Short bibliography on marine “man-eaters”

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One of the best resources for learning about the fearsome marine creature of ancient Greece, the infamous ketos is a paper by John Papadopoulos and Deborah Ruscillo, who discuss in detail the attitudes and ideas towards the large fish of the sea in antiquity and cross-culturally, and present some archaeologically retrieved bones that belong to such creatures and were used by humans:

John K. Papadopoulos and Deborah Ruscillo “A Ketos in Early Athens: An Archaeology of Whales and Sea Monsters in the Greek World.” American Journal of Archaeology 106 (2002):187–227.

A collection of other ideas and superstitions about marine fish, especially the fierce ones can be found in Dimitra’s book Fish-Eating in Greece from the Fifth Century BC to the Seventh Century AD: A Story of Impoverished Fishermen or Luxurious Fish Banquets? BAR International Series S1754 (Oxford : Archaeopress, 2008), especially pp. 70-74.

The story about the perils by fish and how to scare away a swine fish in Medieval eastern Mediterranean  by the German priest Ludolph von Suchem is found in his account of his travels to the Holy Land published in 1895 as Ludolph von Suchem’s Description of the Holy Land, and of the Way Thither. Written in the Year A.D. 1350,  Edited and translated by Aubrey Stewart.  It has been digitized and is accessible on archive.org here (second part, chapter X).

To understand the widespread cultural notions underlying his stories on apotropaic terror and its expression in art and architecture, one can read the following works:

E.P. Evans, Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architrecture (London: W. Heinemann, 1869); and R.G. Varner, Gargoyles, Grotesques & Green Men: Ancient Symbolism in European and American Architecture (Lulu Press, 2008).

On the amazing Huqoq mosaics, one could start with the succinct and well illustrated report and analysis by the excavator and her collaborators in Jodi Magness et. al. “Inside the Huqoq Synagogue,” Biblical Archaeology Review, April/May 2019, 24–38.

On the story of Yunus/The One of the Whale, its biblical, Talmudic and Midrashic, and Quranic dimensions, as well as its visual renditions, a lot can be learned from Hesna Haral, “Prophet Yunus in Islamic Miniature Painting: Representation of Repentance, Grief, Patience, and Mercy,” in Turkish Art History Studies, edited by N. Çiçek et. al., pp. 257–298 (Istanbul: Kitabevi Yayınları, 2019).