This book on the movement of animals in the Mediterranean in the first millennium BC is divided into four thematic sections and consists of 27 papers, including an introduction and postscript. It is based on the proceedings of three different conferences, two in 2020 in Rome and Athens and the third in 2021 in Montpellier. The first conference concentrated on the western and central Mediterranean, the second on the eastern Mediterranean and the last on general topics.
As Christophe Chandezon and Bruno D’Andrea argue in their introduction, since 2000 the humanities has seen an “Animal Turn,” an emphasis on the research on the human-animal interaction, animal rights and even animal agency. This book considers this turn in the Mediterranean world. It prefers the concept of circulation from human geography to that of mobility from sociology in order to emphasise the intermittent nature of movement. It is flexible in its chronological definitions, considering the cultural continuities and the existence of source material. Chandezon and D’Andrea classify the published contributions into six categories: 1) movement of cattle, 2) the introduction of domestic animals, 3) the diffusion of pests and other unwanted species, 4) the presentation of extraordinary animals, 5) the arrival of animal products and 6) fantastic animals.
In the first proper article Marco Masseti collects an assortment of known and assumed introductions of animal species to the Mediterranean world testified by artwork, DNA studies and zoological specimens ranging from an ape-shaped decoration on a bronze vessel, from Iron Age Sardinia and the closeness of Tuscan domestic cattle DNA, to that of Anatolian breeds to the animals of the Roman venationes. The last paper of this historic and methodological section is Ludovic Orlando’s excellent treatise on the domestication of the horse based on aDNA evidence and the different lineages of the wild horse.
Stéphane Bourdin begins the section on the movement of animals with an article on transhumance in central Italy based on a French field project in the area of the ancient Vestini. The stone structures encountered—enclosures, huts and complex sites—are difficult to date, but the periods of expansion in moving animals to the summer pastures and back seem to occur in specific periods over a long time: the Iron Age, the Republican period, Middle Ages and the 19th century. Another compact and well-written article is Sian Lewis’s treatise on the introduction of pests, namely rodents and insects, to the Mediterranean. The article refers to the ancient perception that these animals were omnipresent in settlements, unlike in the modern world. It also points out how the crisscrossing marine networks contributed to the introduction of different species in different areas with the real spread starting from the movements of the Greeks and Phoenicians. Tatiana Theodoropoulou lists in her short article the low-frequency archaeological finds of marine products in the Aegean, including shells from Red Sea or Indian Ocean, coral from the eastern Mediterranean, Nilotic fish and tuna. Katerina Papayianni’s article on Aegean microfauna defines the terms “syanthropy”, a close relationship to humans, and “commensalism”, living in the same house as the humans, and presents in detail the finds of rodents in the Near East and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, and points to the importance of floating and wet sieving in order to get a good picture of environmental conditions. One result: the snake finds from the Temple of Poseidon in Kalaureia are clearly elements of a ritual, showing signs of burning.
Barbara Wilkens presents in her article the findings from Sicily and from the more remote islands of Sardinia and Corsica. Sardinia and Corsica had been one island in the Pleistoscene and, unlike Sicily where the species had all been introduced from the mainland, still had their own indigenous species at the beginning of the first millennium BC. There are some differences in the Greek, Punic/Carthaginian and indigenous bone assemblages with the main difference being the presence of hen in ritual Greek contexts in Sicily. Ivory was present both as worked and raw material (tusks) in both Sardegna and Sicily. Wilkens is the first to present tables of the osteological finds, even if the assemblages are few in number. Tables are present also in Damià Ramis’s paper on the fauna of Majorca and Minorca; the table with the chronology of the introduction of different animals is very useful. Ramis could have emphasised more how the animals within the assemblages were domestic, introduced by humans, or synanthropic/commensal with little wild animals. Even fish as the first wild animals appear only in the latter half of the first millennium BC. In the final article in this section, Marco Vespa discusses the appearance of apes in ancient Latin texts. There is not much material and this makes me wonder why he did not try to cover artistic representations as well. Nevertheless, the works of Plautus show that apes were well-enough known among Roman audiences.
The third section of the book is all about the introduction of new species to the Mediterranean in antiquity. In the first article Chandezon presents the representations of zebu in art, coins and literature, mainly in Asia Minor where zebu were found in the Hellenistic times. The following article on the camel by Jérémy Clément provides an excellent combination of evidence from art, literature and zooarchaeological assemblages in the Greek world to show the importance of this animal in the Middle East, Arabia and Mesopotamia during Hellenistic times. In his article Schneider compares the image of Greek tiger to the Roman tiger in the literature and defines them as artistically different constructions. Most numerous in this section are the articles on hen and cocks, three in total. Firstly, Bruno D’Andrea discusses the coexistence of the chickens and the Phoenicians/Carthaginians in the central and western Mediterranean. D’Andrea notes that their dispersal with the Phoenicians had been presented even before the real remains were found in bone assemblages due to them being early travelers alongside the Greeks in addition to the ex Oriente lux thinking. It seems that the chicken was more a ritual animal than a food source in the Phoenician world. In the second article Jacopo De Grozzi Mazzorin et al. give a clear and systematic presentation of the presence of chicken in Italy with clear tables: the route of origin seems to have been central Europe. Thirdly, Silvia Albizuri and Armelle Gardeisen discuss the first appearance of chickens in the Middle East and their distribution in Iberia and Gaul. They emphasise the contacts with the Greek and Phoenicians, but in the end point to the difficulty of tying the appearance of chickens to a certain ethnic or social group, even if the find distribution in Gaul seems to move from the coastal areas along the big rivers to the northern areas following Etruscan contact. The article has a table of all chicken finds in Gaul, but it is unhelpfully organised alphabetically by place. A chronological order would have been clearer for a reader who does not know the sites.
