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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Pre-Christian European & Mediterranean religions
This authoritative English translation of the Middle Kingdom Coffin
Texts is an essential resource for all Egyptologists. The new
edition reprints Faulkner's whole work in one volume. Filling the
gap between the Pyramid Texts and the New Kingdom Book of the Dead,
these writings were intended to supply the deceased with the
speeches he would need to achieve a secure and important position
in the next world. As such they supply valuable insights into
Egyptian beliefs and mortuary practices. Concise textual notes are
kept to a minimum, allowing the character of the texts to be
experienced as a whole. Indexes cover divinities, localities,
celestial bodies, selected Egyptian words in translation and also
the parts of boats and sailing gear that figure prominently in some
spells.
Did the ancient Greeks and Romans use psychoactive cannabis?
Scholars say that hemp was commonplace in the ancient world, but
there is no consensus on cannabis usage. According to botany, hemp
and cannabis are the same plant and thus the ancient Greeks and
Romans must have used it in their daily lives. Cultures parallel to
the ancient Greeks and Romans, like the Egyptians, Scythians, and
Hittites, were known to use cannabis in their medicine, religion
and recreational practices. Cannabis in the Ancient Greek and Roman
World surveys the primary references to cannabis in ancient Greek
and Roman texts and covers emerging scholarship about the plant in
the ancient world. Ancient Greek and Latin medical texts from the
Roman Empire contain the most mentions of the plant, where it
served as an effective ingredient in ancient pharmacy. Cannabis in
the Ancient Greek and Roman World focuses on the ancient rationale
behind cannabis and how they understood the plant's properties and
effects, as well as its different applications. For the first time
ever, this book provides a sourcebook with the original ancient
Greek and Latin, along with translations, of all references to
psychoactive cannabis in the Greek and Roman world. It covers the
archaeology of cannabis in the ancient world, including amazing
discoveries from Scythian burial sites, ancient proto-Zoroastrian
fire temples, Bronze Age Chinese burial sites, as well as evidence
in Greece and Rome. Beyond cannabis, Cannabis in the Ancient Greek
and Roman World also explores ancient views on medicine, pharmacy,
and intoxication.
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The Odyssey
(Hardcover)
Barry B. Powell
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R952
R836
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Odysseus-soldier, trickster, and everyman-is one of the most
recognizable characters in world literature. His arduous, ten-year
journey home after the Trojan War, the subject of Homer's The
Odyssey, is the most accessible tale to survive from ancient
Greece, and its impact is still felt today across many different
cultures. Barry Powell's free verse translation preserves the
clarity and simplicity of the original while conveying Odysseus'
adventures in an energetic, modern idiom. By avoiding the stylistic
formality of earlier translations, and the colloquial and sometimes
exaggerated effects of recent attempts, his translation deftly
captures the most essential truths of this vital text. Due to his
thorough familiarity with the world of Homer and Homeric language,
Powell's introduction provides rich historical and literary
perspectives on the poem. This translation also includes
illustrations from classical artwork, detailed maps, explanatory
notes, a timeline, and a glossary. Modern and pleasing to the ear
while accurately reflecting the meaning of the Greek, this Odyssey
steers a middle path between the most well-known translations and
adds something truly unique and contemporary to the canon.
The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche
Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old
Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms
in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring
cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world. BZAW
welcomes submissions that make an original and significant
contribution to the field; demonstrate sophisticated engagement
with the relevant secondary literature; and are written in
readable, logical, and engaging prose.
A philosopher, mathematician, and martyr, Hypatia is one of
antiquity's best-known female intellectuals. For the sixteen
centuries following her murder by a mob of Christians Hypatia has
been remembered in books, poems, plays, paintings, and films as a
victim of religious intolerance whose death symbolized the end of
the Classical world. But Hypatia was a person before she was a
symbol. Her great skill in mathematics and philosophy redefined the
intellectual life of her home city of Alexandria. Her talent as a
teacher enabled her to assemble a circle of dedicated male
students. Her devotion to public service made her a force for peace
and good government in a city that struggled to maintain trust and
cooperation between pagans and Christians. Despite these successes,
Hypatia fought countless small battles to live the public and
intellectual life that she wanted. This book rediscovers the life
Hypatia led, the unique challenges she faced as a woman who
succeeded spectacularly in a man's world, and the tragic story of
the events that led to her murder.
