The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Figure 62. Chaos Monster and Sun God (carved alabaster, Assyria, 885–860 b.c.). Wall panel from the Palace of Ashur-nasirapal II (885–860 b.c.), King of Assyria, at Kalhu (modern Nimrud). The god is perhaps the national deity, Assur, in the role played formerly by Marduk of Babylon and still earlier by Enlil, a Sumerian storm god. Photo from an engraving in Austen Henry Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series, London: J. Murray, 1853. The original slab, now in the British Museum, is so damaged that the forms can hardly be distinguished in a photograph. The style is the same as that of Figure 42.

Figure 63. Khnemu Shapes Pharaoh’s Son on a Potter’s Wheel While Thoth Marks Life Span (papyrus, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. third–first century b.c.). E.A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, London: Methuen and Co., 1904, vol. II, p. 50.

Figure 64. Edshu the Trickster (carved wood, cowries, and leather; Yoruba; Nigeria; nineteenth–early twentieth century a.d.). Private Collection, Paul Freeman. The Bridgeman Art Library.

Figure 65. Tlazolteotl Giving Birth (carved aplite with garnet inclusions, Aztec, Mexico, late fifteenth–early sixteenth century a.d.). Photo, after Hamy, courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

Figure 66. Nut (the Sky) Gives Birth to the Sun; Its Rays Fall on Hathor in the Horizon (Love and Life) (carved stone, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. first century b.c.). The sphere at the mouth of the goddess represents the sun at evening, about to be swallowed and born anew. [From the so-called Chapel of the New Year in the Temple of Hathor, Dendera, Egypt. Built c. first century b.c. — Ed.] E.A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, London: Methuen and Co., 1904, vol. I, p. 101.

Figure 67.The Moon King and His People (rock painting, prehistoric, Zimbabwe, c. 1500 b.c.). Prehistoric rock painting, at Diana Vow Farm, Rusapi District, South Rhodesia [modern Zimbabwe — Ed.], perhaps associated with the legend of Mwuetsi, the Moon Man. The lifted right hand of the great reclining figure holds a horn. Tentatively dated by its discoverer, Leo Frobenius, c. 1500 b.c. Courtesy of the Frobenius-Institut, Frankfurt-am-Main.

Figure 68. Coatlicue of the Serpent-woven Skirt, Earth Mother (carved stone, Aztec, Mexico, late fifteenth century a.d.). Her head is formed from the facing heads of two rattlesnakes. Around her neck is a necklace of hearts, hands, and a skull. One of a pair of colossal statues which stood in the courtyard of the Great Temple at Tenochtitlán. Excavated in 1824 in main plaza, Mexico City. Museo Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico City, D.F., Mexico. Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 69. The Chariot of the Moon (carved stone, Cambodia, c. a.d. 1113–1150). Bas relief at Angkor Wat. Photo from Angkor, éditions “Tel,” Paris, 1935.

Figure 70. Pharaoh’s Daughter Finding Moses (detail; oil on canvas, England, a.d. 1886). Edwin Long, 1886. City of Bristol Gallery. The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002.

Figure 71.Kṛṣṇa Holding Mount Govardhan (color on paper, India, c. a.d. 1790). Attributed to Mola Ram (1760–1833). [Note that Indra is visible on his elephant in the upper-left. — Ed.] Smithsonian Institute Asia Collection.

Figure 72. Paleolithic Petroglyph (carved rock, Paleolithic, Algiers, date uncertain). From a prehistoric site in the neighborhood of Tiout. The catlike animal between the hunter and the ostrich is perhaps some variety of trained hunting panther, and the horned beast left behind with the hunter’s mother, a domesticated animal at pasture. Leo Frobenius and Hugo Obermaier, Hádschra Máktuba, Munich: K. Wolff, 1925, vol. II, Plate 78.

Figure 73. The Pharaoh Narmer Slays a Defeated Foe (carved schist, Old Kingdom, Egypt, c. 3100b.c.). The “Narmer palette” (reverse), a late pre-dynastic schist ceremonial palette. Pharaoh Narmer is shown wearing the White Crown of Upper (southern) Egypt, subduing Lower Egypt. Narmer’s rectangular cartouche sits on top of the palette. From Hierakonpolis, Kom el-Ahmar. Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 74. Young Maize God (carved stone, Mayan, Honduras, c. a.d. 680–750). Fragment in limestone, from the ancient Mayan city of Copán. Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

Figure 75. Oedipus Plucking Out His Eyes (detail; carved stone, Roman, Italy, c. second–third century a.d.). Detail of a relief on a Roman mausoleum from Neumagen Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier, Germany. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 76. Death of the Buddha (carved stone, India, late fifth century a.d.). Ajanta Caves, Cave #26 (Chaitya Hall), Maharashtra, India. Vanni/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 77. Autumn(Death Mask) (painted wood, Inuit, North America, date uncertain). From the Kuskokwim River district in southwest Alaska. Courtesy of the American Indian Heye Foundation, New York City.