Monsters In Ancient Greece example essay topic

According to ancient sources on the monsters in Egypt and Greece, the role of monsters in these countries were similar, yet also they had their differences. There was a role of guardian and a role of servant to the gods. Also written is what a monsters actually are and the differences in roles between monsters in ancient Egypt and Greece. Today a monster is some hideous, mean, horrible creature that is created by the imaginative minds of many children, authors and scriptwriters for movies, but in ancient times, monsters were real. In many ancient civilisations monsters were simply wild animals or partly human, which, unlike normal animals possessed some sort of power, supernatural or other and were surrounded in mystery.

Most monsters, because of the power they held, were connected to people in one way or another, whether by an attack on the village or the specific duties of the monster. Monsters played a more significant part in ancient Greek life than the monsters did in Egypt. In Greece monsters were written about just as much as the Gods were. Nearly all of the monsters in ancient Greece were related to one another and if not they were the creation of a vengeful God. Whereas in Egypt monsters like Apep, Sebau and Nak were basically the only god-like monsters written about. They were the enemies of Re, the sun God and depending on the outcome of battle fought that day, determined things like the weather.

Each day they battled each other and most times Re defeated them meaning normal, nice weather. When Apep, Sebau and Nak won this meant a solar eclipse. Finally Re defeated them for good by chopping up their bodies and burning them. Many of the monsters in ancient Greece were used by the Gods of Olympia to guard sacred and important sites. An example is a monstrous serpent named Python, the child of Gaia, the goddess earth.

It lived in a cave and guarded the oracle of Delphi on mount Parnassus. The old name of Delphi, Python, refers to this particular serpent. This snake had many siblings who also guarded important sites such as the Dragon of Colchis, a sleepless serpent who guarded the site of the Golden Fleece and Ladon, a hundred-headed snake which all spoke in various voices guarded the site of the Golden Apples located in the Hesperides. Argus, a giant with a body covered in eyes is another example of a guarding monster. After Zeus had changed his lover Io into a cow to guard her from the wrath of Hera, Hera demanded that the cow was given to her. She then gave Argus, a man-like monster with eyes all over his body, the task of guarding Io who was now a cow.

Another monster from Greek mythology with the duty of guarding is the three-headed dog Cerberus who guards the entrance to the underworld. Another famous monster was the sphinx. In Greek mythology she sat on a rock near Thebes and posed a riddle to all who wished to pass. The Greek sphinx was usually female and had wings of a bird, a woman's head and breasts and the body of a lioness.

The Egyptians also had sphinxes, however they were not quite the same. Egyptian Sphinxes were usually male and had the body of a lion, a man's head and sometimes had wings. The sphinxes in Egypt were like temple guardians. The Egyptians built sphinx statues outside the entranceways of many temples. The sphinxes were also associated with the king. In many hieroglyphs you can see the king's head on the body of a sphinx.

The head symbolizes wisdom whereas the sphinx's body represents strength. An animal similar in appearance to the sphinx is the griffin. The similarity came from the feline-like body, most often a lion's, and the falcon head, and often, but not always wings. At Beni Hasan and Bers heh in Egypt there are at least three tombs in which they appear in pictures on the walls in environments of everyday life and in the companionship of domestic animals such as monkeys and dogs. There is one picture in which a griffin is portrayed as so similar to the dogs playing near it that it can only be recognised because of the wings on its back. In another picture at Beni Hasan, a colourful griffin, accompanies a man and a dog, bearing a collar and what seems to be a leash.

The text that goes with these two pictures, refer to it as a sa get. This was most likely not the name of the creature but rather a term for the so-called domesticated griffin. It has been suggested that these griffins were in fact dogs that were masquerading as griffins. The people who made this suggestion also think that the intention may have been to modify an ordinary hunting dog into a ferocious, ceremonial or legendary hunter, as well as enhancing the reputation of its owner. Beginning in the New Kingdom, we come across a new winged type of griffin with a slender body of a canine and a vulture or eagle's beak.

It seems to have come from a particular form of griffin with a Seth-animal head, which was depicted once during the Middle Kingdom on a toilet artifact. The New Kingdom variety sometimes continued to be represented with a Seth-animal head. This griffin was the creature that pulled the chariot of Shed, the young saviour God, and the term for this creature meant "the swift one", emphasising its ability to haul Shed's chariot at great speed. This was a role of the griffin, a "servant" to a particular God. Another "servant" monster, but found in Greece was the centaur. The centaur was the servant of the God Dionysus.

They were a cross between a man and a horse. They had the body of a horse and then up from the body came the torso and then head of a man. The centaurs were depicted as a mob of drunken brutes. While many of the centaurs were badly behaved, a wise centaur named Chiron was the tutor of many heroes, including Achilles. Another Egyptian monster is the serpopard. The serpopard had body of a feline, an extremely long neck and the head of a leopard.

It single-handedly was thought to attack other creatures. At times when this creature was portrayed in pairs, there necks were intertwined, but not always. An evident example of such can be found on the Narmer Palette. Pairs of serpopard in Mesopotamia were also depicted with entwined necks. We know of no other representations of this animal other than those on the Narmer Palette, magic wands and in some hieroglyphs, such as the name of Kusiyeh.

Judging from this content, you can see that the roles of monsters in both ancient Egypt and Greece were similar, yet, had their differences. You discovered what a monster is, and the differences between the many roles of monsters from ancient Egypt and from ancient Greece.