This book provides a comprehensive overview of Celtic mythology and religion, encompassing numerous aspects of ritual and belief. Topics include the presence of the Celtic Otherworld and its inhabitants, cosmology and sacred cycles, wisdom texts, mythological symbolism, folklore and legends, and an appreciation of the natural world. Evidence is drawn from the archaeology of sacred sites, ethnographic accounts of the ancient Celts and their beliefs, medieval manuscripts, poetic and visionary literature, and early modern accounts of folk healers and seers. New translations of poems, prayers, inscriptions and songs from the early period (Gaulish, Old Irish and Middle Welsh) as well as the folklore tradition (Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton and Manx) complement the text. Information of this kind has never before been collected as a compendium of the indigenous wisdom of the Celtic-speaking peoples, whose traditions have endured in various forms for almost three thousand years.

'Gripping ... A remarkable achievement' TLS On his deathbed in 19 BCE, Vergil asked that his epic, the Aeneid, be burned. If his wishes had been obeyed, western literature - maybe even western civilization - might have taken a different course. The Aeneid has remained a foundational text since the rise of universities, and has been invoked at key points of human history - whether by Saint Augustine to illustrate the fallen nature of the soul, by settlers to justify manifest destiny in North America, or by Mussolini in support of his Fascist regime. In this fresh and fast-paced translation of the Aeneid, Shadi Bartsch brings the poem to the modern reader. Along with the translation, her introduction will guide the reader to a deeper understanding of the epic's enduring influence.

In the winter of 1922-23 archaeologist Howard Carter and his wealthy patron George Herbert, the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, sensationally opened the tomb of Tutenkhamen. Six weeks later Herbert, the sponsor of the expedition, died in Egypt. The popular press went wild with rumours of a curse on those who disturbed the Pharaoh's rest and for years followed every twist and turn of the fate of the men who had been involved in the historic discovery. Long dismissed by Egyptologists, the mummy's curse remains a part of popular supernatural belief. Roger Luckhurst explores why the myth has captured the British imagination across the centuries, and how it has impacted on popular culture. Tutankhamen was not the first curse story to emerge in British popular culture. This book uncovers the 'true' stories of two extraordinary Victorian gentlemen widely believed at the time to have been cursed by the artefacts they brought home from Egypt in the nineteenth century. These are weird and wonderful stories that weave together a cast of famous writers, painters, feted soldiers, lowly smugglers, respected men of science, disreputable society dames, and spooky spiritualists. Focusing on tales of the curse myth, Roger Luckhurst leads us through Victorian museums, international exhibitions, private collections, the battlefields of Egypt and Sudan, and the writings of figures like Arthur Conan Doyle, Rider Haggard and Algernon Blackwood. Written in an open and accessible style, this volume is the product of over ten years research in London's most curious archives. It explores how we became fascinated with Egypt and how this fascination was fuelled by myth, mystery, and rumour. Moreover, it provides a new and startling path through the cultural history of Victorian England and its colonial possessions.

Since Freud published the Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 and utilized Sophocles' Oedipus Rex to work through his developing ideas about the psycho-sexual development of children, it has been virtually impossible to think about psychoanalysis without reference to classical myth. Myth has the capacity to transcend the context of any particular retelling, continuing to transform our understanding of the present. Throughout the twentieth century, experts on the ancient world have turned to the insights of psychoanalytic criticism to supplement and inform their readings of classical myth and literature.
This volume examines the inter-relationship of classical myth and psychoanalysis from the generation before Freud to the present day, engaging with debates about the role of classical myth in modernity, the importance of psychoanalytic ideas for cultural critique, and its ongoing relevance to ways of conceiving the self. The chapters trace the historical roots of terms in everyday usage, such as narcissism and the phallic symbol, in the reception of Classical Greece, and cover a variety of both classical and psychoanalytic texts.

Bringing together the study of the Greek classics and Indology, Arjuna-Odysseus provides a comparative analysis of the shared heritage of the Mahabharata and early Greek traditions presented in the texts of Homer and Hesiod. Building on the ethnographic theories of Durkheim, Mauss, and Dumont, the volume explores the convergences and rapprochements between the Mahabharata and the Greek texts. In exploring the networks of similarities between the two epic traditions, it also reformulates the theory of Georges Dumezil regarding Indo-European cultural comparativism. It includes a detailed comparison between journeys undertaken by the two epic heroes - Odysseus and Arjuna - and more generally, it ranges across the philosophical ideas of these cultures, and the epic traditions, metaphors, and archetypes that define the cultural ideology of ancient Greece and India. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of Indo-European comparativism, social and cultural anthropology, classical literature, Indology, cultural and post-colonial studies, philosophy and religion, as well as to those who love the Indian and Greek epics.

