Ostriches may not be able to fly, but they loom large in the bird kingdom. They are the world’s tallest and heaviest living birds, and they lay the largest eggs. With their long legs, ostriches are also fleet of foot, running up to 43 miles per hour, and formidable fighters—an ostrich kick can kill. But since the beginning of history, these extraordinary and outlandish birds have also been exploited by humans for their eggs, meat, skin, and feathers. In Ostrich, Edgar Williams provides a singular, comprehensive insight into the natural history, behavior, and habitat of this monumental bird. Williams describes how the demand for ostrich feathers was so great during the Victorian era that vast fortunes were made from ostrich farming, particularly in South Africa and the United States. After fashions changed following World War I, farmers lost their fortunes, but the now domesticated ostrich found a new purpose—today, ostrich farmers produce plumes and leather for luxury markets, as well as meat for grocery stores. In addition to telling its, Williams reveals how the ostrich has been featured in culture, from its representations in cave paintings, medieval manuscripts, and the Bayeux tapestry to its use in advertising and cartoons. Featuring many striking illustrations, Ostrich will interest nature lovers, artists, and fashionistas alike.

The book describes current research into all aspects of craftwork in ancient Egypt.

Raphael’s Ostrich begins with a little-studied aspect of Raphael’s painting—the ostrich, which appears as an attribute of Justice, painted in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican. Una Roman D’Elia traces the cultural and artistic history of the ostrich from its appearances in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to the menageries and grotesque ornaments of sixteenth-century Italy. Following the complex history of shifting interpretations given to the ostrich in scientific, literary, religious, poetic, and satirical texts and images, D’Elia demonstrates the rich variety of ways in which people made sense of this living “monster,” which was depicted as the embodiment of heresy, stupidity, perseverance, justice, fortune, gluttony, and other virtues and vices. Because Raphael was revered as a god of art, artists imitated and competed with his ostrich, while religious and cultural critics complained about the potential for misinterpreting such obscure imagery. This book not only considers the history of the ostrich but also explores how Raphael’s painting forced viewers to question how meaning is attributed to the natural world, a debate of central importance in early modern Europe at a time when the disciplines of modern art history and natural history were developing. The strangeness of Raphael’s ostrich, situated at the crossroads of art, religion, myth, and natural history, both reveals lesser-known sides of Raphael’s painting and illuminates major cultural shifts in attitudes toward nature and images in the Renaissance. More than simply an examination of a single artist or a single subject, Raphael’s Ostrich offers an accessible, erudite, and charming alternative to Vasari’s pervasive model of the history of sixteenth-century Italian art.

As the study of cooperative breeding systems expands, a number of key species form the examples that underpin our general understanding. The ostrich is increasingly becoming such a textbook species, on the basis of the results obtained in Brian Bertram's study of vigilance and egg discrimination in this extraordinary bird. Here Bertram presents new data on the ostrich communal nesting system, in which several females lay in one female's nest, with only one female and the male doing all the work. The Ostrich Communal Nesting System unravels the basis of the cooperation observed, and explains how a system involving apparent altruism is maintained by natural selection. It is now possible as never before to explain and quantify the effects of the different choices these birds make and to integrate ecological and morphological factors such as predation and size. Based on three seasons of study in Tsavo West National Park in Kenya, this book depended on recognizing individual birds, detecting and monitoring well-concealed nests, determining motherhood of eggs from their surface appearance, and time-lapse photography of nests. Key findings were that females could switch rapidly between reproductive strategies, that a nesting female could recognize her own eggs and when necessary discriminate against those of other females, and that the whiteness of ostrich eggs is an adaptation that protects them against overheating but at the cost of greater vulnerability to predation. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book presents the final report of the excavations at Yotvata, the largest oasis in the Arabah Valley, conducted by the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University in 1974–1980 under the direction of Dr. Zeʾev Meshel. The report covers two central sites: a fortified Iron I site and an Early Islamic settlement. The Iron I remains consist of an irregular casemate wall surrounding a courtyard. The location of this site suggests that the settlement was established in order to protect the water sources and to overlook and supervise the nearby crossroads. Based on the relative proximity of the site to Timna, it may be concluded that the oasis formed the main source of water and wood for the population involved in copper production in that region. The rich finds uncovered at the Early Islamic settlement—including a large courtyard building and a nearby bathhouse, among other structures—point to habitation from the end of the seventh to the early ninth century CE. The proximity of the settlement to a sophisticated irrigation system (qanat) and the administrative/economic ostraca discovered at the site suggest that it served as the center of an agricultural estate owned by an elite Muslim family. Among the unique finds is a large assemblage of locally produced, handmade pottery, which is thoroughly studied here. The findings from the excavations at the Yotvata oasis have made a major contribution to the study of Early Islamic settlement and material culture in the greater Arabah region and beyond.

Much of the archaeology of Late Antique period remains in Jordan has concentrated on public buildings: churches, mosques, theatres, baths, and their major architectural features, such as mosaic floors. In this fourth report of the excavations at Tall Jawa in central Jordan, a single house with a rich repertoire of pottery, mould-made lamps, glass, and a small coin hoard, appears to span the transition period from the Late Byzantine to the Early Islamic period. Details of the construction of the building itself and of its mosaic pavements, the technology of its ceramic corpus, analysis of its inscribed lamps, painted plaster, objects and a small coin hoard all contribute to an understanding of village life for people during a period of linguistic, religious, and political transition. "The publication of Excavations at Tall Jawa, Jordan, Volume 4: The Early Islamic House is an important contribution that adds not only to the growing body of evidence for central Transjordan, but also to our understanding of non-urban Islamic archaeology and the seventh- to eighth-century transition." - Asa Eger, University of North Carolina at Greensboro