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We could talk about my very favorite ceramics makers…but their nation is still prominent in the world (indeed they are the world’s most populous nation), so we will talk about Chinese porcelain some other day. For now, let’s instead concentrate on my second favorite ceramics artists—the astonishing and mysterious Moche people of Peru. Ferrebeekeeper has tried to explain the nature of Moche culture (as archaeologists currently understand it to have been) and we have also tried to put up some galleries of their exquisite waterfowl and their amazing bats (which I think are the best bat artworks extant).
For tonight though I am going to present a gallery of Moche ceramic vessels in the shape of animals without any comment. This is partly because I want you to experience the exquisite form of the ancient clay without any distractions and…it is partly because I got started working on Christmas projects and didn’t get around to writing this post until the middle of the night. I think you will agree as you look at this collection of vessels, that the Moche were astonishing at conveying animals in a way which was streamlined and simple yet also brings out the beauty and the personality of the creatures. These are not Walt Disney-esque cartoon animals of unnatural sweetness and broad comedy…and yet they are also animals which have distinctive emotional resonance and convey the distinctive character, intelligence, and temperament of these South American animals. It is a hard balance to get right, and yet I feel that the unknown potters and sculptors of long ago have done a superb job at bringing out what was real and what was magical in these creatures. I am not explaining this the way I wish, but just try sculpting some animals and you will soon see what I mean.
Happy year of the Earth Dog! Today marks the beginning of Lunar Year 4715 in the Chinese calendar. Where did the time go? We have finally worked our way past all of the fire roosters and metal horses to the familiar dog—an exceedingly great animal! According to augury, the coming year will be a very good year, particularly vis a vis financial matters…however, the year will also be enervating and could feature health problems related to stress, exhaustion, and strife (it looks like the augurs have at least been reading the frontpage headlines).
The same Earth element which provides the success of the Earth Dog year will also mean there will be stretches of extreme dullness. Once again it seems like the oracles can see right into my actual life! Who writes this stuff? Finally, the site I looked at says “postponing and procrastinating are words you will need to remove from your vocabulary during this year.” Sadly, my vocabulary is very extensive and I am not about to forget THOSE words. However even for tempestuous & disorganized tigers, the dog year will be a year when projects come to fruition. The dog year is the eleventh year in the 12 year cycle so it is the beginning of a cycle of rebirth. We can look forward to that as well…and to some dumplings and fireworks!
Thanks to my exigent schedule, I can’t really have a dog in New York, but I love them. Dogs are the first domesticated animal by tens of thousands of years (or maybe much more). In their wild form, dogs are known as “wolves” and they are one of the apex predators of the Holocene. Wolves and humans are one of the all-time great pairings like Laurel and Hardy, peanut butter and jelly, or water and sodium—two super aggressive hierarchical social predators who just innately get each other (wait, what was Laurel and Hardy about again?). I have been meaning to write about dogs since they are dear to me (and since the converging stories of our two species explains things about living beings). I will do so next week to celebrate the Year of the Dog. For now though “Gǒu nián dà jí” – Lots of luck for this year of the dog!
Way back in October of 2010, Ferrebeekeeper featured a powerful series of posts about the children of Echidna, the ancient Greek “mother of monsters” who birthed so many of the scariest beasts of classical mythology. Among the hellish siblings born to her, there were all sorts of heterogeneous creatures—a lion, a dragon, a sow, a hydra, a sphinx, a giant eagle, and a mish-mash chimera (family dinners must have been extremely colorful)—but pride of place goes always to Cerberus, the three headed hell hound who guards the entrance to the underworld. Cerberus has fascinated artists, poets, and everyone else for thousands of years, and he still continues to do so. Despite the fact that the internet is filled with pictures, essays, and posts about the great monster dog of the underworld, he still garners attention. People really love the horrifying three-headed monster which forever prevented damned spirits from escaping the miserable realm of death: that is why the hellbeast Cerberus is the number 6 all-time most popular post on Ferrebeekeeper!
