This is an illustrated volume showing the richness of the Pharaonic fauna in all forms of artistic expression: painting, sculpture, relief carving, architectural ornamentation and hieroglyphs. They range from realism in the depiction of birds and beasts, both wild and domesticated, useful and harmful, with which the people of the Nile Valley came into daily contact, to hieratic stylization in portraying the pantheon of animal-headed gods and the sacred and fabulous creatures that inhabited their devotional, funerary and magic world. The captions and descriptions that accompany the photographs place each animal depicted in its proper context in relation to man, to the environment and to the gods.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
hilippe Germond, a professor of Egyptology at the University of Geneva, has created An Egyptian Bestiary, highlighting, in 280 lavish color illustrations, the Egyptian perception of animals as representations of divine creativity, from the secular and mundane world of craftsmen to the sacred realm of priests, pharaohs and gods. The ancient Nile Valley boasted a diverse, sometimes bothersome and even dangerous array of wildlife and domesticated animals. Though the Egyptians used animals for labor and nourishment, they also viewed them as "the visible signs of primeval forces that it was necessary... to propitiate."
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Animal-headed gods, scarab beetles, mummified cats, crocodiles, and bulls are ubiquitous in Egyptian life. An amazing number of birds, monkeys, fish, and insects can be easily identified from their detailed portrayals in tomb reliefs, sculpture, or manuscripts. In addition to the animals they encountered in their daily lives, Egyptians worshiped a large, mostly animal-headed pantheon ("Who was that baboon-headed god, anyway?"). Mirroring the distinction in Egyptian life, Germond (Egyptology, Univ. of Geneva) divides the book into the secular and sacred sections. Within those sections, he groups animals by species, discussing waterfowl in one section and ibis-headed gods in another. It is Livet's photographs, though, that grab the reader. Most are life-sized, with meticulous and stunning detail. For the quality of the illustrations alone, the book is a worthy addition to most collections; Germond's text raises it to the level of a critical addition to any but the most limited of Egyptian collections. And the baboon-headed god is usually Thoth, patron of writers. Mary Morgan Smith, Northland P.L., Pittsburgh
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Animals, birds, and fish,
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This review is from: An Egyptian Bestiary (Hardcover)
This beautiful book has a large format: 13 x 10 inches, with 224 pages. Of equal importance are the essays about the various animals, fish and birds known to the ancient Egyptians, and the photographs of wall paintings, statues, reliefs, and objects of everyday use representing the life forms. Every page has at least one photograph. Many are full page, with a few being double page ones. All are in color. Each illustration is briefly described, the original site of the object or its current location (usually a museum or private collection) is given, and sometimes the scientific name of the life form represented. The illustrations are in support of the essays: Forward, Introduction, The Secular world-- Animals as human resources, Animals as companions, Animals in competition with man, Animals in writing. The Sacred World--The pantheon, Sacred animals, The funerary, magic, and mythical world, Animals and humour. The appendices are: Principal gods and their animal representations, Outline chronology, Select bibliography, Index of sites and collections, and Illustration credits. If you have a modestly large collection of books about Ancient Egypt, you may find that quite a few of the photographs are of objects familiar to you. However, the photos are very well done, and in many cases are detailed close ups of portions of the objects so that they are, in this way, new material. Other photos are of objects rarely or never before presented in books. When I first received this book, I was somewhat disappointed, as I expected a marriage of illustrations of Egyptian art together with photographs and perhaps short essays about the those animals now still extant, their life habits, and how Egyptians related to them. Now I realize how hard this would have been to carry out, and such a book must await a collaboration of Egyptologists with wildlife experts. As it is, this book presents original and interesting insights into the ancient Egyptian's world viewpoint and daily and intellectual life as revealed by their writings and the artwork they produced.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
An Egyptian Bestiary by Philippe Germond, Jacques Livet, Philippe Germont,
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This review is from: An Egyptian Bestiary (Hardcover)
arrived promptly and in excellent condition.
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