Religion Articles

Articles

• Touching the Gods: physical interaction with cult statues in the Roman world

  “Touching the Gods: physical interaction with cult statues in the Roman world‟ explores different forms of physical interaction with cult statues in the many cults and beliefs evident across the Roman world, and proposes wide-ranging implications of this for the understanding of Roman religions...

• Shamanic elements in Minoan religion

  Ritual has always been a popular subject of study in archaeology and anthropology. Early ethnographers relished the details of its drama, and early archaeologists found it a convenient explanation for those finds they could not explain. More sophisticated modern scholars ponder the symbolic complexity...

• Astronomy and ancient Greek cult : an application of archaeoastronomy to Greek religious architecture, cosmologies and landscapes

  This thesis examines the relationship between ancient Greek religion, cult practice, sanctuary buildings and astronomy. Its geographical range extends across the modern territory of Greece; chronologically it covers the thirteenth to second centuries BC, from a period before the development of self-standing...

• Gods and Places in Etruscan Religion

  The ancient Romans took every precaution in their prayers or rituals to ensure that their deities were addressed by name or generically as a divine spirit, or numen. In many matters of ritual and tradition they acknowledged their dependence on Etruscan practices, Etrusca disciplina. The Etruscans were...

• The Palaikastro Hymn and the modern myth of the Cretan Zeus

  The Palaikastro Hymn—better known as the Hymn of the Kouretes—does not celebrate a god of pre-Hellenic pedigree, who is Zeus in name only, as scholars have believed with virtual unanimity. Rather, an understanding of the conventions of Greek hymnic performance in its ritual context goes...

• Cult and Belief in Punic and Roman Africa

  This is a second attempt at a synthesis of the main problems for the forthcoming Cambridge History of Ancient Religions. The problems are complex and still threaten to overwhelm. This version remains a cri de coeur: any helpful comments and criticisms are encouraged.

• Hygieia, the Goddess of Health

  Modern medicine has its origin in the ancient world.  The oldest civilizations used magic and herbs to cure their sick people, but they also used religion to free them from harm and to protect their health. The medical care of today has its roots in ancient Greece. With the introduction of Asklepios...

• Initiation of religions in India

  The religious practices of the early Indo-Aryans, known as the Vedic religion (1500 BC to 500 BC) were written down and later redacted into the Samhitas, four canonical collections of hymns or mantras, called the Veda, in archaic Sanskrit. The Late Vedic age (9th to 6th centuries BC) marked the beginning...

• Göbekli Tepe - the World's First Temple?

  Located in modern Turkey, Göbekli Tepe is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. The discovery of this stunning 10,000 year old site in the 1990s sent shock waves through the archaeological world and beyond, with some researchers even claiming it was the site of the biblical...

• Religious Developments in Ancient India

  For well over 1,000 years, sacred stories and heroic epics have made up the mythology of Hinduism. Nothing in these complex yet colourful legends is fixed and firm. Pulsing with creation, destruction, love, and war, it shifts and changes. Most myths occur in several different versions, and many characters...