THE ROLE OF BIRDS IN ANCIENT SOCIETY - (J.) Mynott Birds in the Ancient World. Winged Words. Pp. xxiv + 451, b/w & colour ills, maps. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Cased, £30, US$39.95. ISBN: 978-0-19-871365-4.

Abstract

M.'s book provides a comprehensive introduction and overview of the role of birds within ancient society. The book is distinct from previous scholarship on birds in the ancient world with its approach to the material. Where D.W. Thompson's A Glossary of Greek Birds (1895), J. Pollard's Birds in Greek Life and Myth (1977) and W.G. Arnott's Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z (2007) tend to arrange the material by species, M. organises the material into six thematic parts. These parts follow a logical progression from birds as physical actors in the natural world to the abstract use and interpretation of birds in ancient societies. This structure allows M.'s work to act as a companion to its more encyclopaedic predecessors, as his thematic structure provides a more holistic approach to the role of birds. Additionally, through M.'s original translation and presentation of large extracts of ancient texts, it also serves as a valuable sourcebook for the role of birds in the ancient world. It is certainly not as exhaustive as other sourcebooks on animals, such as S. Lewis and L. Llewellyn-Jones's The Culture of Animals in Antiquity: a Sourcebook with Commentaries (2015), but still proves useful due to its thematic approach and targeted focus. Part 1, 'Birds in the Natural World', is divided into four chapters: the seasons; weather; time; and soundscapes. The first two of these chapters deal with well-known uses of birds as season-markers and weather predictors, with the second chapter moving on to their impact on time (mostly related to the cockerel's crow). The last chapter is the most extensive, concentrating on birds as ancient soundscapes. A highlight of the chapter is M.'s concentration on the distinction made between ancient and modern musical aesthetics in relation to birdsong. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the relationship between birdsong and music. Part 2, 'Birds as a Resource', is divided into three chapters: hunting and fowling; cooking and eating; and farming. M. does a thorough job in exploring each of these aspects. The use of visual evidence in this chapter enhances it, particularly the inclusion of a modern example of a thrush caught in bird-lime (p. 80, fig. 3.5), which would be unfamiliar to most readers. While the textual tradition provides excellent information for all three of the chapters in this section, I did find that these discussions suffered slightly from a lack of archaeological evidence. Although M.'s approach is centred on the presentation of birds within the texts, I feel that comparing these accounts with the zooarchaeological record would have enhanced the discussion, particularly in the case of what birds were eaten, and provided the reader with a broader knowledge of the use of birds in the ancient world. Part 3, 'Living with Birds', is dedicated to other types of human-bird interaction that are more symbiotic than the previous section. It deals with the use of birds as pets and aviaries/zoos in the ancient world; birds in sports and entertainment, mainly cockf...