Master of Animals

The article examines the rare phenomenon of a hind crowned as a stag, a creature that only male red deer typically embody due to their antlers. In mythology and folklore, creature is fantastical, akin to the unicorn or phoenix. Only male red deer possess antlers. Hinds crowned as stags are an exceptionally rare phenomenon in nature. In mythology and folklore, this creature is seen as phantasmagoric, akin to the unicorn or the phoenix. Such a being, inherently ambivalent, was often perceived as a monstrum, violating the natural order and evoking both wonder and fear. However, when a majestically antlered hind is described as miraculously saving starving humans by breastfeeding them, it introduces the wondrous world of the divine, life-giving female deer, symbol of fertility and renewal. Emblematic of this is the mythical rescue of ancient heroes, such as the Greek Telephus, the son of Herakles, as documented in related archaeological records. In the archaic folklore of Central-Eastern Europe, the antlered female deer is sometimes compared to a girl or bride, acting as a substitute for her or embodying her most intimate nature. The parallels between a young virgin and a doe sprouting horns are deeply rooted in ancient Greek myths, particularly those involving metamorphoses orchestrated by the goddess Artemis-Diana. Noteworthy examples include Taygete and Titanis (Cos), who were transformed into golden-horned does. Additionally, in some versions of the myth, a horned hind is offered by Artemis-Diana as a substitute for the sacrifice of Princess Iphigenia. The mythological figure of the female deer with antlers is also associated with the goddess's chariot, as well as the Ceryneian Hind, a target of one of Herakles' labors. Expanding the focus to ancient Celtic and Gallo-Roman religion, we find the goddess Cernunna, a female equivalent and partner to the god Cernunnos, "The Horned One," depicted with antlers-a feature typically reserved for male deities. These ancient goddesses, either with antlers or transformed into antlered hinds, are rooted in ancestral mythological traditions where dominant women were larger-thanlife figures capable of transforming into deer, or vice versa. According to this totemic narrative, these supernatural women, initiated into the Deer-Mother cult, ruled the world and appeared as stags, covered in hair and with enormous branching antlers. The enduring figure of the Stag Goddess has been reinterpreted in neo-Pagan and Wiccan spirituality as a continuation and revision of these ancient divinities.
This article aims to explore the archaeological evidence that, in ancient times, brought to life the extraordinary creature of the crowned hind and her transformation into an antlered goddess.

A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a recepção e as transformações do motivo do  “Mestre de Animais” nas tradições narrativas ligadas à Paulo, Tecla e São Gerásimo. Para isso,  dois conjuntos de fontes são colocadas em perspectiva: os Atos de Paulo, compostos em meados do século II, a reelaboração de seus enredos na hagiografia bizantina de Tecla e na Epístola de Pelágia, e a vida de São Gerásimo, que integra o Pratum Spirituale, coleção hagiográfica escrita
por João Mosco no século VII. Um elemento comum entre esses materiais é a ocorrência de cenas em que leões ferozes apresentam comportamentos incomuns diante dos protagonistas, em formas de reconhecimento de sua autoridade e disposição para submissão. A história da pesquisa relacionou essas cenas à recepção cristã da lenda sobre a amizade de Ândrocles, escravo fugitivo, e um leão selvagem, mencionada por Sêneca e Plínio, o Velho, e registrada  integralmente em duas versões nas obras de Aulo Gélio e Claudio Eliano. Apesar de correta,  essa associação não esgota as possibilidades de interpretação e relação entre materiais de uma rede bem mais ampla de tradições populares. Portanto, parto do pressuposto de que entre essas
narrativas se ancoram no motivo do Mestre de Animais, uma forma de representação narrativa e visual na qual deuses, heróis míticos e reis são representados interagindo com animais ferozes ou domésticos, em relações de domínio e cuidado. A ocorrência do motivo nas fontes
apresentadas é analisada a partir da lógica de produção e circulação de tradições folclóricas, cujos modelos narrativos se perpetuam no longo tempo, se adaptando às circunstâncias de cada grupo que delas se valem para a construção de sua identidade e de suas estratégias e
compreensão de mundo, sobretudo, nos modos em que articulam experiência religiosa e percepções sobre o mundo natural. Como produto do folclore, o Mestre de Animais é analisado a partir do repertório cultural e literário que plasmou o imaginário religioso de grupos cristãos dos primeiros séculos, bem como suas permanências, incidentes na literatura e na cultura visual do monasticismo antigo.

This article centers on a unique bronze plaque from the late Iron Age (1st-4th century CE), possibly originating from Medvezhskaya, Komi Republic, or West Siberia. The plaque depicts five winged figures atop scrolling claw motifs, with a bar spanning the top. Art historian Boris Erenburg connects this plaque to eight significant Cherdyn plaques from the Perm region, highlighting their high status in the Permian Bronze corpus. Originally dated to the 7th-8th centuries, further research places these artifacts in the 1st-4th centuries.