The original post mentioned the main Greco-Roman myths which featured Cerberus and then showed a gallery of paintings, drawings, prints, and digital images of the big dog. In order to celebrate, here are yet more artworks of Cerberus.
The Story of Orpheus: Cerberus (Edward Burne-Jones, 1875)
Cerberus (Martin Bouche? late eighteenth century, line engraving)
12th Labor of Hercules-Cerberus (Pierre Salsiccia, 2013, pencil drawing)
Hercules and Cerberus (Hans Sebald Beham, 1545, engraving)
Juno Defies Cerberus and Enters Hades (Johann Wilhelm Baur
German, c. 1639, etching)
Hercules and Cerberus (Antonio Tempesta, 1608, Print)
Wow, there is a reason the great three-headed dog remains popular even as Ixon, the Hekatonkheires, and Nix are all forgotten! Cerberus is an amazing subject for visual art (as well as being a dog, and all good-hearted people love dogs–even feisty problem pooches).
The mighty Tibetan mastiff!
High on the Tibetan plateau life is hard. Roving bands of marauders have been lurking in the mountains and skree for millennia. Wolves, snow leopards, eagles, and high-altitude jumping spiders are always leaping out from behind glaciers to gobble up unwary travelers and/or their domestic animals. In this adversarial alpine world of unending peril, the herdsmen, weak-boned monks, and goodhearted family folk have only one consta\
Picture of Cangni–a Tibetan Mastiff (Giuseppe Castiglione, Ching Dynasty, ink and watercolor on silk)
The Tibetan mastiff is a huge furry guard dog noted for great power and constant vigilance (although it is not really a mastiff but a large spitz-type dog that reminded European explorers of mastiffs back home). The dogs weigh between 45–68 kg (100-160 pounds) although “mastiffs” at the upper extremes of these sizes are from Chinese and Western kennels. The historical Tibetan mastiff was somewhat smaller so that its nomadic owners could keep it fed. Unlike many large dogs, Tibetan mastiffs have comparatively lon lives of up to 14 years. The breed is considered a “primitive breed” which means it has fewer genetic differences from wolves then most modern dogs and its ancestors were presumably thus among the first domestic dog breeds (although geneticists dispute when and how the Tibetan mastiff came into being). To survive in the inclement Himalayan weather mastiffs have double coats of coarse weatherproof outer hair which protect down-like inner hair. These magnificent heavy coats come in many colors, including black, black and tan, gold, orange, red, and bluish-gray. Additionally many of the dogs have white markings on their coats.
Tibetan Mastiff with Owner
Tibetan mastiffs are meant to be fearless guardians of flocks, camps, villages, and monasteries. Although they have the size and strength to fight wolves, leopards, and varlets, they mostly just bark, growl, and mark their territory in traditional canine fashion to ward off interlopers. The big furry guards are famous for lazily sleeping all day so that they can be awake and alert at night when danger is on the prowl. The dog came briefly into popularity in England in the early nineteenth century when George IV owned a pair. Today they are back in popularity—but this time in booming China, where they are the status symbol du jour for the nouveau riche. Of course buyers need to be alert in the wild wild east where there are frequently shenanigans afoot. Rich Chinese will pay millions (or tens of millions) of yuan for show quality Tibetan mastiffs. When they get home and wash their new furry friends, the dye in the dog hair washes out to reve3al sub-optimum colors! Even worse, the Tibetan mastiffs are sometimes revealed to have hair extensions so they look more like lions! Oh, the duplicity!
What the…? Are Tibetan mastiffs masters of disguise?
The first animal to be domesticated was the wolf (modern humans call domesticated wolves “dogs”). This happened thousands (or tens of thousands) of years before any other plants or animals were domesticated. In fact some social scientists have speculated that the dogs actually domesticated humans. Whatever the case, our dual partnership changed both species immensely. It was the first and most important of many changes which swept humanity away from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and into the agricultural world.
