Great Beasts of Legend Lecture Series
Throughout history, great beasts and monsters fabled or not have terrorized, enchanted, and eluded humans. Join leading Penn scholars on an exploration of some of the best stories from the around the world, and meet some memorable beasts, including Centaurs, Hobbits, and Sphinxes. (October 2016 through June 2017)
Length: 50:11
Great Beasts of Legend: Anzu the Lion Headed Eagle
Dr. Steve Tinney, Associate Curator, Babylonian Section, Penn Museum The Penn Museum’s popular monthly evening lecture series kicks off with a fresh theme: Great Beasts of Legends. Throughout history, great beasts and monsters fabled or not have...
Length: 1:08:03
Great Beasts of Legend: Centaurs, Sirens and Chimaera: The Greeks and their Monsters
Dr. Jeremy McInerney, Davidson Kennedy Professor Department of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania The Greek imagination was populated with all sorts of hybrids and monsters, from the half-horse, half man centaur to the chimaera, a blend...
Length: 1:19:38
Great Beasts of Legend: The Strong Silent Type: The Sphinx
Dr. Jennifer Houser Wegner, Associate Curator, Egyptian Section, Penn Museum and co-author of The Sphinx That Traveled to Philadelphia The varied roles of the sphinx in ancient Egypt are examined in this Great Beasts of Legend lecture. Egyptian re...
Length: 1:23:58
Great Beasts of Legend: The Hobbits of Flores Island: Myth, Magic, Majesty of Homo floresiensis
Standing at 3 ½ half feet tall, and about 75 pounds, Homo floresiensis is the smallest adult skeletal in the whole of human evolutionary history. Found in 2003, the “hobbit” or “halfling” was so named because of its diminutive size. Some h...
Length: 1:03:40
Great Beasts of Legend: Monsters of the Maya Cosmos
Dr. Simon Martin, Associate Curator, American Section, Penn Museum The Maya universe was populated by a variety of strange beasts and hybrid entities, some as actors in mythic narratives, others as symbolic representations of the sky, earth, and net...
Length: 58:26
Great Beasts of Legend: Underwater Panthers and Their Place in the Native American Cosmos
Annual Petersen Lecture: Dr. Megan Kassabaum, Weingarten Assistant Curator, American Section, Penn Museum Archaeologists generally agree that certain beliefs about the cosmos are broadly shared among indigenous peoples of the Americas. Though the ...
Length: 1:09:19
Great Beasts of Legend: Beasts in the Night Sky: The Constellation Myths of Greece and Rome
Dr. Patrick Glauthier, Department of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Cetus the Sea-monster - there's no shortage of mythical animals among the constellations of ancient Greece and Rome. But why do such c...
Length: 1:15:27
Great Beasts of Legend: Man-Lions
“BLOOD-SEED” DEMONS, AND WISH-FULFILLING COWS: ASSORTED BEINGS FROM THE INDIAN IMAGINATION May 3, 2017 Deven Patel, Associate Professor, Department of South Asia Studies The Beast in early South Asia runs the gamut of imaginative possibi...
Length: 1:01:36
Great Beasts of Legend: Tomb Guardians
The Story of the Chinese Winged Lions in the Penn Museum June 7, 2017 Dr. Adam Smith, Assistant Curator, Asian Section, Penn Museum The earliest examples of monumental stone sculpture from East Asia in the Penn Museum are the two Winged Lion...