The origins of monsters
Subtitle: image and cognition in the first age of mechanical reproduction
By: David Wengrow
Contributors: New York University. Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
Series: The Rostovtzeff lectures
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 162
ISBN-13: 9780691159041
Subjects: Prehistoric Art; Cognition and culture; Archaeology and art; Ancient Art; Monsters in art; Animals, Mythical, in art
Description: "It has often been claimed that "monsters"--supernatural creatures with bodies composed from multiple species--play a significant part in the thought and imagery of all people from all times. The Origins of Monsters advances an alternative view. Composite figurations are intriguingly rare and isolated in the art of the prehistoric era. Instead it was with the rise of cities, elites, and cosmopolitan trade networks that "monsters" became widespread features of visual production in the ancient world. Showing how these fantastic images originated and how they were transmitted, David Wengrow identifies patterns in the records of human image-making and embarks on a search for connections between mind and culture.Wengrow asks: Can cognitive science explain the potency of such images? Does evolutionary psychology hold a key to understanding the transmission of symbols? How is our making and perception of images influenced by institutions and technologies? Wengrow considers the work of art in the first age of mechanical reproduction, which he locates in the Middle East, where urban life began. Comparing the development and spread of fantastic imagery across a range of prehistoric and ancient societies, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and China, he explores how the visual imagination has been shaped by a complex mixture of historical and universal factors.Examining the reasons behind the dissemination of monstrous imagery in ancient states and empires, The Origins of Monsters sheds light on the relationship between culture and cognition"--
Notes: Available in 2013.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 113-160) and index.
Table of contents: title: Image and economy in the ancient world : the Bronze Age of Mikhail Rostovtzeff; title: Materials for an epidemiology of culture; title: The hidden shaman : fictive anatomy in Paleolithic and Neolithic art; title: Urban creations : the cultural ecology of composite animals; title: Counterintuitive images and the mechanical arts; title: Modes of image transfer : transformative, integrative, protective; title: Conclusion : Persistent, but not primordial : emergent properties of cognition.