"The martichora was allegedly a blue-eyed, human-faced wild beast, the size of the largest lion, with cinnabar-red fur. It has three rows of teeth, feet and claws like lions. It also had a scorpion-like tail with a (main) terminal sting that measured over 1 cubit, plus two rows of auxiliary stings, each a Greek foot long. The sting was instantly fatal. The stings could be fired sideways, forward, or backward, by orienting the tail accordingly, up to a 1 plethron distance range, and these stings regenerated afterwards. Only the elephant was immune to the poison. And it overcomes every beast except the lion."
I've drawn a manticore once, over 10 years ago, for a gallery show but I wanted to revamp and update my design. This one sticks way more with the actual historic description from Photius. The old version had no fur and the stings were different. In this new version wanted to combine the scorpion sting with the bristle stings.
I do thing the manticore being hairless was a creepy design choice but I wanted to stick, closer to the description so I gave him cinnabar colored fur. I also think the face in the other piece is creepy but it does look a bit animalistic. I think manticores are at their most unsettling when they have a more human face.
An engraving by Matthäus Merian from Johannes Jonston, Historiae Naturalis (1652) along with a woodcut from Edward Topsell's The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes (1607).
Though, I did forego the mustache and beard.
The manticore is considered a creature from Persian mythology but it's a bit complicated. Most of the descriptions I found were ancient Greeks that were serving in the Persian courts and documenting what traders told them about traveling to India. So Persian traders go to India "encounter" a manticore and a Greek scholar, Ctesias, records it.
The name itself is a transliteration of an Old Persian compound word consisting of martīya 'man' and xuar- stem, 'to eat' (Modern Persian: مرد; mard + خوردن; ḫordan); i.e., man-eater.
They became popular in medieval bestiaries and then found their way into heraldry.
As far a popular culture goes, manticores are everywhere; D&D, Magic, The Last Unicorn, Charmed, Krapopolis, Everquest, Castlevania etc, etc.
Tomorrow's monster is another one from this region of the world....
No comments:
Post a Comment