M06 8 - 185 pages Traces the anthropological and ethnological theories of the ancient Greeks and Romans from the creation of the world to the invention of the Americas. In ancient Greek and Roman thinking, whether the world is flat or spherical it will have imaginary boundaries and liminal areas where the norms of nature and culture are thought to break down. Analogies are constantly drawn between 'primitive' peoples at the 'edges of the world' and 'primitive' people in prehistory. Distance, both in time and space, leads to difference, and the idea that strange things happen out there or happened back then dominates Greek and Roman thinking on other cultures. This book examines ancient ideas of the creation of the world, the beginnings of life and origin of species, humans and animals, utopias and blessed islands, and 'barbarian' cultures beyond the Mediterranean world, before going on to trace the influence of ancient anthropological and ethnological thought on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.We begin with primordial chaos and end with the invention of the Americas, taking in on the way many strange creatures, among them the noble or ignoble savages of Britain, Gaul and Ireland, the Man-faced Ox-creatures of Empedocles, the Dog-heads of India, the Amazons, Centaurs, Columbus, and the Tupinamba of Brazil. |
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200 ) Another of the everlasting gods I would easily send to sleep , even the
streams of the river Okeanos who is the begetter of all . 3 ( Iliad 14 . 244 ) There
are some who think that the very ancient and indeed first speculators about the
gods ...
... a sweet water spring gushes up in a stream that flows in such abundance that it
feeds a navigable river . This river is divided into many tributaries and these are
channelled to irrigate the plain and throughout this region there are dense ...
This esplanade leads down to a river called “ The Water of the Sun ' whose
waters are translucent and of great purity and it contributes greatly to the health of
those who drink from it ' . 43 Again the marvellous rivers motif is presented
rationally ...
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Contents
The Origin of Life and the Origin of Species | 17 |
Ancient Theories of Prehistory and the Evolution of Society | 39 |
Blessed Islands and Blessed Lands | 61 |
Copyright | |
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