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When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth
Elizabeth Wayland Barber
€ 43.99
€ 31.19
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Description for When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth
Paperback. Why were Prometheus and Loki envisioned as chained to rocks? What was the Golden Calf? Why are mirrors believed to carry bad luck? This book shows that myths originally transmitted real information about real events and observations, preserving the information sometimes for millennia within nonliterate societies. Num Pages: 312 pages, 18 line illus. 27 halftones. BIC Classification: JFHF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade); (P) Professional & Vocational; (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 234 x 156 x 18. Weight in Grams: 466.
Why were Prometheus and Loki envisioned as chained to rocks? What was the Golden Calf? Why are mirrors believed to carry bad luck? How could anyone think that mortals like Perseus, Beowulf, and St. George actually fought dragons, since dragons don't exist? Strange though they sound, however, these "myths" did not begin as fiction. This absorbing book shows that myths originally transmitted real information about real events and observations, preserving the information sometimes for millennia within nonliterate societies. Geologists' interpretations of how a volcanic cataclysm long ago created Oregon's Crater Lake, for example, is echoed point for point in the ... Read more
Why were Prometheus and Loki envisioned as chained to rocks? What was the Golden Calf? Why are mirrors believed to carry bad luck? How could anyone think that mortals like Perseus, Beowulf, and St. George actually fought dragons, since dragons don't exist? Strange though they sound, however, these "myths" did not begin as fiction. This absorbing book shows that myths originally transmitted real information about real events and observations, preserving the information sometimes for millennia within nonliterate societies. Geologists' interpretations of how a volcanic cataclysm long ago created Oregon's Crater Lake, for example, is echoed point for point in the ... Read more
Product Details
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2006
Publisher
Princeton University Press United States
Number of pages
312
Condition
New
Number of Pages
312
Place of Publication
New Jersey, United States
ISBN
9780691127743
SKU
V9780691127743
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Professor of Linguistics and Archaeology at Occidental College, is the author of "The Mummies of Urumchi" (W. W. Norton), "Women's Work" (W. W. Norton), and "Prehistoric Textiles" (Princeton). Paul T. Barber, a research associate with the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the author of "Vampires, Burial, and Death" (Yale). ... Read more
Reviews for When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth
"The authors provide not only a compelling and highly readable collection of mythic interpretations but also a framework through which to decode those stories and uncover seismic, geological, astrological, or other natural events that preceded written history... When They Severed Earth from Sky provides an intellectually challenging and parsimonious new framework. It not only sheds light on the planet's natural ... Read more