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1st Edition

Extraordinary Bodies on Display Humans, Animals and Cryptids from Antiquity to the Present

Edited By Jane Draycott Copyright 2026

312 Pages 91 B/W Illustrations

by Routledge

Description

This volume explores the collection and display of human, animal, and cryptid bodies from antiquity to the present. An increasing amount of attention has been paid to impairment and disability in classical antiquity in recent years. However, one aspect of the subject that has not received significant attention, despite recent developments in the study of ancient paradoxography and ancient... Read more

Table of Contents

List of Contributors

List of Figures

Extraordinary Bodies on Display: Humans, Animals, and Cryptids from Antiquity to the Present – Jane Draycott

Part One: Display of the Self

1. ‘The sort of man you all see me to be’: Visible Disability and Citizenship in Classical Athens - Jasmine Sahu-Hough

2. Bodily Display as a Form of Commemoration: The Case of Myropnous the Dwarf Flute-Player - Jane Draycott

3. Displaying, Hiding: Narratives and Images of Sarcoma - Natalia Fernández Díaz-Cabal

4. Vexed Paradox in Historic Anatomical Display – One Artist-Researcher’s Observation through Lived Experience - Sarah Scaife

Part Two: Display of the ‘Other’

5. Baby Monsters and Centaur Families: Humanizing Mythic Creatures and Other Extraordinary Beings - Adrienne Mayor

6. Physiognomic Disability in Depictions of Claudius - Dan Mills

7. Bodily Display in the Context of the Banquet - Anastasia Meintani

8. Visual Arts and British Imperialism in India - Shreya Sharma

Part Three: Display in Museums

9. Taxidermy for Education: Taxidermized Animals in Chilean School Cabinets during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Carolina Valenzuela Matus

10. Medical Bodies on Display: the History and Context of Human Remains in Medical Museums – Cornelia Thompson

11. Pathological Bodies: Visitor attitudes towards the display of historical potted specimens at a British medical museum - Aoife Sutton-Butler, Karina Croucher and Monica Ann Walker

12. Displaying the Dead in the Shadow of Vesuvius - Virginia L. Campbell

13. Divinity turned Deviance: Displaying the Displaced Ancient Egyptian Dead - Campbell Price

Index

Editor(s)

Biography

Jane Draycott is a Roman historian and archaeologist who investigates science, technology, and medicine in the ancient world, and is particularly interested in the history and archaeology of medicine; impairment, disability, and prostheses; and botany and horticulture. Recently, she has begun exploring the use (and abuse) of history and archaeology in video games, particularly those set in classical antiquity.

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