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Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws
- Author
- Adrienne Mayor
- Narrator
- Nancy Crane, Adrienne Mayor
- Publisher
- Princeton University Press
- Publish Date
- 26 July 2022
- Run Time
- 11 hours 2 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Adrienne Mayor and Nancy Crane narrate this treasury of astonishing mythic marvels
Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights—glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth—embedded in myth, legends, and folklore. Combing through ancient texts and obscure sources, she has spent decades prospecting for intriguing wonders and marvels, historical mysteries, diverting anecdotes, and hidden gems from antiquity, medieval, and modern times.
Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a treasury of fifty of her most amazing and amusing discoveries.
The book explores such subjects as how mirages inspired legends of cities in the sky; the true identity of winged serpents in ancient Egypt; how ghost ships led to the discovery of the Gulf Stream; and the beauty secrets of ancient Amazons. Other pieces examine Arthur Conan Doyle's sea serpent and Geronimo's dragon; Flaubert's obsession with ancient Carthage; ancient tattooing practices; and the strange relationship between wine goblets and women's breasts since the times of Helen of Troy and Marie Antoinette. And there's much, much more.
Showcasing Mayor's trademark passion not to demythologize myths, but to uncover the fascinating truths buried beneath them,
Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a wonder cabinet of delightful curiosities.
Critics Review
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"Covering much more than just myths and monsters, this book also contains information about ancient science and mirages, and everything from tourism to tattoos. . . . This book has a little something for everyone."—Library Journal
Library Journal
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"Mayor's cabinet of curiosities conveys admirably her sense of the wonder, complexity, and engrossing strangeness of the ancient Greco-Roman world, as well as the richness and diversity of the many ages that followed."—James Romm, Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal
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"This is an eminently informative book, for readers of all ages. . . . Mayor is able to give a sense of wonder to her inquiries and, without losing rigor, she brings it back to the academic world. In this sense, the book more than fulfils its objectives: we have found pleasure in reading it."—Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Bryn Mawr Classical Review
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Details
- Author
- Adrienne Mayor
- Narrator
- Nancy Crane, Adrienne Mayor
- Duration
- 11 hours 2 minutes
- Release Date
- 26 July 2022
- ISBN
- 9780691240299
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Princeton University Press
- Genre
- Ancient history, Folklore studies / Study of myth
Synopsis
Adrienne Mayor and Nancy Crane narrate this treasury of astonishing mythic marvels Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights—glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth—embedded in myth, legends, and folklore. Combing through ancient texts and obscure sources, she has spent decades prospecting for intriguing wonders and marvels, historical mysteries, diverting anecdotes, and hidden gems from antiquity, medieval, and modern times. Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a treasury of fifty of her most amazing and amusing discoveries. The book explores such subjects as how mirages inspired legends of cities in the sky; the true identity of winged serpents in ancient Egypt; how ghost ships led to the discovery of the Gulf Stream; and the beauty secrets of ancient Amazons. Other pieces examine Arthur Conan Doyle's sea serpent and Geronimo's dragon; Flaubert's obsession with ancient Carthage; ancient tattooing practices; and the strange relationship between wine goblets and women's breasts since the times of Helen of Troy and Marie Antoinette. And there's much, much more. Showcasing Mayor's trademark passion not to demythologize myths, but to uncover the fascinating truths buried beneath them, Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a wonder cabinet of delightful curiosities.
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