This book explores a seminal topic concerning the Mesoamerican past: the religious festivals that took place during the eighteen periods of twenty days, or veintenas, into which the solar year was divided. Pre-Columbian societies celebrated these festivals through complex rituals, involving the priests and gods themselves, embodied in diverse beings and artifacts. Specific sectors of society also participated in the festivals, while city inhabitants usually attended public ceremonies. As a consequence, this ritual cycle played a significant role in Mesoamerican religious life; at the same time, it informs us about social relations in pre-Columbian societies. Both religious and social aspects of the solar cycle festivals are tackled in the twelve contributions in this book, which aims to address the entire veintena sequence and as much of the territory and history of Mesoamerica as possible. Specifically, the book revisits long-standing discussions of the solar cycle festivals, but also explores these religious practices in original ways, in particular through investigating understudied rituals and offering new interpretations of rites that have previously been extensively analyzed. Other chapters consider the entire veintena sequence through the prism of specific topics, providing multiple though often complementary analyses. As a consequence, this book will attract the attention of scholars and graduate students with interests in Mesoamerica and early Latin America, as well as ethnohistory, cultural history, history of religions, art history, archaeology and anthropology.

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths explores and compares the most influential sets of divine myths in Western culture: the Homeric pantheon and Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Heath argues that not only does the God of the Old Testament bear a striking resemblance to the Olympians, but also that the Homeric system rejected by the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a better model for the human condition. The universe depicted by Homer and populated by his gods is one that creates a unique and powerful responsibility - almost directly counter to that evoked by the Bible-for humans to discover ethical norms, accept death as a necessary human limit, develop compassion to mitigate a tragic existence, appreciate frankly both the glory and dangers of sex, and embrace and respond courageously to an indifferent universe that was clearly not designed for human dominion. Heath builds on recent work in biblical and classical studies to examine the contemporary value of mythical deities. Judeo-Christian theologians over the millennia have tried to explain away Yahweh's Olympian nature while dismissing the Homeric deities for the same reason Greek philosophers abandoned them: they don't live up to preconceptions of what a deity should be. In particular, the Homeric gods are disappointingly plural, anthropomorphic, and amoral (at best). But Heath argues that Homer's polytheistic apparatus challenges us to live meaningfully without any help from the divine. In other words, to live well in Homer's tragic world - an insight gleaned by Achilles, the hero of the Iliad - one must live as if there were no gods at all. The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths should change the conversation academics in classics, biblical studies, theology and philosophy have - especially between disciplines - about the gods of early Greek epic, while reframing on a more popular level the discussion of the role of ancient myth in shaping a thoughtful life.

Breaking box office records around the globe, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has achieved an unparalleled level of success and gripped the imaginations of fans across the world, raising the films to a higher level of narrative: myth. Using the field of religious studies, this is the first book to analyze the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a modern myth, comparing it to epics, symbols, rituals, and stories from multiple world religious traditions. By exploring how the characters and events of the MCU resemble religious themes and ancient mythic stories, this book places the exploits of Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, and the other stars of the Marvel films, alongside the legends of Achilles, Gilgamesh, Arjuna, the Buddha, and many others. It examines their origin stories and rites of passage, the monsters, shadow-selves, and familial conflicts they contend with, and the symbols of death and the battle against it that stalk them at every turn. As a result, we can appreciate how the films deal with timeless human dilemmas and questions, evoking an enduring sense of adventure and wonder common across world mythic traditions.

This book examines the ways in which lived religion in Roman Italy involved personal and communal experiences of the religious agency generated when ritualised activities caused human and more-than-human things to become bundled together into relational assemblages. Drawing upon broadly posthumanist and new materialist theories concerning the thingliness of things, it sets out to re-evaluate the role of the material world within Roman religion and to offer new perspectives on the formation of multi-scalar forms of ancient religious knowledge. It explores what happens when a materially informed approach is systematically applied to the investigation of typical questions about Roman religion such as: What did Romans understand 'religion' to mean? What did religious experiences allow people to understand about the material world and their own place within it? How were experiences of ritual connected with shared beliefs or concepts about the relationship between the mortal and divine worlds? How was divinity constructed and perceived? To answer these questions, it gathers and evaluates archaeological evidence associated with a series of case studies. Each of these focuses on a key component of the ritualised assemblages shown to have produced Roman religious agency - place, objects, bodies, and divinity - and centres on an examination of experiences of lived religion as it related to the contexts of monumentalised sanctuaries, cult instruments used in public sacrifice, anatomical votive offerings, cult images and the qualities of divinity, and magic as a situationally specific form of religious knowledge. By breaking down and then reconstructing the ritualised assemblages that generated and sustained Roman religion, this book makes the case for adopting a material approach to the study of ancient lived religion.

