TY  - BOOK
AU  - Wengrow,David
TI  - The Origins of Monsters: Image and Cognition in the First Age of Mechanical Reproduction 
T2  - The Rostovtzeff Lectures
SN  - 9780691159041
AV  - N72.S6 
U1  - 701.03 23
PY  - 2013///]
CY  - Princeton, NJ : 
PB  - Princeton University Press, 
KW  - Animals, Mythical, in art
KW  - Archaeology and art
KW  - Art and society
KW  - History
KW  - Art, Ancient
KW  - Art, Prehistoric
KW  - Cognition and culture
KW  - Imagery (Psychology)
KW  - Monsters in art
KW  - SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology
KW  - bisacsh
KW  - Bronze Age civilization
KW  - Bronze Age
KW  - China
KW  - Iron Age
KW  - Mikhail Rostovtzeff
KW  - Old World
KW  - Paleolithic art
KW  - Rudolph Wittkower
KW  - Scandinavia
KW  - Tiryns
KW  - ancient world
KW  - animal figures
KW  - animals
KW  - art
KW  - cognition
KW  - composite animals
KW  - composite figures
KW  - composites
KW  - counterfactual images
KW  - counterintuitive images
KW  - counterintuitiveness
KW  - cultural ecology
KW  - cultural transmission
KW  - culture
KW  - dynastic Egypt
KW  - elite culture
KW  - epidemiology of culture
KW  - evolutionary psychology
KW  - governance
KW  - hunter-gatherers
KW  - image transfer
KW  - image-making
KW  - image
KW  - imagery
KW  - imaginary animals
KW  - integrative mode
KW  - intuitive knowledge
KW  - mechanical arts
KW  - mechanical reproduction
KW  - metal hoards
KW  - monsters
KW  - nomadic art
KW  - pictorial art
KW  - predynastic Egypt
KW  - protective mode
KW  - ritual
KW  - state formation
KW  - transformative mode
KW  - urban civilization
KW  - urban life
KW  - visual arts
KW  - visual culture
KW  - visual imagination
KW  - visual production
N1  - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Illustrations --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction --; 1. Image and Economy in the Ancient World: The Bronze Age of Mikhail Rostovtzeff --; 2. Materials for an Epidemiology of Culture --; 3. The Hidden Shaman: Fictive Anatomy in Paleolithic and Neolithic Art --; 4. Urban Creations: The Cultural Ecology of Composite Animals --; 5. Counterintuitive Images and the Mechanical Arts --; 6. Modes of Image Transfer: Transformative, Integrative, Protective --; Conclusion. Persistent, but Not Primordial: Emergent Properties of Cognition --; Notes --; References --; Index; restricted access; Issued also in print
N2  - 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
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400848867?locatt=mode:legacy
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781400848867
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/cover/covers/9781400848867.jpg
ER  -