The artistic style of this plaque, despite being found 500 kilometers from Cherdyn, bears remarkable resemblance to the Cherdyn plaques, featuring wing-like arms, spiral claws, and a hooked nose akin to a bird’s beak. Scholars believe these plaques depict a goddess figure rooted in ancient matriarchal traditions. Erenburg suggests a link to the Mesopotamian winged goddess Inanna (Ishtar), hinting at cosmic symbolism.

These plaques likely represent a microcosmic three-tiered cosmology—subterranean, terrestrial, and celestial realms—centered around a deity as the axis mundi. The disproportionate claws on our plaque, with their spiral forms, evoke dynamic symbolism, potentially reflecting creation myths where a supreme deity brings order from chaos.

Perm art typically portrays complex mythological compositions, but this plaque's minimalist design emphasizes a central deity in a creation scene, resonating with Finno-Ugrian cosmogonic legends. A Komi myth, featuring "Chozh the Duck" and six eggs, parallels the spiral symbolism and cosmic themes on our plaque, suggesting its depiction of a Finno-Ugrian creation moment. This artifact stands as a testament to the profound artistic and symbolic achievements of its creator.

We're in the wrong story. The title of this essay came as a revelation to me: a revelation that began with an old textbook. The textbook, Robert Foulke and Paul Smith's An Anatomy of Literature, was first published in 1972. It's been out of print for I don't know how long, but when I undertook the revision of my first year literature course, it was the book that came to mind. I had vague memories of a focus on genre, and of an indebtedness to Northrop Frye. Frye's Anatomy of Criticism, the book from which the textbook's authors owe inspiration for both title and approach, is old, now-some might even say outdated. It looks at literature through the lenses of myth, symbol, and archetype, all of which contribute to "genre" or narrative type. Its

When the Second World War ended in 1945, Germany lay in ruins. Divided East and West, under Western and Soviet occupation, their country devastated, Germans began to rebuild their lives, homes, and country while searching for a way to process their role in the war, their defeat, and its meaning for themselves as a people. One way they began to reconstruct a sense of identity was to highlight historic German cultural creations. Germans, amidst the physical and political turmoil that surrounded them under military occupation, expended extraordinary efforts to preserve and rebuild two churches nearly obliterated by Allied bombing-the Frauenkirche of Dresden in East Germany and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächniskirche of Berlin in West Germany. The struggle to preserve as much as possible the prewar appearance of these universally recognized architectural landmarks demonstrates how Germans, even in defeat, used links to past glory to help forge a new, postwar German identity.

In the third and second millennia B.C., civilizations in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Sindh, Demon, Syria, Anatolia, Elam, and Crete represented "the wrestling hero," "the hero of animals," or "the master of animals" using this motif. Mesopotamia was the birthplace of the "wrestling hero" or "master of animals" style as early as the fourth millennium B.C. Beginning in the third millennium B.C., it spread throughout the ancient near-eastern arts. On cylinder seals found in Mesopotamia, Syria, and Elam as well as on the prints of square and rectangular Sindhi seals found in Haraba and Muhenju Daru, this type was depicted. Additionally, it was depicted as the circular flat in the Arabian Gulf and ancient Near East.

When the Second World War ended in 1945, Germany lay in ruins. Divided East and West, under Western and Soviet occupation, their country devastated, Germans began to rebuild their lives, homes, and country while searching for a way to process their role in the war, their defeat, and its meaning for themselves as a people. One way they began to reconstruct a sense of identity was to highlight historic German cultural creations. Germans, amidst the physical and political turmoil that surrounded them under military occupation, expended extraordinary efforts to preserve and rebuild two churches nearly obliterated by Allied bombing-the Frauenkirche of Dresden in East Germany and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächniskirche of Berlin in West Germany. The struggle to preserve as much as possible the prewar appearance of these universally recognized architectural landmarks demonstrates how Germans, even in defeat, used links to past glory to help forge a new, postwar German identity.

This paper will investigate the phenomenon of recurring motifs of
an individual between two animals called the ‘Master of
Animals’. A motif shared by Mesopotamian, Indus, and other
cultures of a male or female deity between two animals. This
hypothesis will provide evidence that Göbekli Tepe and
surrounding sites are the origins for these types of motifs. And a
hypothesis that later cultures retained a remembrance of the
shaman that stood between the two central pillars at Göbekli
Tepe to produce the sun, fecundity, and eternal life.

The image of a figure holding two wild animals, often called the "Mistress/Master of Animals", has appeared across many ancient periods and regions, on artifacts from proto-literate Mesopotamia in the Near East to the Aegean Iron Age. This motif has a demonstrable chain of cultural custody that is closely tied to concepts of both divinity and royalty. Rather than following a linear progression of diffusion with consistent interpretation, the Master/Mistress motif is culturally translated by adopting populations to suit the understandings of the individuals within those populations. Though some concepts such as healing remained constant from culture to culture, the symbol was reinterpreted or modified based on the role it played in adopting populations' cultural schemas. This resulted in the two seemingly separate motifs of the "Master" and "Mistress". This translation demonstrates the close relationship these early cultures had to one another in spi...

