![river monster river monster](https://i0.wp.com/thesmartlocal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/images_easyblog_images_1850_1.jpg)
While there are historians and scientists who can tell us about historical context, or carbon-date an ancient relic, many of the items housed in the museum are religious, artistic or personal items, so they are, by their very nature, subjective. I thought about this for a while and decided that, yes, it was valid. “As I’m not an expert in River Monsters, so is my interpretation valid?” The next question this raised for me was:
![river monster river monster](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f9/95/ef/f995ef7333e76d3c361c600dbbbeb3d9--gone-fishing-fishing-lures.jpg)
Why do artisans sometimes want their work to look older than it really is? Personal Responses
![river monster river monster](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/rivermonsters/images/1/15/S01E01.jpg)
‘Neo-Classicism’ is a term for art and design which deliberately mimics the Classical period. But many artists from the Renaissance period and later have been inspired by antiquity, and deliberately created pieces which look like they could have come from Classical times. The face looked very ancient, like a Greek or Roman statue, something from Classical times. It might have been mass produced in a workshop? Or was it a one-off commission by a wealthy patron? Who made it, did they know anything about the river god, or was it just a decorative item, the fashion of the time?Īt first glance, without knowing its date of origin, it is difficult to guess the age of the object. The piece is bronze, so it may have been cast from a wax or clay original. Is it right to call something a ‘monster’ just because that’s what it was traditionally referred to? How was it made? Often, the Human-Animal hybrids were the earliest incarnations of the gods and were an important part of people’s culture. The label of ‘monster’ may date from colonial times, when missionaries tended to label any local gods as ‘demons’ or ‘monsters’ especially if they were not entirely human. Although the artefact looks Italian in style, it may have been based on a Middle Eastern god the artist had seen or read about? The question of language: And Atargatis who was a Syrian goddess with a human head and a fish’s body, or Dagon the Babylonian god who was half man half fish. In terms of identifying The River Monster, we can list a few creatures such as Khnum, the Egyptian river god, who had a consort called Heqet who was a frog goddess. Human-Animal hybrids are still widely seen in popular culture, books such as C S Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, and the movies of Ray Harryhausen which include many fantastical creatures which have human and animal parts. For example many of the Egyptian pantheons were half human half beast, like Horus who had a human body and a hawk’s head. Human-Animal hybrids are found in art and mythology around the world. It wasn’t a god or monster that I recognised. The River Monster caught my eye because it was genuinely different from anything else I had seen before. With so much blank space, and I began to brainstorm my own ideas about what the object might be: Firstly, who might the monster be? Largely, what is it and what does it mean?
#RIVER MONSTER HOW TO#
The questions surrounding the origin of the monster raised many issues for me about how to interpret such an object. The only note I could find in the records was: “Bronze Lizard with a Man’s Face” and “River Monster, possibly 16 th Century, after an Egyptian type”. The River Monster is one of those historical artefacts which have changed hands so many times that the provenance and context is largely lost. It looks mythological, but it isn’t one of the famous figures like Venus or a centaur which are commonly seen in museums and textbooks. It also has a frog sitting on its tail – some sort of familiar or pet. The creature is around 20cm long, made of a dark bronze, with a scaly fish-like body and a man’s head. If the object were larger, it would strike an intimidating façade, for the expression is angry, and fierce. It stands out to me because its face, with the leafy gills, is reminiscent of the old English Green Man plaques, or the faces on Roman artefacts with their strong featured, wide mouthed, rounded cheeks and furrowed brows. One such item, the river monster, is a curiosity among curiosities. Some of the items are easy to identify and place in an historical context, while others present more of a challenge… What we know Some of the items have yellowing labels, where the collectors have recorded dates, names, and places.
#RIVER MONSTER SKIN#
The Beaney houses its own cabinet filled with artefacts such as a two headed shark, miniature bronzes, and the skin of a lion. As they were the forerunner to the modern ‘museum’ they are of great interest to historians and curators. Many of these collections existed in private homes throughout Britain and Europe throughout the 19 th Century. The ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’, or Wunderkammer, was a personal collection of unusual items from around the world.