Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words - Hardcover

Jeremy Mynott

3.94

34 ratings by Goodreads

9780198713654: Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198713657 ISBN 13: 9780198713654

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2018

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Birds pervaded the ancient world, impressing their physical presence on the daily experience and imaginations of ordinary people and figuring prominently in literature and art. They provided a fertile source of symbols and stories in myths and folklore and were central to the ancient rituals of augury and divination.

Jeremy Mynott's Birds in the Ancient World illustrates the many different roles birds played in culture: as indicators of time, weather and the seasons; as a resource for hunting, eating, medicine and farming; as domestic pets and entertainments; and as omens and intermediaries between the gods and humankind.

We learn how birds were perceived - through quotations from well over a hundred classical Greek and Roman authors, all of them translated freshly into English, through nearly 100 illustrations from ancient wall-paintings, pottery and mosaics, and through selections from early scientific writings, and many anecdotes and descriptions from works of history, geography and travel.

Jeremy Mynott acts as a stimulating guide to this rich and fascinating material, using birds as a prism through which to explore both the similarities and the often surprising differences between ancient conceptions of the natural world and our own. His book is an original contribution to the flourishing interest in the cultural history of birds and to our understanding of the ancient cultures in which birds played such a prominent part.

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Review:

With a glorious array of references, vivid images, and his own astute philosophical commentary, Mynott deftly brings all this into sharp focus: are all these ancient associations, uses and abuses really so different from the way we see birds? (Philip Hoare, New Statesman)

Mynott organises his elegant and thought-provoking book by theme and deploys a comprehensive range of quotes from throughout the classical period... His approach is nuanced and open-minded, and he writes with a light, often wry touch... The book is full of delightful titbits. (Philip Womak, The Literary Review) --Philip Womak, The Literary Review

It is... thought-provoking, highly readable and exhaustive. Mynott has made an enormous effort to trawl the whole of the classics for bird references. The materials unearthed are far greater than anything previously considered and an appendix supplying potted biographies of the Greek and Roman authors discussed in the book includes more than 100 names... Perhaps the pre-eminent achievement of the book is not its fastidious examination of classical birds, but the way it pans backwards from the avian minutiae to give us a much broader vision of the two great civilisations. (Mark Cocker, Spectator) --Mark Cocker, Spectator

A book the world has been waiting for, rich, scrupulously organised, imaginative, beautifully written, and driven by a double passion. On the one hand, for birds and human interactions with them. On the other, for the ancient world, especially those Greeks who 'invented the concept of nature' and the scholarship which brings their thoughts and observations alive. (Ruth Padel, author of Darwin A Life in Poems, The Mara Crossing, and In and Out of the Mind.) --Ruth Padel, author of Darwin A Life in Poems, The Mara Crossing

Book Description:

Shortlisted for the 2019 Wolfson History Prize

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