THE MASTER OF ANIMALS IN OLD WORLD ICONOGRAPHY

Old World iconography from the Upper Paleolithic to the Christian era consistently features symbolic representations of both female and male protagonists in confl ict with, accompanied by or transmuted partly or completely into, animals. Adversarial relationships are made explicit through hunting and sacrifi ce scenes, including heraldic compositions featuring a central fi gure grasping beasts arrayed on either side, while more implicit expressions are manifested in zoomorphic attributes (horns, headdresses, skins, etc.) and composite or hybrid fi gures that blend animal and human elements into a single image.

While the so-called Mistress of Animals has attracted signifi cant scholarly attention, her male counterpart, the Master of Animals, so far has not been accorded a correspondingly comprehensive synthetic study. In an effort to fi ll this gap in scholarship, The Master of Animals in Old World Iconography assembles archaeological, iconographical, and literary evidence for the Master of Animals from a variety of cultural contexts and disparate chronological horizons throughout the Old World, with a particular focus on Europe and the Mediterranean basin as well as the Indus Valley and Eurasia. The volume does not seek to demonstrate relatedness between different manifestations of this fi gure, even though some are clearly ontologically and geographically linked, but rather to interpret the role of this iconographic construct within each cultural context. In doing so, The Master of Animals in Old World Iconography provides an important resource for scholars confronting similar symbolic paradigms across the Old World landscape that foregrounds comparative interpretation in diverse ritual and socio-political environments.

 

A kötet adatai:
Nyelv: angol
Kötés: keménytábla
Megjelenés éve: 2010
Terjedelem: 262 oldal

Tartalomjegyzék:

BETTINA ARNOLD – DEREK B. COUNTS: Prolegomenon: The Many Masks of the Master of Animals
SARAH COSTELLO: The Mesopotamian “Nude Hero”: Context and Interpretations
JONATHAN MARK KENOYER: Master of Animals and Animal Masters in the Iconography of the Indus Tradition
BILLIE JEAN COLLINS: Animal Mastery in Hittite Art and Texts
JANICE L. CROWLEY: The Aegean Master of Animals: The Evidence of the Seals, Signets and Sealings
ANNA SIMANDIRAKI-GRIMSHAW: Minoan Animal-Human Hybridity
LOUISE A. HITCHCOCK: The Big Nowhere: A Master of Animals in the Throne Room at Knossos?
SUSAN LANGDON: Where the Wild Things Were: The Greek Master of Animals in Ecological Perspective
DEREK B. COUNTS:Divine Symbols and Royal Aspirations: The Master of Animals in Iron Age Cypriote Religion
MARK GARRISON: The Heroic Encounter in the Visual Arts of Ancient Iraq and Iran ca. 1000–500 BC
BRYAN K. HANKS: Agency, Hybridity, and Transmutation: Human-Animal Symbolism and Mastery among Early Eurasian Steppe Societies
BETTINA ARNOLD: Beasts of the Forest and Beasts of the Field: Animal Sacrifi ce, Hunting Symbolism, and the Master of Animals in Pre-Roman Iron Age Europe
ANTHONY TUCK: Mistress and Master: The Politics of Iconography in Pre-Roman Central Italy
MARTIN GUGGISBERG: The Mistress of Animals, the Master of Animals: Two Complementary or Oppositional Religious Concepts in Early Celtic Art?
PETER S. WELLS: Meaning in Motif and Ornament: The Face Between the Creatures in Mid-First-Millennium AD Temperate Europe.