Strange Creatures: Anthropology in AntiquityBloomsbury Academic, 2006 M06 8 - 256 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. |
From inside the book
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... means simply ' beyond the North Wind ' ( Boreas ) . Indeed , their idyllic lifestyle could easily be predicted from the many other accounts of blessed peoples , and as a consequence they are in danger of seeming anodyne and two ...
... means ' men of great wisdom ' . 22 ( Amerigo Vespucci , Letter to Pier Soderini ) I shall leave Columbus himself to introduce his story : On 2 January in the year 1492 , when your Highnesses23 had concluded their war with the Moors who ...
... mean , however , to contradict what the Holy Scripture says about Adam and Eve , who , after their sin , were ashamed when ... means observed by our poor Americans ) .49 ( Jean de Léry , History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil , ch . 8 ) ...
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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