With contributions spanning from the Neolithic Age to the Iron Age, this book offers important insights into the religions and ritual practices in ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern communities through the lenses of their material remains.
The book begins with a theoretical introduction to the concept of material religion and features editor introductions to each of its six parts, which tackle the following themes: the human body; religious architecture; the written word; sacred images; the spirituality of animals; and the sacred role of the landscape. Illustrated with over 100 images, chapters provide insight into every element of religion and materiality, from the largest building to the smallest amulet. This is a benchmark work for further studies on material religion in the ancient Near East and Egypt.
Author(s): Nicola Laneri; Sharon R. Steadman (editors)
Series: Bloomsbury Handbooks
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 525
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Figures
Contributors
Introduction
PART ONE Material Religion
CHAPTER ONE Chance and Lived Religion: The Material Culture of Transforming Randomness into Purpose
PART TWO The Human Body
CHAPTER TWO Material Religion and the Body in the Ancient Near East
CHAPTER THREE Jewelry as a Powerful Tool in the Religious Discourse between Humans and the Supernatural in the Ancient Near Eas
CHAPTER FOUR Body Politic: Body-Objects and Necropolitics Past and Present
CHAPTER FIVE Behind the Cultic Statue: The Materiality of Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia
CHAPTER SIX Meanings and Practices in the Design of Objects: What Does Design Reveal about Experiences?
CHAPTER SEVEN The Brief but Spectacular Lives of Figurines in Hittite Ritual
PART THREE The Architecture
CHAPTER EIGHT Religious Life, Urban Fabric, and Regeneration Processes at Mari during the Second Half of the Third Millennium
CHAPTER NINE Sacred Space and Immigrant Identity in the Middle Bronze Age: The Case of Tell el Dab.a
CHAPTER TEN Evidence for an Urartian Belief System: The Institutionalization of Religion in the Mountainous Eastern Anatolian H
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Price of Devotion: Costly Signals in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Architecture on the Anatolian Plateau (SHA
CHAPTER TWELVE Building Temples in the Northern Levant
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Sacred Architecture in Iron II Southern Levant
PART FOUR The Written Words
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Scribes in the Temple: Materializing Missing Monuments in Mesopotamia
CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Heraldry of Early Iranian Religion
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Materials of Hittite Magic and Religion
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Experiencing the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: A Funerary Text Corpus as a Material Object
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Pottery and Magic: A Glimpse into Late-Antique Mesopotamian Religious Tradition and Its Materiality
CHAPTER NINETEEN The Biblical Priestly Tradition as Material Religion: A Comparative Ancient Mediterranean Approach
PART FIVE The Animals
CHAPTER TWENTY Man, Animal, and Gods: Animal Remains as Indicators of Beliefs in the Ancient Near East
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Resting on Strong Shoulders: The Power of Animal Scapulae in the Near Eastern Neolithic
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Animals and Ideology in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the Southern Levant
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Sharing Animals: Animal Imagery as Late Antique Intercultural Dialogue
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The Theriomorphic Images of the Hittite Gods
PART SIX The Landscape
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Material Religion and the Perception of the Sacred Landscape in Ancient Mesopotamia
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Imagining the Supernatural: The Landscape of Kura-Araxes Sacred Funerary Mounds
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Cultic Aspects of the Egyptian Desert
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Deconstructing the Shrine: An Assay in Understanding Desert Cult
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Maritime Viewscapes and the Material Religion of Levantine Seafarers
References
Index
