Mermaids

Women with fish tails are among the oldest and still most popular of mythological creatures, possessing a powerful allure and compelling ambiguity. They dwell right in the uncanniest valley of the sea: so similar to humans, yet profoundly other. Mermaids: Art, Symbolism and Mythology presents a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and beautifully illustrated study of mermaids and their influence on Western culture. The roots of mermaid mythology and its metamorphosis through the centuries are discussed with examples from visual art, literature, music and architecture—from 600 BCE right up to the present day. Our story starts in Mesopotamia, source of the earliest preserved illustrations of half-human, half-fish creatures. The myths and legends of the Mesopotamians were incorporated and adopted by ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman cultures. Then, during the early medieval period, ancient mythological creatures such as mermaids were confused, transformed and reinterpreted by Christian tradition to begin a new strand in mermaid lore. Along the way, all manner of stunning—and sometimes bizarre or unsettling—depictions of mermaids emerged. Written in an accessible and entertaining style, this book challenges conventional views of mermaid mythology, discusses mermaids in the light of evolutionary theory and aims to inspire future studies of these most curious of imaginary creatures.

Introduction

The introduction outlines the subject of the research. One of the most relevant early medieval elite kinship groups of the Italian kingdom were the Hucpoldings, named after that Hucpold who had held the office of count palatine under Louis II. Key features of the research are the long chronological range and the wide geographical area investigated. The chapter then retraces the main historiographical steps taken in investigations of early medieval kinship groups from the second half of the twentieth century until the latest developments. A specific section is dedicated to the presentation and analysis of the documentary and narrative sources used in this research.

Discontinuity between Public Powers and Private Seigneurial Rule

The conclusion summarizes the key features of the Hucpoldings as a wide kinship group. Beyond assessing once more the legitimacy of such prosopographic effort by placing this research in the proper historiographical context, it underlines that the specific attention given to the women of the kindred and to their cognatic ties allows us to draw a varied and striking picture of the Hucpoldings, and in general of early medieval elites kinship groups, compared with previous studies.

Archaeological Evidence of Migration from the Southern Taiga of Western Siberia to the Urals in the Early Middle Ages: The Vodennikovo-1 Cemetery

We describe 15 burials at the Vodennikovo-1 group of mounds in the northern Kurgan Region, on the Middle Iset River, relevant to migration processes during the Early Middle Ages. On the basis of numerous parallels from contemporaneous sites in the Urals and Western Siberia, the cemetery is dated to the late 7th and 8th centuries. Most of single and collective burials are inhumations in rectangular pits with a northwestern orientation, with vessels, decorated by carved or pricked designs, placed near the heads. These features, typical of the Early Medieval Bakalskaya culture of the Tobol and Ishim basins, are also observed at the Pereyma and Ust-Suerskoye-1 cemeteries in the same area. However, there are innovations such as inlet burials, those in blocks of solid wood and plank coffi ns, western orientation of the deceased, and placing vessels next to the burial pits. These features attest to a different tradition, evidenced by cemeteries of the Potchevash culture in the Tobol and Ishim basins (Okunevo III, Likhacheva, and Vikulovskoye). Also, Potchevash and Bakalskaya vessels co-occur at Vodennikovo-1, and some of them (jugs with comb and grooved designs) are typologically syncretic. To date, this is the westernmost cemetery of the Potchevash culture, suggestive of a migration of part of the southern taiga population from the Ishim and Tobol area to the Urals.