A Han Dynasty Terracotta Statue of a Dog
Today’s post isn’t really about the actual prehistory behind the agricultural revolution though. Instead we are looking at an ancient Chinese myth about how humans changed from hunters into farmers. Appropriately, even in the myth it was dogs who brought about the change. There are two versions of the story. In the version told by the Miao people of southern China, the dog once had nine tails. Seeing the famine which regularly afflicted people (because of seasonal hunting fluctuations) a loyal dog ran into heaven to solve the problem. The celestial guardians shot off eight of the dog’s tails, but the brave mutt managed to roll in the granaries of heaven and return with precious rice and wheat seeds caught in his fur. Ever since, in memory of their heroism, dogs have one bushy tail (like a ripe head of wheat) and they are fed first when people are done eating.
A second version of the tale is less heroic, but also revolves around actual canine behavior. In the golden age, after Nüwa created humans, grain was so plentiful that people wasted it shamefully and squandered the bounty of the Earth. In anger, the Jade Emperor came down to Earth to repossess all grains and crops. After the chief heavenly god had gathered all of the world’s cereals, the dog ran up to him and clung piteously to his leg whining and begging. The creature’s crying moved the god to leave a few grains of each plant stuck to the animal’s fur. These grains became the basis of all subsequent agriculture.
Han Terracotta in the form of a dog
Even in folklore, we owe our agrarian civilization to the dogs, our first and best friends.
A few weeks ago, during Holi, I dedicated a week to blogging about color. The subject was so vivid and enjoyable that ferrebeekeeper is now adding a color category.
I’ll begin today’s color post with a myth about Hercules (or Heracles), the quintessential Greek hero, whose name appeared again and again when discussing the monsters born of Echidna. But how is it that the warrior and strongman belongs in a discussion concerning color? A myth attributes the founding of one of the classical world’s largest chemical industries to Hercules—or at least to his dog. According to Julius Pollux, Hercules was walking on the shore near the Phoenician city Tyre and paying court to a comely nymph. While he was thus distracted, his dog ran out and started consuming a rotten murex which was lying on the beach (a tale which will sound familiar to any dog owner). The mutt’s ghastly repast caused his muzzle to be stained a beautiful crimson purple, and the nymph promptly demanded a robe of the same color as a lover’s present from Hercules.
La Découverte de la Pourpre (Peter Paul Ruben, ca. 1636, oil sketch)
Rubens painted a sketch of this vivid scene on wood but, unfamiliar with marine biology, he drew some sort of gastropod other than a murex. The gist of the scene however is comprehensible and correct. Tyrean purple, the most expensive and sought after dye of classical antiquity was a mucous secretion from the hypobranchial gland of one of several predatory gastropods from the Murex family. Haustellum brandaris, Hexaplex trunculus, and Stramonita haemastoma seem to be the murexes which were most used for this purpose in the Mediterranean dye industry but many other murexes around the world produce the purple discharge when perturbed. Archaeological evidence suggests that the dye was being harvested from shellfish as early as 1600 BC on Crete as a luxury for the Minoan world.
The mucous secretion of a murex: the snail s use the discharge for hunting and to protect their eggs from microbes
Since more than ten thousand murexes were needed to dye a single garment, the color remained one of the ultimate luxuries of the classical world for millennia to come. Tyrian purple was the color of aristocracy and the super elite. To produce the richest tyrian purple dye, manufacturers captured and crushed innumerable murexes, the remains of which were left to rot. The precious purple mucous oozed out of the corpses and was collected by unfortunate workers until enough was produced to dye a garment. Since this process was malodorous (at best), whole sections of coast were given over to the industry.
Only a handful of individuals could afford the immense costs for this material and sumptuary laws were passed proscribing the extent of to which it could be used. In later eras it was reserved for the exclusive use of emperors and senators. By Byzantine times, purple had become synonymous with imperial privilege. Emperors were born in porphyry rooms and swathed for life in crimson-purple robes.
Mosaic of Emperor Justinian the Great
The actual color is not what we would now consider purple, but rather a glorious rich burgundy with purple undertones. The industry was destroyed when French aristocrats of the misbegotten fourth crusade invaded and conquered Constantinople at the beginning of the 13th century. The brilliant scarlet/purple hue was still in demand for the regalia of European kings and queens (a recreation of the characteristic hue should be familiar to readers as the velvet used in many crowns). But these scarlet and purple dyes lacked the glorious richness and the famous colorfastness of tyrian purple. During the middle ages, after the fall of Constantinople, royal crimson was obtained from insects and lichen. It was not until the great chemical revolution of the 19th century that purple clothing became available to everyone.
