Blemmyes

One of the Blemmyes, from a 1544 woodcut illustrating the Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster.

The Blemmyes are a race of legendary creatures that were said to live in Africa, in Nubia, Kush, or Ethiopia, generally south of Egypt. They were believed to be acephalous (headless) monsters who had eyes and mouths in their bellies. Pliny the Elder writes of them that Blemmyes traduntur capita abesse, ore et oculis pectore adfixis. ("It is said that the Blemmyes have no heads, and that their mouth and eyes are put in their chests".)

References

  • Blemmyes, in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898)
  • Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalis V.8.46




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