Originally published in 1971, Animals in Art and Thought discusses the ways in which animals have been used by man in art and literature. The book looks at how they have been used to symbolise religious, social and political beliefs, as well as their pragmatic use by hunters, sportsmen, and farmers. The book discusses these various attitudes in a survey which ranges from prehistoric cave art to the later Middle Ages. The book is especially concerned with uncovering the latent, as well as the manifest meanings of animal art, and presents a detailed examination of the literary and archaeological monuments of the periods covered in the book. The book discusses the themes of Creation myths of the pagan and Christian religion, the contribution of the animal art of the ancient contribution of the animal art of the ancient Orient to the development of the Romanesque and gothic styles in Europe, the use of beast fables in social or political satire, and the heroic associations of animals in medieval chivalry.

Over 1,000 royalty-free illustrations of animals, birds, insects and creatures both real and fanciful as depicted in dozens of design traditions from Ancient Egyptian to Early American. Chinese dragons, Indian elephants, Egyptian scarab beetles, and hundreds more, arranged by category and identified by captions. Indispensable source of ready-to-use animal art for artists, illustrators, craftspeople, more.

This volume catalogues more than six hundred bronze and iron objects in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each is illustrated and discussed in terms of its formal and stylistic aspects, cultural background, function, and chronology. Bibliographic citations present comparative material relevant to each object. - Book jacket.

Traces the development of Mesopotamian art from Sumerian times to the late Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. This text also covers the art and architecture of Asia Minor and the Hittites, of the Levant in the second millennium BC, of the Aramaeans and Phoenicians in Syria, and of Ancient Persia.

An authoritative guide to the whole of the cradle of civilization.

The late 7th and 6th centuries B.C. were a period of tremendous upheaval and change in ancient western Asia, marked by the destruction of the Assyrian Empire, the rise and collapse of the Neo-Babylonian state, and the stunning ascent of what was to become the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the largest polity the world had yet seen. Of the major cultural entities involved in these far-reaching events, Elam has long remained the least understood. The essays contained in this book are part of a continuing reassessment of the nature and significance of Elam in the early 1st millennium B.C., with a focus on the relationship between “Elamite” culture of the Neo-Elamite period and the emerging “Persian” culture in southwestern Iran in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. The conception of this volume goes back to the 2003 meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where two sessions were dedicated to the rich cultural heritage of ancient Iran. It was also the first time that Iranian archaeology was represented at ASOR since the Iranian Revolution. This volume contains 14 contributions by leading scholars in the discipline, organized into 3 sections: archaeology, texts, and images (art history). The volume is richly illustrated with more than 200 drawings and photographs.