Channel the power and use the magic of more than 50 Celtic goddesses. The Celtic goddesses and druids were legendary beings. Now these heavenly spirits have personal relationships with us in everything we do. All females are divinely attuned to goddesses from birth for guidance and protection through life until death. Working by divine plan, goddesses imbue us with their ancient wisdom, which becomes our own, helping us to avoid pitfalls and reach our full potential. Celtic Goddesses and Their Spells features 52 of these inspiring deities, all beautifully illustrated. Gillian Kemp gives a description of each goddess and her main powers, followed by a spell associated with that goddess. For example, Cerridwen is the goddess of truth and she encourages you to be your most authentic self, while Awen, goddess of inspiration, helps you find the answers you need.

The resonant ruins of Pompeii are perhaps the most direct route back to the living, breathing world of the ancient Romans. Two million visitors annually now walk the paved streets which re-emerged, miraculously preserved, from their layers of volcanic ash. Yet for all the fame and unique importance of the site, there is a surprising lack of a handy archaeological guide in English to reveal and explain its public spaces and private residences. This compact and user-friendly handbook, written by an expert in the field, helpfully fills that gap. Illustrated throughout with maps, plans, diagrams and other images, Pompeii: An Archaeological Guide offers a general introduction to the doomed city followed by an authoritative summary and survey of the buildings, artefacts and paintings themselves. The result is an unrivalled picture, derived from an intimate knowledge of Roman archaeology around the Bay of Naples, of the forum, temples, brothels, bath-houses, bakeries, gymnasia, amphitheatre, necropolis and other site buildings - including perennial favourites like the House of the Faun, named after its celebrated dancing satyr.

THE FIRST ADULT NOVEL BY THE CARNEGIE PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR OF JUNK 'A spirited retelling... witty and insightful.' i PAPER 'His prose is electrical, crackling with a mischievous charge.' BUZZ MAGAZINE 'Told with wit [and] verve... it's a book that exerts a curious charm.' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Burgess recounts Loki's genius . . . with great gusto, pulling together many tales into one sometimes beautifully lyrical masterwork.' SFX MAGAZINE 'a mischievous, unpredictable and clever book that breathes new life into an already fascinating character and godly race.' CULTUREFLY Step into the ancient fir-tree forests of Scandinavia and bear witness to legends as epic as those of the Greeks and the Romans. Melvin Burgess revolutionised children's literature with the infamous cult novels Junk and Doing It. In his first adult novel, Loki, he breathes new life into Norse myths. Starting with the Norse creation myths, the trickster god Loki takes the reader on a wild ride through Norse mythology, from the time the gods - the founders of Asgard - defeated races of monsters, and hurtling through famous stories, including Odin hanging himself on the World Tree, the theft of the corrupting gold ring and the murder of Baldr, the god of love and the Sun. This narrative may seem familiar enough at first, but the reader should beware. Born within the heart of a fire in the hollow of a tree-trunk, Loki arrives in Asgard as an outsider. He is a trickster, an unreliable narrator, the god of intelligence and politics. In spite of his cleverness and sparkling wit (or, perhaps, because of this...) Loki struggles to find his place among the old patriarchal gods of supernatural power and is constantly at odds with the god of thunder - Thor. Alongside the politics of Asgard, it charts the course of Loki's many loves and families, from his mothering of Odin's famous horse to his intense, turbulent, and, eventually, fatal relationship with Baldr the Beautiful - a tender and moving story of love that goes wrong, jealousy and a transitioning that is forbidden by society. This is a retelling that is contemporary in tone, at once amusing and relatable. It is a heartfelt plea to overthrow the old gods of power and authority and instigate a new era ruled by love and intelligence.