The two last papers of this section look at the appearance of two exotic birds, namely peacocks (Jean Trinquier) and parrots (more specifically parakeets, Cristiana Franco). These are both wordy articles, based mostly on literary evidence. The real disappointments are the articles on peacock and parakeets. I had expected entertaining discussions on the presentations of these animals in art, but this aspect, even if present in Trinquier’s contribution, was only briefly presented at the end of Franco’s article as a compact list of appearances in wall paintings and mosaics. A lost opportunity to join different source materials.
The last section of the book is about the representations of animals. It starts with Arnaud Zucker’s more philosophical discussion on the direct or indirect familiarity with the more exotic animals. The next two articles are art historical: Christian Mazet looks at the image of wild goats from Greece to Etruria and Sabine Fourrier at exotic animals in Iron Age Cyprus. Philippe Monbrun discusses the idea of Crete in antiquity as an island free of animals dangerous to humans, a feature attributed to the divine protection of Zeus. Maud Pfaff-Reydellet discusses foreign animals integrated in the works of Lucretius, Virgil and Ovid and their incorporation into the new Roman world order. Stéphane Wyler discusses a Dionysian mosaic with a tiger with a mane from the House of the Faun in Pompeii and compares it to the other similar mosaics in the Mediterranean together with the introduction of elephants and felines to central Italy. Pedro Duarte looks at the animal names in the Pliny the Elder. Michel Gras’s short contribution adds a few general ideas at the end.
The three first sections of the book are logical and cohesive, partly due to the tangible archaeological source material, whereas the articles in the fourth section are more heterogeneous. Since the volume is quite long, one could have considered publishing the three first sections as a single volume and tried either to find additional material to create a stand-alone volume of the fourth section or look for other publication fora for these articles. The volume has excellent, detailed indices and a handy collection of abstracts in both French and English at the end. There are relatively numerous illustrations, some in colour.
The remit of this book is fresh and it brings together material from the whole Mediterranean. Even if it is uneven and slightly lopsided, I recommend it to all readers interested in the introduction of new species into the Mediterranean and the coexistence of different animals with humans.
Authors and Titles
Première partie. Historiographie, méthodologies et perspectives
Christophe Chandezon and Bruno D’Andrea, En guise d’introduction, Circulations animales et zoogéographie ancienne: Du programme de recherche à la synthèse
Marco Masseti, Towards distant seas and lands: Circulation of zoological species and ideas in the Mediterranean region and the Near East during the 1st millennium BC
Ludovic Orlando, La domestication du cheval: Un éclairage paléogénomique
Deuxième partie. Formes de circulations animales
Stéphane Bourdin, Pratiques pastorales et transhumances en Italie centrale dans l’Antiquité
Sian Lewis, Involuntary introductions in the Ancient Mediterranean
Tatiana Theodoropoulou, Short and long distance circulation of marine animals, products and raw materials of marine origin in the 1st millennium BC Aegean
Katerina Papayianni, Microfauna from historical sites in the Aegean: An assessment of the excavated evidence and issues of small mammal synanthropy and commensalism
Barbara Wilkens, Commercio e movimenti di animali in Sardegna, Corsica e Sicilia nel corso del I millennio a.C.
Damià Ramis, Faunal dynamics in Majorca and Minorca during the 1st millenium BC
Marco Vespa, Un altro mare. I trasferimenti animali e la loro rappresentazione culturale nei testi latini: Il caso delle scimmie (III secolo a.C.-II secolo d.C.)
Troisième partie. Des espèces nouvelles
Christophe Chandezon, Le zébu en Asie Mineure (IVe-Ier siècle av. J.-C.)
Jérémy Clément, Les mobilités camélines dans les sources grecques
Pierre Schneider, Des tigres grecs au tigre romain (IVe siècle av. J.-C.-IIe siècle apr. J.-C.): Une forme de divergence culturelle?
Bruno D’Andrea, En voyage avec la poule: Gallus dans la faune, le bestiaire et les circulations méditerranéennes des Phéniciens
Jacopo De Grossi Mazzorin, Claudia Minniti and Chiara Assunta Corbino, Prime testimonianze archeologiche e iconografiche del pollo (Gallus domesticus) in Italia
Silvia Albizuri and Armelle Gardeisen, Petite histoire des poules à l’ouest de la Méditerranée
Jean Trinquier, Le paon à la conquête de l’Ouest: Les scénarios de son arrivée dans le bassin méditerranéen
Cristiana Franco, Talking beauties: Diffusion and popularity of parrots in Ancient Greece and Rome
Quatrième partie. Penser et représenter les circulations animales
Arnaud Zucker, Familiarité intellectuelle et familiarité environnementale: Réflexions sur la mesure de la familiarité et de l’assimilation des animaux non indigènes en Grèce ancienne
Christian Mazet, La chèvre sauvage de la Grèce à l’Étrurie orientalisante: L’intégration culturelle d’un animal inconnu
Sabine Fourrier, Le bestiaire exotique de Chypre à l’âge du Fer
Philippe Monbrun, No trespassing? Le bestiaire crétois à l’épreuve des circulations animales
Maud Pfaff-Reydellet, Intégrer au bestiaire romain les animaux des confins: Construire une zoogéographie du monde conquis par Rome
Stéphanie Wyler, Montures félines dans l’iconographie dionysiaque: Variations hellénistiques et romaines
Pedro Duarte, Transmission, création et motivation des zoonymes: Le témoignage de Pline l’Ancien pour les animaux observables dans le pourtour méditerranéen au début du Ier millénaire apr. J.-C.
Michel Gras, Postface: Une dynamique animalière