Tyrian Purple
Dante and Virgil encounter Cerberus" by Christopher ´Topher´ Allen Shepard
Pride of place among the monsters born of Echidna has to go to Cerberus, the great three headed dog that guards the underworld. As a dutiful pet to Hades, ruler of the dead, Cerberus works hard to keep living beings out of the underworld and prevent deceased souls from returning to the world of life. Getting past Cerberus on the way into and out of the underworld was therefore a chief problem for the heroes who visited the land of the dead. Orpheus charmed his way past the dog with music. Aeneas pragmatically fed the creature drugged honey cakes. Psyche used sweet words and dog biscuits.
Hercules of course used brute strength. In fact the demigod was in the underworld specifically to borrow Cerberus as a twelfth and final bravura labor. Capturing the hellbeast of course required bravery and raw force, but Hercules had become rather savvier by the time of his last labor, and he did some other things right. Before going to the underworld he mastered the Eleusinian Mysteries so that, in case he never returned from the realm of the dead, he could at least enjoy a pleasant afterlife (the cult’s principal benefit). Once he had entered the underworld through the winding subterranean cave Taenarum in Laconia, Hercules sough out Hades and asked permission to borrow his dog. Hades granted it provided Hercules subdue the beast without using any weapons. When Hercules wrestled Cerberus to submission, he took the creature back to Eurystheus who was so frightened he hid in a jar (which is how he is always portrayed) and freed Hercules from any further obligations. Cleansed of his past sins, Hercules was free to pursue his own life.
Herakles, Cerberus and Eurystheus (from a black-figured Caeretan hydria vessal of Etruscan make, ca 525 BC)
Dante also described Cerberus. The Italian poet’s version of the monster seems to be having doggy fun. Virgil and Dante witness him tearing apart spirits and they feed him some dirt to play with in the following passage from Inferno:
In the third circle am I of the rain
Eternal, maledict, and cold, and heavy;
Its law and quality are never new.
Huge hail, and water sombre-hued, and snow,
Athwart the tenebrous air pour down amain;
Noisome the earth is, that receiveth this.
Cerberus, monster cruel and uncouth,
With his three gullets like a dog is barking
Over the people that are there submerged.
Red eyes he has, and unctuous beard and black,
And belly large, and armed with claws his hands;
He rends the spirits, flays, and quarters them.
Howl the rain maketh them like unto dogs;
One side they make a shelter for the other;
Oft turn themselves the wretched reprobates.
When Cerberus perceived us, the great worm!
His mouths he opened, and displayed his tusks;
Not a limb had he that was motionless.
And my Conductor, with his spans extended,
Took of the earth, and with his fists well filled,
He threw it into those rapacious gullets.
Such as that dog is, who by barking craves,
And quiet grows soon as his food he gnaws,
For to devour it he but thinks and struggles,
The like became those muzzles filth-begrimed
Of Cerberus the demon, who so thunders
Over the souls that they would fain be deaf.
It is good that there is a family member of Echidna that did not suffer extinction at the hands of some hero. It is pleasant to imagine the three-headed dog enjoying a vigorous and rousing eternity with his master in the halls of hell.
Here is gallery of some images both ancient and modern, high art and low art, of the great monster. Also I would like to give a hearty thanks to all of the creative people whose work is available on the internet. You all are truly the best.
Cerberus (by Allison Smith)Cerberus (by Evolvana)
Sorcier (David Teniers)
(by R'john-aka-THE LOCKER)
Cerberus (an amazing pencil drawing by Todd Lockwood, 1994)
I wrote yesterday that this would end my series on Echidna’s monstrous offspring–but it occurs to me I forgot the Colchian Dragon. So tune in tomorrow for a special bonus monster!
ferrebeekeeper 