This is the second of three volumes, first published in 1906, which
explore the Egyptian theology of the afterlife. It contains the
complete hieroglyphic text of the short form of the Am-Tuat and of
the Book of Gates, with translations and reproductions of all the
illustrations. In the Book of Gates the doctrines of the
sophisticated cult of Osiris are prominent: they affirm that the
beatified live for ever in the kingdom of Osiris, and feed daily
upon his eternal body. The object of all the Books of the Other
World was to provide the dead with a 'guide' or 'handbook,'
containing a description of the regions through which their souls
would have to pass on their way to the Kingdom of Osiris, and which
would supply them with the words of power and magical names
necessary for an unimpeded journey from this world to the next.
AUFSTIEG UND NIEDERGANG DER ROEMISCHEN WELT (ANRW) is a work of
international cooperation in the field of historical scholarship.
Its aim is to present all important aspects of the ancient Roman
world, as well as its legacy and continued influence in medieval
and modern times. Subjects are dealt with in individual articles
written in the light of present day research. The work is divided
into three parts: I. From the Origins of Rome to the End of the
Republic II. The Principate III. Late Antiquity Each part consists
of six systematic sections, which occasionally overlap: 1.
Political History, 2. Law, 3. Religion, 4. Language and Literature,
5. Philosophy and the Sciences, 6. The Arts. ANRW is organized as a
handbook. It is a survey of Roman Studies in the broadest sense,
and includes the history of the reception and influence of Roman
Culture up to the present time. The individual contributions are,
depending on the nature of the subject, either concise
presentations with bibliography, problem and research reports, or
representative investigations covering broad areas of subjects.
Approximately one thousand scholars from thirty-five nations are
collaborating on this work. The articles appear in German, English,
French or Italian. As a work for study and reference, ANRW is an
indispensable tool for research and academic teaching in the
following disciplines: Ancient, Medieval and Modern History;
Byzantine and Slavonic Studies; Classical, Medieval Latin Romance
and Oriental Philology; Classical, Oriental and Christian
Archaeology and History of Art; Legal Studies; Religion and
Theology, especially Church History and Patristics. In preparation:
Part II, Vol. 26,4: Religion - Vorkonstantinisches Christentum:
Neues Testament - Sachthemen, Fortsetzung Part II, Vol. 37,4:
Wissenschaften: Medizin und Biologie, Fortsetzung. For further
information about the project and to view the table of contents of
earlier volumes please visit http://www.bu.edu/ict/anrw/index.html
To search key words in the table of contents of all published
volumes please refer to the search engine at
http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/biblio/anrw.html
'It will be read and re-read not as a treatise but as a story: one
of the most extraordinary that has ever been written of the origins
of Western self-consciousness' Simon Schama The marriage of Cadmus
and Harmony was the last time the gods of Olympus feasted alongside
mortals. What happened in the distant ages preceding it, and in the
generations that followed, form the timeless tales of ancient Greek
mythology. In this masterful retelling of the myths we think we
know, Roberto Calasso illuminates the deepest questions of our
existence. 'The kind of book one comes across only once or twice in
one's lifetime' Joseph Brodsky 'A perfect work like no other' Gore
Vidal
Pindar and the Cult of Heroes combines a study of Greek culture and
religion (hero cult) with a literary-critical study of Pindar's
epinician poetry. It looks at hero cult generally, but focuses
especially on heroization in the 5th century BC. There are
individual chapters on the heroization of war dead, of athletes,
and on the religious treatment of the living in the 5th century.
Hero cult, Bruno Currie argues, could be anticipated, in different
ways, in a person's lifetime. Epinician poetry too should be
interpreted in the light of this cultural context; fundamentally,
this genre explores the patron's religious status. The book
features extensive studies of Pindar's Pythians 2, 3, 5, Isthmian
7, and Nemean 7.
Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia on Cyprus from 367 to 403 CE, was
incredibly influential in the last decades of the fourth century.
Whereas his major surviving text-the Panarion, an encyclopedia of
heresies-is studied for lost sources, Epiphanius himself is often
dismissed as an anti-intellectual eccentric, a marginal figure of
late antiquity. In this book, Andrew S. Jacobs moves Epiphanius
from the margin back toward the center and proposes we view major
cultural themes of late antiquity in a new light altogether.
Through an examination of the key cultural concepts of celebrity,
conversion, discipline, scripture, and salvation, Jacobs shifts our
understanding of late antiquity from a transformational period open
to new ideas and peoples toward a Christian Empire that posited a
troubling, but ever-present, otherness at the center of its
cultural production.
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Grimoire
(Paperback)
Robin Robertson
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R335
R303
Discovery Miles 3 030
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Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2020 From the author of The
Long Take, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of both the
Walter Scott Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize. 'I've long admired
Robin Robertson's narrative gift . . . If you love stories, you
will love this book.' Val McDermid Like some lost chapters from the
Celtic folk tradition, Grimoire tells stories of ordinary people
caught up, suddenly, in the extraordinary: tales of violence,
madness and retribution, of second sight, witches, ghosts, selkies,
changelings and doubles, all bound within a larger mythology,
narrated by a doomed shape-changer - a man, beast or god. A
grimoire is a manual for invoking spirits. Here, Robin Robertson
and his brother Tim Robertson - whose accompanying images are as
unforgettable as cave-paintings - raise strange new forms which
speak not only of the potency of our myths and superstitions, but
how they were used to balance and explain the world and its
predicaments. From one of our most powerful lyric poets, this is a
book of curses and visions, gifts both desired and unwelcome,
characters on the cusp of their transformation - whether women
seeking revenge or saving their broken children, or men trying to
save themselves. Haunting and elemental, Grimoire is full of the
same charged beauty as the Scottish landscape - a beauty that can
switch, with a mere change in the weather, to hostility and terror.
A full-length study and new translation of the great Sanskrit poet
Kalidasa's famed Meghaduta (literally "The Cloud Messenger,") The
Cloud of Longing focuses on the poem's interfacing of nature,
feeling, figuration, and mythic memory. This work is unique in its
attention given to the natural world in light of the nexus of
language and love that is the chief characteristic (lakshana) of
the poem. Along with a scrupulous study of the approximately 111
verses of the poem, The Cloud of Longing offers an extended look at
how nature was envisioned by classical India's supreme poet as he
portrays a cloud's imagined voyage over the fields, valleys,
rivers, mountains, and towns of classical India. This sustained,
close reading of the Meghaduta will speak to contemporary readers
as well as to those committed to developing a more in-depth
experience of the natural world. The Cloud of Longing fills a gap
in the translation of classical Indian texts, as well as in studies
of world literature, religion, and into an emerging integrative
environmental discipline.
How did Christians in Classical Antiquity view history? How did
they apply and modify traditional biblical options - for example
the view of the apocalypse or salvation - in their interpretation
of contemporary times? What role did the "Imperial Crisis" in the
3rd century and the changes in the 4th century play for the
Christian's interpretation of history? Did Eusebius of Caesarea,
the first Christian historian, merely write a "collection of
materials" or was he guided by contemporary standards of academic
historiography?This study provides answers to these questions and
to other controversial issues in the discussion of Christian
historiography in Classical Antiquity.