Moving out from a particular problem about a particular Athenian festival, the late Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood investigates central questions concerning Athenian festivals and the myths that underlay them. She studies the role played at festivals by hereditary religious associations, showing how simple actions of undressing, veiling, bathing, and re-dressing a statue created a symbolic drama of abnormality, reversion to primeval time, and renewal for the Athenians. Sourvinou-Inwood also offers a reading of the ever controversial Parthenon frieze. Her book, brought to completion by Robert Parker, displays all the attention to detail and the concern for methodological rigour that have made her an iconic figure among students of Greek religion.

Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible looks at some of the Bible's most hostile and violent anti-foreigner texts and raises critical questions about how students of the Bible and ancient Near East should grapple with "ethnicity" and "foreignness" conceptually, hermeneutically and theologically. The author uses insights from social psychology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, sociology and ethnic studies to develop his own perspective on ethnicity and foreignness. Starting with legends about Mesopotamian kings from the third millennium BCE, then navigating the Deuteronomistic and Holiness traditions of the Hebrew Bible, and finally turning to Deuterocanonicals and the Apostle Paul, the book assesses the diverse and often inconsistent portrayals of foreigners in these ancient texts. This examination of the negative portrayal of foreigners in biblical and Mesopotamian texts also leads to a broader discussion about how to theorize ethnicity in biblical studies, ancient studies and the humanities. This volume will be invaluable to students of ethnicity and society in the Bible, at all levels.

Since the nineteenth-century rediscovery of the Gilgamesh epic, we have known that the Bible imports narratives from outside of Israelite culture, refiguring them for its own audience. Only more recently, however, has come the realization that Greek culture is also a prominent source of biblical narratives. Greek Myth and the Bible argues that classical mythological literature and the biblical texts were composed in a dialogic relationship. Louden examines a variety of Greek myths from a range of sources, analyzing parallels between biblical episodes and Hesiod, Euripides, Argonautic myth, selections from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Homeric epic. This fascinating volume offers a starting point for debate and discussion of these cultural and literary exchanges and adaptations in the wider Mediterranean world and will be an invaluable resource to students of the Hebrew Bible and the influence of Greek myth.

What is a human being according to Augustine of Hippo? This question has occupied a group of researchers from Brazil and Europe and has been explored at two workshops during which the contributors to this volume have discussed anthropological themes in Augustine's vast corpus. In this volume, the reader will find articles on a wide spectrum of Augustine's anthropological ideas. Some contributions focus on specific texts, while others focus on specific theological or philosophical aspects of Augustine's anthropology. The authors of the articles in this volume are convinced that Augustine's anthropology is of major importance for how human beings have been understood in Western civilization for better or for worse. The topic is therefore highly relevant to present times in which humanity is under pressure from various sides.

Economic history is well documented in Assyriology, thanks to the preservation of dozens of thousands of clay tablets recording administrative operations, contracts and acts dealing with family law. Despite these voluminous sources, the topic of work and the contribution of women have rarely been addressed. This book examines occupations involving women over the course of three millennia of Near Eastern history. It presents the various aspects of women as economic agents inside and outside of the family structure. Inside the family, women were the main actors in the production of goods necessary for everyday life. In some instances, their activities exceeded the simple needs of the household and were integrated within the production of large organizations or commercial channels. The contributions presented in this volume are representative enough to address issues in various domains: social, economic, religious, etc., from varied points of view: archaeological, historical, sociological, anthropological, and with a gender perspective. This book will be a useful tool for historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and graduate students interested in the economy of the ancient Near East and in women and gender studies.

This is the first major synthesis of Greek religion to appear for a generation. A clearly structured and readable survey for classical scholars and students, it will also be generally welcomed as the best modern account of any polytheistic religious system. The text builds up an impressive and coherent picture of the current state of knowledge about the religion of the ancient Greeks.