Historians often regard the police as a modern development, and indeed, many pre-modern societies had no such institution. Most recent scholarship has claimed that Roman society relied on kinship networks or community self-regulation as a means of conflict resolution and social control. This model, according to Christopher Fuhrmann, fails to properly account for the imperial-era evidence, which argues in fact for an expansion of state-sponsored policing activities in the first three centuries of the Common Era. Drawing on a wide variety of source material--from art, archaeology, administrative documents, Egyptian papyri, laws, Jewish and Christian religious texts, and ancient narratives--Policing the Roman Empire provides a comprehensive overview of Roman imperial policing practices with chapters devoted to fugitive slave hunting, the pivotal role of Augustus, the expansion of policing under his successors, and communities lacking soldier-police that were forced to rely on self-help or civilian police.
Rather than merely cataloguing references to police, this study sets policing in the broader context of Roman attitudes towards power, public order, and administration. Fuhrmann argues that a broad range of groups understood the potential value of police, from the emperors to the peasantry. Years of different police initiatives coalesced into an uneven patchwork of police institutions that were not always coordinated, effective, or upright. But the end result was a new means by which the Roman state--more ambitious than often supposed--could seek to control the lives of its subjects, as in the imperial persecutions of Christians.
The first synoptic analysis of Roman policing in over a hundred years, and the first ever in English, Policing the Roman Empire will be of great interest to scholars and students of classics, history, law, and religion.

Originally published in 1998, Ritual, Identity, and the Mayan Diaspora examines the lives and the continuing ritual traditions of the Mayas in the United States. The book focuses on a predominantly Maya town in rural Florida and shows how members of this ancient Central American civilization use their religious tradition to maintain their ethnic identity in an unfamiliar environment. Bringing together studies of Mesoamerican fiesta or cargo systems, religious ritual and migration studies, this interdisciplinary work describes the religious traditions of indigenous Guatemala, the crisis migration of the 1980s, and the Mayas' daily life in the United States, including Maya women's reflections on their new challenges. The book is unique in its focus on the transfer of the fiesta cycle to the diaspora and its analysis of the behind-the-scenes aspects of ritual. The rise of leadership contested interpretations of ethnic identity, choices about symbolic representation, and maintenance of ties to villages of origin all take place in the context of organizing public ritual events. This book will be of interest to academics of anthropology, history and sociology.

Over seventy-two years ago, beginning on the Vernal Equinox in Glastonbury, Dion Fortune started receiving communications from the Inner Planes concerning the creation of the universe, the evolution of humanity, natural law, the evolution of consciousness, and the nature of the mind. Her written record of this experience forms the basis for The Cosmic Doctrine.

Fortune examines the limbo where Science and Magic interact, where the cosmology of the "Big Bang" and chaos theory run parallel to the evolutionary process. She also illustrates the true nature of Good and Evil, which is generally viewed from an individual's own highly subjective and very personal perspective, and provides further insights into the interaction of the positive and negative polarity within the universal scheme of things. A cryptic warning accompanies these clearly outlined concepts: this book is designed to train the mind rather than inform it. In other words, it is intended to induce in the reader a particular attitude to both the inner and outer world.

Unpublished until 1949, and then only in a privately printed edition, Fortune and her followers considered the material too dangerous for general release. This revised and definitive edition includes original material left out of previous editions and illuminating diagrams by one of Fortune's closest collaborators.

Originally published in 1998, Ritual, Identity, and the Mayan Diaspora examines the lives and the continuing ritual traditions of the Mayas in the United States. The book focuses on a predominantly Maya town in rural Florida and shows how members of this ancient Central American civilization use their religious tradition to maintain their ethnic identity in an unfamiliar environment. Bringing together studies of Mesoamerican fiesta or cargo systems, religious ritual and migration studies, this interdisciplinary work describes the religious traditions of indigenous Guatemala, the crisis migration of the 1980s, and the Mayas' daily life in the United States, including Maya women's reflections on their new challenges. The book is unique in its focus on the transfer of the fiesta cycle to the diaspora and its analysis of the behind-the-scenes aspects of ritual. The rise of leadership contested interpretations of ethnic identity, choices about symbolic representation, and maintenance of ties to villages of origin all take place in the context of organizing public ritual events. This book will be of interest to academics of anthropology, history and sociology.

The history of Roman imperial religion is of fundamental importance to the history of religion in Europe. Emerging from a decade of research, From Jupiter to Christ demonstrates that the decisive change within the Roman imperial period was not a growing number of religions or changes in their ranking and success, but a modification of the idea of 'religion' and a change in the social place of religious practices and beliefs. Religion is shown to be transformed from a medium serving the individual necessities - dealing with human contingencies like sickness, insecurity, and death - and a medium serving the public formation of political identity, into an encompassing system of ways of life, group identities, and political legitimation. Instead of offering an encyclopaedic presentation of religious beliefs, symbols, and practices throughout the period, the volume thematically presents the media that manifested and diffused religion (institutions, texts, and law), and analyses representative cases. It asks how religion changed in processes of diffusion and immigration, how fast (or how slow) practices and institutions were appropriated and modified, and reveals how these changes made Roman religion 'exportable', creating those forms of intellectualisation and enscripturation which made religion an autonomous area, different from other social fields.

