Religious beliefs and practices, which permeated all aspects of
life in antiquity, traveled well-worn routes throughout the
Mediterranean: itinerant charismatic practitioners journeying from
place to place peddled their skills as healers, purifiers, cursers,
and initiators; and vessels decorated with illustrations of myths
traveled with them. New gods encountered in foreign lands by
merchants and conquerors were sometimes taken home to be adapted
and adopted. A full understanding of this complex spiritual world
unfolds in Religions of the Ancient World, the first basic
reference work that collects and organizes available information to
offer an expansive, comparative perspective. At once sweeping in
scope and groundbreaking in format, the Guide eschews the usual
encyclopedic approach, instead presenting, side by side, materials
from ten cultures and traditions. Thus specific beliefs, cults,
gods, and ritual practices that arose and developed in
Mediterranean religions--of Egypt, Anatolia and the Near East,
Mesopotamia, Iran, Greece, and the Roman world, from the third
millennium to the fourth century C.E.--are interpreted in
comparison with one another, and with reference to aspects that
crisscross cultural boundaries, such as Cosmology, Myth, Law and
Ethics, and Magic. Written by leading scholars of ancient religion,
the essays in this guide sketch the various religious histories,
raise central theoretical issues, and examine individual topics
such as Sacred Times and Spaces; Prayers, Hymns, Incantations, and
Curses; Sin, Pollution, and Purity; Death, the Afterlife, and Other
Last Things; Divination and Prophecy; Deities and Demons; and
Sacred Texts and Canonicity. Clearly and stylishly written, grandly
illustrated, this comprehensive work welcomes readers as never
before into the diversity and interconnections of religion in the
ancient world.
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