Strange Creatures: Anthropology in AntiquityTraces 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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Perhaps the other most significant aspect of Hesiod's cosmogony for my purposes here is its explicit ... of course many other ways of interpreting Hesiod's cosmogony , his theology and his world - view , but the aspects outlined here ...
For example , a nomadic lifestyle can be viewed as a positive aspect of the noble savage life , one that assimilates ... people being used at the same time in an anti - ethnocentric way to criticise aspects of the writer's own society .
So India is a land of monsters , wonders , and sages , and all these can be seen as aspects of the ethnocentric gaze . ... and sacredness from its proximity to Ocean , and indeed this aspect of India becomes more important over time .
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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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