Modèles anatomiques tératologiques et cabinets de curiosités dans l’Antiquité

Abstract

For long the ancient perception of the ‘monster’ was opposed in an evolutionary perspective to modern times. This vision of a prescientific classical past, under the sign of the fabulous, where the exceptional being is either an object of terror, fascination or worship, is questioned. The ancient discourse on the function of the monster in the oikoumenê, the inhabited world, reveals an object of knowledge and memory within a specific epistemological context, at the crossroads of the history of medicine, politics and of thaumata or mirabilia. The collection and exhibition of monstrous creatures, sometimes preserved in the form of anatomical preparations, reveal a mode of the transmission of knowledge that emerged in Alexandria. The taste for the marvelous was combined with scientific curiosity and the imperialist ambition of controlling the known world.

Keywords

• Alexandria
• dissection
• embryo
• imperialism
• medicine
• monster