As the topic of this study embraces and entwines what is routinely divided into two separate categories, “nature” and “culture”, the birds in the Iliad challenge modern scientific division and in some ways, our thinking. They are simultaneously birds, signs and symbols. The investigation aims at determining the various species of the birds in the Iliad as far as this is possible with the help of ornithological methods and tries through semiotics and hermeneutics to ascertain the symbolic ... merfunctions and presence of birds as transmitters of messages, information, and emotions.
Iliadens fåglar stärkte krigslustenFåglarna i Iliaden ger krigare och kungar vägledning inför svåra beslut och tillfredsställer grundläggande mänskliga behov av trygghet och självkänsla. Det visar en avhandling från Göteborgs universitet som analyserar 35 fågelscener i Homeros Iliaden, daterad till ca 700 f. Kr.
Tania M. Dickinson:Symbols of Protection The Significance of Animal-ornamentedShields in Early Anglo-Saxon EnglandConcurrently, Lotte Hedeager has argued that the distinctive animal-art styles of the 5th to 7th centuries were cultivated as a means of self-definition by the emergent warrior-elite of post-Roman successor kingdoms, in parallel to their myths and legends of a Nordic origin.Karen Høilund Nielsen’s work on Salin’s Style II within Scandinavia and beyond, and Siv Kristoffersen’s study of the Nydam Style and Salin’s Style I in south-western Norway, have explored how these styles constructed social identities and inequalities.6 Style I was overwhelmingly used for the regional and local production of jewellery for women of a certain standing, whereas Style II, at least initially, was used inter-regionally for the weaponry and horse-gear of a male elite. [...]Comparable objects, though usually less accomplished, occur almost contemporaneously in the Rhineland, Alamannia, Bavaria and North Italy, mostly for caskets, belts and chatelaines...