Ancient monuments, legends and folklore interpreted to illuminate the realities of prehistoric Irish belief. The myths and legends of prehistoric Ireland have inspired writers through the ages, down to W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney in our own century, but what do we know of the realities of ancient Irish belief? Daithi O hOgain's book approaches the question by studying archaeological remains such as tumuli, stone henges and circular enclosures and analysing the rich materials that have been handed down both in the great cycles of Irish heroic tales and the humblebut significant survivals of modern folklore, for instance the traditions associated with wells and springs. Drawing evidence from these varied sources, he arrives at a balanced picture of a society and its beliefs which have alltoo often been the subject of conjecture and fancy. CONTENTS Pre-Celtic Cultures . Basic Tenets in the Iron Age . The Druids and their Practices . The Teachings of the Druids . The Society of the Gods . The Rites of Sovereignty . The Triumph of Christianity. DAITHI O HOGAIN was Professor of Folklore at University College Dublin.

Theology and Existentialism in Aeschylus revivifies the complex question of fate and freedom in the tragedies of the famous Greek playwright. Starting with Sartre's insights about radical existential freedom, this book shows that Aeschylus is concerned with the ethical ramifications of surrendering our lives to fatalism (gods, curses, inherited guilt) and thoroughly interrogates the plays for their complex insights into theology and human motivation. But can we reconcile the radical freedom of existentialism and the seemingly fatal world of tragedy, where gods and curses and necessities wreak havoc on individual autonomy? If forces beyond our control or comprehension are influencing our lives, what happens to choice? How are we to conceive of ethics in a world studiously indifferent to our choices? In this book, author Ric Rader demonstrates that few understood the importance of these questions better than the tragedians, whose literature dealt with a central theological concern: What is a god? And how does god affect, impinge upon, or even enable human freedom? Perhaps more importantly: If god is dead, is everything possible, or nothing? Tragedy holds the preeminent position with regard to these questions, and Aeschylus, our earliest surviving tragedian, is the best witness to these complex theological issues.

An Ancient Theory of Religion examines a theory of religion put forward by Euhemerus of Messene (late 4th-early 3rd century BCE) in his lost work Sacred Inscription, and shows not only how and why euhemerism came about but also how it was- and still is-used. By studying the utilization of the theory in different periods-from the Graeco-Roman world to Late Antiquity, and from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century-this book explores the reception of the theory in diverse literary works. In so doing, it also unpacks the different adoptions and misrepresentations of Euhemerus's work according to the diverse agendas of the authors and scholars who have employed his theory. In the process, certain questions are raised: What did Euhemerus actually claim? How has his theory of the origins of belief in gods been used? How can modern scholarship approach and interpret his take on religion? When referring to 'euhemerism,' whose version are we employing? An Ancient Theory of Religion assumes no prior knowledge of euhemerism and will be of interest to scholars working in classical reception, religious studies, and early Christian studies.

This volume explores how Pagans negotiate local and global tensions as they craft their identities, both as members of local communities and as cosmopolitan "citizens of the world." Based on cutting edge international case studies from Pagan communities in the United States, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Malta, it considers how modern Pagans negotiate tensions between the particular and universal, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, ethnicity, and world citizenship. The burgeoning of modern Paganisms in recent decades has proceeded alongside growing globalization and human mobility, ubiquitous Internet use, a mounting environmental crisis, the re-valuing of indigenous religions, and new political configurations. Cosmopolitanism and nationalism have both influenced the weaving of unique local Paganisms in diverse contexts. Pagans articulate a strong attachment to local or indigenous traditions and landscapes, constructing paths that reflect local socio-cultural, political, and historical realities. However, they draw on the Internet and the global circulation of people and universal ideas. This collection considers how they confound these binaries in fascinating, complex ways as members of local communities and global networks.

