Humans have always had a complicated relationship to their natural environment, especially to the beasts that populate the land and compete for its bounties. Striking a balance between nature and culture that would advance civilization has been a paramount sociopolitical endeavour in history. Syria, as a settled country since ancient times, eminently participated in this process, and its art reflected the different facets of that relationship: from fear, to struggle and subduing, to anthropomorphic appropriation, and finally respect and coexistence. All these modes of interaction are represented in the arts throughout the country’s history, though a clearer separation between the world of humans and that of beasts emerged with the spread of monotheism and the rise of the concept of idolatry.
