Old World iconography from the Upper Paleolithic to the Christian era
consistently features symbolic representations of both female and male
protagonists in conflict with, accompanied by or transmuted partly or
completely into, animals. Adversarial relationships are made explicit
through hunting and sacrifice scenes, including heraldic compositions
featuring a central figure grasping beasts arrayed on either side, while
more implicit expressions are manifested in zoomorphic attributes
(horns, headdresses, skins, etc.) and composite or hybrid figures that
blend animal and human elements into a single image. While the so-called
Mistress of Animals has attracted significant scholarly attention, her
male counterpart, the Master of Animals, so far has not been accorded a
correspondingly comprehensive synthetic study. In an effort to fill 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, it 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.