Just as we speak of "dead" languages, we say that religions "die
out." Yet sometimes, people try to revive them, today more than
ever. New Antiquities addresses this phenomenon through critical
examination of how individuals and groups appeal to,
reconceptualize, and reinvent the religious world of the ancient
Mediterranean as they attempt to legitimize developments in
contemporary religious culture and associated activity. Drawing
from the disciplines of religious studies, archaeology, history,
philology, and anthropology, New Antiquities explores a diversity
of cultic and geographic milieus, ranging from Goddess Spirituality
to Neo-Gnosticism, from rural Oregon to the former Yugoslavia. As a
survey of the reception of ancient religious works, figures, and
ideas in later twentieth-century and contemporary alternative
religious practice, New Antiquities will interest classicists,
Egyptologists, and historians of religion of many stripes,
particularly those focused on modern Theosophy, Gnosticism,
Neopaganism, New Religious Movements, Magick, and Occulture. The
book is written in a lively and engaging style that will appeal to
professional scholars and advanced undergraduates as well as lay
scholars.
In this beautifully illustrated gift edition, you'll discover more
than 240 mythological tales from around the world, featuring gods,
heroes, princesses, villains, magicians and monsters, as well as
animals with extraordinary powers. Let this collection guide you
through stories from every corner of the globe, from ancient Egypt,
Greece and Rome through the Vikings to the Slavic East, Japan and
China and the Americas. Each culture is rich in folklore and
magical tales, and this book offers a fascinating introduction to
them all. This is a radical collection of stories, filled with
voltage. Whether ninety or nine, there's something in these tales
that wants to speak directly to you. From tales of creation and the
first humans to apocalyptic battles at the end of time, explore the
most thrilling tales in all mythology: thunder god Thor losing his
hammer, Theseus callously abandoning Ariadne after defeating the
Minotaur, Hindu god Shiva destroying his rival Kama with a blast of
flame, Egyptian goddess Isis forcing the sun god to reveal his name
... and much more.
A Companion to Greek Mythology presents a series of essays that
explore the phenomenon of Greek myth from its origins in shared
Indo-European story patterns and the Greeks contacts with their
Eastern Mediterranean neighbours through its development as a
shared language and thought-system for the Greco-Roman world. *
Features essays from a prestigious international team of literary
experts * Includes coverage of Greek myth s intersection with
history, philosophy and religion * Introduces readers to topics in
mythology that are often inaccessible to non-specialists *
Addresses the Hellenistic and Roman periods as well as Archaic and
Classical Greece
In 1902 Steiner wrote Christianity as Mystical Fact and the
Mysteries of Antiquity, showing the evolutionary development from
the ancient mysteries, through the great Greek philosophers, to the
events portrayed in the gospels. Steiner saw the Christ event as
the turning point in the world's spiritual history -- an
incarnation whose significance he saw as transcending all
religions. Charles Kovacs brings his deep knowledge of esoteric
writings, mythology and Steiner's lectures to give more background
and to show how the way for Christianity was prepared in the
ancient pre-Christian mysteries of Egypt and Greece. He discusses
the symbolic and real events of the gospels, as well as looking at
some of the understandings and disputes of the early Christians.
The book is illustrated with Kovacs' own colour paintings.
Since the first edition of "Approaches to Greek Myth" was
published in 1990, interest in Greek mythology has surged. There
was no simple agreement on the subject of "myth" in classical
antiquity, and there remains none today. Is myth a narrative or a
performance? Can myth be separated from its context? What did myths
mean to ancient Greeks and what do they mean today?
Here, Lowell Edmunds brings together practitioners of eight of
the most important contemporary approaches to the subject. Whether
exploring myth from a historical, comparative, or theoretical
perspective, each contributor lucidly describes a particular
approach, applies it to one or more myths, and reflects on what the
approach yields that others do not. Edmunds's new general and
chapter-level introductions recontextualize these essays and also
touch on recent developments in scholarship in the interpretation
of Greek myth.
Contributors are Jordi Pamias, on the reception of Greek myth
through history; H. S. Versnel, on the intersections of myth and
ritual; Carolina Lopez-Ruiz, on the near Eastern contexts; Joseph
Falaky Nagy, on Indo-European structure in Greek myth; William
Hansen, on myth and folklore; Claude Calame, on the application of
semiotic theory of narrative; Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, on
reading visual sources such as vase paintings; and Robert A. Segal,
on psychoanalytic interpretations.
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