Minoan Zoomorphic Culture

Since the earliest era of archaeological discovery on Crete, vivid renderings of animals have been celebrated as defining elements of Minoan culture. Animals were crafted in a rich range of substances and media in the broad Minoan world, from tiny seal-stones to life-size frescoes. In this study, Emily Anderson fundamentally rethinks the status of these zoomorphic objects. Setting aside their traditional classification as 'representations' or signs, she recognizes them as distinctively real embodiments of animals in the world. These fabricated animals-engaged with in quiet tombs, bustling harbors, and monumental palatial halls-contributed in unique ways to Bronze Age Aegean sociocultural life and affected the status of animals within people's lived experience. Some gave new substance and contour to familiar biological species, while many exotic and fantastical beasts gained physical reality only in these fabricated embodiments. As real presences, the creatures that the Minoans crafted artfully toyed with expectation and realized new dimensions within and between animalian identities.

• Provides a highly original approach to a type of material culture (zoomorphic/animal-form objects and imagery) that will be of interest to people working in a variety of areas of art and visual/material culture studies
• Offers accessible, in-depth readings of objects that are often treated only as part of broader discussions more generic descriptions of object types
• Makes highly substantive connections between the cultural traditions of the Bronze Age Aegean, Near East and Egypt