
Fierce and furry: Protective feline demons of ancient Egypt - benbreen
http://www.demonthings.com/fierce-furry-protective-feline/
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netcan
Symbolic stuff is very hard to interpret from outside the context of a
culture.

Take european gargoyles, with an archeo-anthropologist eye. They are all over
churches built during a 500-1000 year span. The most important cathedrals tend
to have more gargoyles. They're the most obviously supernatural element....

What role do gargoyles play in European religion or culture? Pretty much none.
There are obviously some myths and a Disney movie, but they're just not as
important as you would think.

~~~
will_brown
>They're the most obviously supernatural element....

Gargoyles are really just rain spouts to protect masonry work. Obviously under
different name they date back at least as far as ancient Egyptians where they
were in the form of lion heads and those were copied in Ancient Greece. At
some point they were converted to “grotesques” (the supernatural creatures you
reference) mostly winged dragon like creatures.

The real irony is on many of the churches they lost their actual function
(diverting rain water). I think that is the real cultural reference of the
time, the people lost knowledge and took something that had practical function
and converted it to just decorations that had no real function (except to ward
off spirits...supernatural as you say).

So as you say in a vacuum it’s nearly impossible to understand certain
cultural representations in art, because who knows what practical function
these representations may have had in another culture predating the Egyptians,
the Egyptians just copied because of supernatural reasons. That said obviously
domesticated cats provided real function back then and killing snakes was a
big part of that, without needing to interprete their legends and artistic
depictions of the same.