This unique and entertaining travel guide to Greek waters recreates parts of voyages undertaken in myth, anchoring off landmarks or ports associated with ancient legends. It follows the trails of Odysseus, Hercules, and Jason and the Argonauts, as well as visiting the sites where Poseidon lost his trident (off Paxos) and built his temple (on the Saronic Gulf), the cliff where Theseus's father threw himself to his death after fearing his son had been killed by the minotaur, and Troy, the remains of which survive as a reminder of the city that withstood a 10-year siege. With almost 6,000 islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, Greece is a maritime nation like no other - and according to its mythology this has been the case since the days when seafarers believed their fortunes, good or ill, lay in the hands of Poseidon. Sailing through these crystal clear waters today is a voyage into history, whether true or legendary. Retelling all the myths, from the very well-known to the less familiar, In the Wake of the Gods is a cruising companion to be read and enjoyed in its own right. With the author's in depth knowledge of the region, it is also packed with useful and practical pointers for pilotage and passage planning, including information about prevailing winds and anchoring, along with charts and photography.

The study of ancient Greek religion has been excitingly renewed in the last thirty years. Key areas are: religion and politics; archaeological finds; myth and ritual; gender; problems raised by the very notion of 'religion'. This volume contains challenging papers (updated especially for this collection) by some of the most innovative participants in this renewal, and includes an important introductory essay by Richard Buxton.

Dr Dignas asks whether Greek religion really formed a fundamental contrast to modern forms of religion that enjoy or, at least, claim a separation of 'church and state'. With a focus on economic and administrative aspects of sanctuaries in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor she investigates the boundaries between the sacred and the profane in the ancient world and reveals the sanctuaries as entities with independent interests and powers.

With potent, lyrical language and a profound knowledge of storytelling, Shaw encourages and illuminates the mythic in our own lives. He is a modern-day bard. Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles Through feral tales and poetic exegesis, Martin Shaw makes you re-see the world, as a place of adventure and of initiation, as perfect home and as perfectly other. What a gift. David Keenan, author of Xstabeth At a time when we are all confronted by not one, but many crossroads in our modern lives - identity, technology, trust, love, politics and a global pandemic - celebrated mythologist and wilderness guide Martin Shaw delivers Smoke Hole: three metaphors to help us understand our world, one that is assailed by the seductive promises of social media and shadowed by a health crisis that has brought loneliness and isolation to an all-time high. We are losing our sense of direction, our sense of self. We have "networks", not communities. Smoke Hole is a passionate call to arms and an invitation to use these stories to face the complexities of contemporary life, from fake news, parenthood, climate crises, addictive technology and more. Martin asks that we journey together, and let these stories be our allies, that we breathe deeper, feel steadier and become acquainted with rapture. He writes, 'It is not good to be walking through these times without a story or three by your side.' Available now as a podcast! Subscribe to Smoke Hole Sessions to hear amazing conversations between Martin Shaw and some of our most admired writers, actors, comedians, musicians and more, including: Sir Mark Rylance, Tommy Tiernan (Derry Girls), David Keenan (For the Good Times, This is Memorial Device), Jay Griffiths (Wild, Why Rebel), John Densmore (The Doors), Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes), John Mitchinson (QI, Backlisted podcast) and others. Subscribe to Smoke Hole Sessions * On Apple here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/smoke-hole-sessions/id1566369928 * On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2ISKkqLlP1EzAOni9f9gGt?si=lnq8jApxRlGZ2qpLlQaOSg

Roman religion has long presented a number of challenges to historians approaching the subject from a perspective framed by the three Abrahamic religions. The Romans had no sacred text that espoused its creed or offered a portrait of its foundational myth. They described relations with the divine using technical terms widely employed to describe relations with other humans. Indeed, there was not even a word in classical Latin that corresponds to the English word religion. In The Gods, the State, and the Individual, John Scheid confronts these and other challenges directly. If Roman religious practice has long been dismissed as a cynical or naive system of borrowed structures unmarked by any true piety, Scheid contends that this is the result of a misplaced expectation that the basis of religion lies in an individual's personal and revelatory relationship with his or her god. He argues that when viewed in the light of secular history as opposed to Christian theology, Roman religion emerges as a legitimate phenomenon in which rituals, both public and private, enforced a sense of communal, civic, and state identity. Since the 1970s, Scheid has been one of the most influential figures reshaping scholarly understanding of ancient Roman religion. The Gods, the State, and the Individual presents a translation of Scheid's work that chronicles the development of his field-changing scholarship.