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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Pre-Christian European & Mediterranean religions
In The Sacred Landscape of Dra Abu el-Naga during the New Kingdom,
Angeles Jimenez-Higueras offers the reconstruction of the physical,
religious and cultural landscape of Dra Abu el-Naga south and its
conceptual development from the 18th to the 20th Dynasties
(1550-1069 BC). A wider insight into the Theban necropolis is
provided, including the position played by the Dra Abu el-Naga
cemetery within the Theban funerary context understood as an
inseparable complex of diverse components. For this study, Angeles
Jimenez-Higueras has reconciled textual and archaeological
perspectives with theories relating to Landscape Archaeology, which
efficiently manages to compile and to link
prosopographical-genealogical, archaeological and GIS (Geographical
Information System) data.
The reign of the "heretic pharaoh" Akhenaten-the so-called Amarna
Period-witnessed an unprecedented attack on the cult of Amun, King
of the Gods, with his cult center at ancient Thebes (modern Luxor).
A program to reinstate Amun to pre-eminence in the traditional
pantheon was instituted by Akhenaten's successors Tutankhamun, Ay,
and Horemhab. Damaged reliefs and inscriptions were restored and
new statues of Amun and his consorts Mut and Amunet commissioned to
replace those destroyed under Akhenaten. In this study, over 60
statues and fragments of statues attributable to the post-Amarna
Period on the basis of an inscription, physiognomy, and/or
stylistic analysis are discussed, as well as others that have been
incorrectly assigned to the era.
Canidia is one of the most well-attested witches in Latin
literature. She appears in no fewer than six of Horace's poems,
three of which she has a prominent role in. Throughout Horace's
Epodes and Satires she perpetrates acts of grave desecration,
kidnapping, murder, magical torture and poisoning. She invades the
gardens of Horace's literary patron Maecenas, rips apart a lamb
with her teeth, starves a Roman child to death, and threatens to
unnaturally prolong Horace's life to keep him in a state of
perpetual torment. She can be seen as an anti-muse: Horace
repeatedly sets her in opposition to his literary patron, casts her
as the personification of his iambic poetry, and gives her the
surprising honor of concluding not only his Epodes but also his
second book of Satires. This volume is the first comprehensive
treatment of Canidia. It offers translations of each of the three
poems which feature Canidia as a main character as well as the
relevant portions from the other three poems in which Canidia plays
a minor role. These translations are accompanied by extensive
analysis of Canidia's part in each piece that takes into account
not only the poems' literary contexts but their magico-religious
details.
Knossos is one of the most important sites in the ancient
Mediterranean. It remained amongst the largest settlements on the
island of Crete from the Neolithic until the late Roman times, but
aside from its size it held a place of particular significance in
the mythological imagination of Greece and Rome as the seat of King
Minos, the location of the Labyrinth and the home of the Minotaur.
Sir Arthur Evans’ discovery of ‘the Palace of Minos’ has
indelibly associated Knossos in the modern mind with the ‘lost’
civilisation of Bronze Age Crete. The allure of this ‘lost
civilisation’, together with the considerable achievements of
‘Minoan’ artists and craftspeople, remain a major attraction
both to scholars and to others outside the academic world as a
bastion of a romantic approach to the past. In this volume, James
Whitley provides an up-to-date guide to the site and its function
from the Neolithic until the present day. This study includes a
re-appraisal Bronze Age palatial society, as well as an exploration
of the history of Knossos in the archaeological imagination. In
doing so he takes a critical look at the guiding assumptions of
Evans and others, reconstructing how and why the received view of
this ancient settlement has evolved from the Iron Age up to the
modern era.
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