Circulation of Hybrid Animal Images Between Mesopotamia and North Africa in the 4th millennium BC.
The recent re-issue of a book by David Wengrow on the “monsters” of Egyptian and Mesopotamian art in the fourth millennium BCE provides the perfect excuse to discuss the role of images in history and in the relationships between human societies. While his theory, based on cognitive studies, consider...
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| Formato: | Artículo revista |
| Lenguaje: | Español |
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Universidad Nacional de Rosario
2022
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| Acceso en línea: | https://claroscuro.unr.edu.ar/index.php/revista/article/view/118 |
| Aporte de: |
| Sumario: | The recent re-issue of a book by David Wengrow on the “monsters” of Egyptian and Mesopotamian art in the fourth millennium BCE provides the perfect excuse to discuss the role of images in history and in the relationships between human societies. While his theory, based on cognitive studies, considers the images of fantastic animals merely as mechanisms for translating the surrounding world, other scholars (among whom I include myself) award art and imagination an active role in the creation of said world. In this opportunity, I would like to demonstrate the importance of the latter approach for understanding the ancient history of societies with an iconographic tradition rather than a written one. To do this, I will discuss the cognitivist model for the "transmission" of this type of images, contesting the centrality that it assigns to cities, and instead favouring inter-urban spaces as the true motors of iconic exchange. Thinking images, not as emblems that transmit meanings, but as a graphic tools to influence the landscape and modify the world, allows for a better understanding of the dynamics between different political units in the past through the use of shared iconography. |
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