The article discusses one of the variants of the image of the tendril goddess (Rankenfrau) with the mask of a satyr recorded in depictions on plates found in Chersonesos Taurica, in the funerary complex within the Kul-Oba burial-mound and also in a burial-mound near the village of Ivanovskaya (Fig. 1–3). Examination of the context for each of the finds and also their comparison allows the assumption that they were all used to decorate apparel – the head-dress of a priestess. The image of the goddess depicted on these plates can be traced back to the iconographic type  of the Potnia Theron. The combination of images of the winged goddess and a satyr mask in a single item is probably linked with the cult of Artemis Orphia.

The iconography of the Horus cippus, an amulet popular in Egypt from the late Third Intermediate Period to Roman times (8th century BCE - 2nd century CE), is unexpectedly recapitulated in bronze “goddess plaques” of the 7-8th centuries CE made by Permian peoples – Finno-Ugric groups from the Ural region of northern Eurasia. The likely explanation is that both templates are descendants of the widely-diffused “Master of Animals” motif, which originated in Mesopotamia during the Ubaid period (6-5th millennium BCE). Transfer of the Master/Mistress of Animals motif  from the Near East to the Ural region probably occurred via the Scythians of the 1st millennium BCE.

The image of a figure holding two wild animals, often called the "Mistress/Master of Animals", has appeared across many ancient periods and regions, on artifacts from proto-literate Mesopotamia in the Near East to the Aegean Iron Age. This motif has a demonstrable chain of cultural custody that is closely tied to concepts of both divinity and royalty. Rather than following a linear progression of diffusion with consistent interpretation, the Master/Mistress motif is culturally translated by adopting populations to suit the understandings of the individuals within those populations. Though some concepts such as healing remained constant from culture to culture, the symbol was reinterpreted or modified based on the role it played in adopting populations' cultural schemas. This resulted in the two seemingly separate motifs of the "Master" and "Mistress". This translation demonstrates the close relationship these early cultures had to one another in spite of their perceived distinctness.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the seduction of the wild man Enkidu by Shamhat the harlot symbolically causes his death as an unreflective animal and his rebirth as a human – an Eden-like fall into self-awareness. Created as a match for king Gilgamesh of Uruk, Enkidu goes on to become the king’s beloved friend. In European folk traditions, the Wild Man is interchangeable with the bear, and parallels can be drawn between Enkidu and the Candlemas Bear associated with Carnival. Since Enkidu symbolises our pre-human nature, one can perceive a figurative truth to the pan-European folk belief that people are descended from bears. Thematic overlaps exist between some Gilgamesh narratives and European folk-tales about a Wild Man whose father was a bear (the Bear’s Son / Jean de l’Ours motif) or about twin boys, one of whom was raised in the wild by a female bear (Valentine and Orson). Perhaps surprisingly, the roots of Santa Claus lie in the Wild Man. So too do the origins of Merlin, the wizard of medieval Arthurian romance. Merlin has elements in common with Enkidu, while King Arthur can be seen as a metaphorical “Bear’s son.” Over time, the status of the Wild Man has changed from a wholly inhuman monster to a “noble savage” who today might even be cast as a salvific eco-warrior.

Abstract: "Morgan le Fay: The Inheritance of the Goddess" will analyze Morgan le Fay's character in Arthurian narrative during the Middle Ages. Starting from a research on the Celts and their culture, this article aims to prove that Morgan le Fay's origin might be traced back to Celtic goddesses due to the characteristics she shares with the Celtic goddesses The Morrígan and Modron. However, Morgan is only mentioned for the first time, in 1150, in the work Vita Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth, where she is named Morgen. Queen of the Otherworldly island Avalon she possesses solely positive traits. Therefore, this study's goal is also to explain why Morgan le Fay was transformed into one of the greatest villains of Arthurian texts. To reach this goal, some of the main English medieval literary will be analyzed as well as other social and cultural factors.

Abstract. Recent interpretations of rock art have often focused on these images as a somewhat exclusive record of shamanic experiences. Consideration of decorated animal-human figures (Patterned Body Anthropomorphs - PBAs) within the Coso Rock Art Complex in eastern California, in conjunction with the mythology of Kawaiisu, other Numic and Tubatulabal groups, suggests an alternative (or perhaps complementary) view. Coso PBAs may be representations of an important supernatural — possibly the netherworld master of the animals. This interpretation, if valid, provides further support for Coso rock art as a manifestation of a hunting religion complex. Such a complex prominently featured animal ceremonialism and functioned in part as a means to envision a supernatural agent that had special powers controlling the movements of animals and restoring game to the human world.

Recent interpretations of rock art have often focused on these images as a somewhat exclusive record of shamanic experiences. Consideration of decorated animal-human figures (Patterned Body Anthropomorphs - PBAs) within the Coso Rock Art Complex in eastern California, in conjunction with the mythology of Kawaiisu, other Numic and Tubatulabal groups, suggests an alternative (or perhaps complementary) view. Coso PBAs may be representations of an important supernatural — possibly the netherworld master of the animals. This interpretation, if valid, provides further support for Coso rock art as a manifestation of a hunting religion complex. Such a complex prominently featured animal ceremonialism and functioned in part as a means to envision a supernatural agent that had special powers controlling the movements of animals and restoring game to the human world.

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