Often ignored, misunderstood, or compared with Christian belief in a haphazard or inconsistent manner, the Mysteries of the Graeco-Roman world, when handled carefully and consistently, can aid in elucidating the context of New Testament texts. By closely examining the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Mysteries of Isis, and particularly their promises of a pleasant afterlife in Hades for those initiated into the cults, this work offers insight into difficult interpretational issues in First Corinthians 15. The work proceeds from a methodological commitment to understanding the Mysteries in their own right and without an overlay of Christian belief. The book includes a broad overview of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Mysteries of Isis and their place in Graeco-Roman culture, taking a deep and careful dive into conceptions of the afterlife in these cults. In each instance available historical data is considered, from works of mythology to dramas to archeological fragments, all with a focus on afterlife beliefs. With an ultimate goal to better understand Paul's writing in First Corinthians 15, the study includes an overview of Corinthian society and a particular examination of the available evidence concerning the impact of the Mysteries on Corinthians' expectation of the afterlife. Having considered the Mysteries independently, the work turns to First Corinthians 15 with a brief exegetical overview before drawing careful comparisons between Paul's teaching and the afterlife beliefs of the Mysteries. The book concludes with suggestions for interpretational issues on Paul's teaching in first Corinthians 15 regarding death and resurrection and baptism for the dead.

Jon D. Mikalson examines how Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers described, interpreted, criticized, and utilized the components and concepts of the religion of the people of their time - practices such as sacrifice, prayer, dedications, and divination. The chief concepts involved are those of piety and impiety, and after a thorough analysis of the philosophical texts Mikalson offers a refined definition of Greek piety, dividing it into its two constituent elements of proper respect' for the gods and religious correctness'. He concludes with a demonstration of the benevolence of the gods in the philosophical tradition, linking it to the expectation of that benevolence evinced by popular religion.

Salvation is often thought to be an all-or-nothing matter: you are either saved or damned. In the ancient world some figures, including Paul the Apostle, John of Patmos, Hermas, the Sethians, and the Valentinians, did not think this way, however. For them, there were multiple levels of salvation. Examining the reasons and implications for why these important thinkers believed that salvation comes in degrees, Heavenly Stories offers a fresh perspective on ancient thinking about responsibility, especially as it intersects with concerns such as genealogy and determinism. It shows why Jews and Christians of various kinds-some eventually declared orthodox, others heretical-correlated ethics and soteriology and argued over how this should be done. By constructing a difference between a lower and higher level of salvation, ancient authors devised soteriological hierarchies that could account for ethical imperfections and social differentiation between their communities and outsiders, as well as reinforce idealized portrayals of conduct among members of their own groups. Alexander Kocar asks how these thinkers identified and described these ethical and social differences among people; what commitments motivated them to make such distinctions; what were the social effects of different salvific categories and ethical standards; and what impact did hierarchically structured soteriologies have on notions of ethical responsibility? His findings have repercussions for the study of ancient ethics (especially free will and responsibility), our understanding of orthodoxy and heresy, and scholarly debates surrounding the origins of Christianity as a movement that allegedly transcends ethnic boundaries.

A twenty-two acre strip of land-known as Puvungna-lies at the edge of California State University's Long Beach campus. The land, indisputably owned by California, is also sacred to several Native American tribes. And these twenty-two acres have been the nexus for an acrimonious and costly conflict over control of the land. Of Sacred Lands and Strip Malls tells the story of Puvungna, from the region's deep history, through years of struggle between activists and campus administration, and ongoing reverberations from the conflict. As Loewe makes clear, this is a case study with implications beyond a single controversy; at stake in the legal battle is the constitutionality of state codes meant to protect sacred sites from commercial development, and the right of individuals to participate in public hearings. The case also raises questions about the nature of contract archaeology, applied anthropology, and the relative status of ethnography and ethnohistorical research. It is a compelling snapshot of issues surrounding contemporary Native American landscapes.

The issue of the other has always been an urgent one, especially since 1980's, when the political debates over race, gender, class, culture, ethnicity, and post-colonialism took the central stage. The Riddling between Oedipus and the Sphinx, Ontology, Hauntology, and Heterologies of the Grotesque probes the polemic status of the other and the dubious nature of the subject from a heterodox perspective of an emblematic grotesque figure, the Sphinx-the mystical trickster and the guardian of sacred knowledge in Egyptian culture. In Greek mythology, Oedipus, the epitome of Western logos, solved the Sphinx's riddle with a single word, "Man." This evocation for the phantom of a solipsistic subject discloses, in effect, Oedipus' latent grotesque disparity. The book explores the encounter of this unlikely pair to inquire the riddling relationship between the singular subject and the grotesque other in the context of modern discourses of the subject and postmodern theories of the other.