The Bloomsbury Handbook of Material Religion in the Ancient Near East and Egypt / edited by Nicola Laneri and Sharon R. Steadman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Laneri, Nicola, editor.

Steadman, Sharon R., editor.

Series:

Bloomsbury Handbooks Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Material culture--Religious aspects--Egypt.

Material culture.

Material culture--Religious aspects--Middle East.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (527 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), 2023.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.

System Details:

text file HTML

Summary:

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.

Contents:

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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781350280847

1350280844

9781350280823

1350280828

9781350280830

1350280836

OCLC:

1376934094