Download or read book Talismans and Trojan Horses written by Christopher A. Faraone and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greek legends and historical accounts contain many references to special statues or images designed to preserve the safety or livelihood of a city, a business or a house. These images, which fall into two often overlapping categories (talismans and apotropaia), were erected according to special rituals and took on a variety of intriguing forms, including lions, locusts, and bound effigies of destructive deities like Ares. Looking closely at a wide variety of Greek texts and artifacts, Faraone provides a detailed description and survey of these images and then uses this information to provide new interpretations of early Greek myths about Pandora, the Trojan Horse, and the "living statues" created by Hephaestus. At each step he sets the Greek evidence in a wider eastern-Mediterranean context, with detailed discussions of Near Eastern and Egyptian practices that bear close resemblance to the Greek rituals. The study closes with a re-evaluation of the traditional scholarly approach to religious art as purely representational, suggesting that some images instead of simply illustrating the power of a god, were actually created to restrain and control the power of inimical supernatural forces such as plague-gods and ghosts. Focusing renewed attention on these often misinterpreted talismans and apotropaia, Talismans and Trojan Horses will be illuminating for scholars and students of classics, art and archaeology, religion, the Ancient Near East, the Bible, and mythology.
Download or read book Talismans and Trojan Horses written by Christopher A. Faraone and published by . This book was released on with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Trojan Horse and Other Stories written by Julia Kindt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-11 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does the non-human help define the human? This powerful exploration of ten mythical creatures reveals who we really are.
Download or read book Household and Family Religion in Antiquity written by John Bodel and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-02-15 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian antiquity. Advances our understanding of household and familial religion, as opposed to state-sponsored or civic temple cults Reconstructs domestic and family religious practices in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia Explores many household rituals, such as providing for ancestral spirits, and petitioning of a household's patron deities or of spirits associated with the house itself Examines lifecycle rituals – from pregnancy and birth to maturity, old age, death, and beyond Looks at religious practices relating to the household both within the home itself and other spaces, such as at extramural tombs and local sanctuaries
Download or read book Witchcraft and Magic in Europe written by Valerie Irene Jane Flint and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1999 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The High Magic of Talismans and Amulets written by Claude Lecouteux and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive study of the use of talismans and amulets in the Western Mystery Tradition • Provides an in-depth look at the medieval and Renaissance use of amulets and talismans, including the work of Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Athanasius Kircher • Provides a full summary of the magical knowledge required to make an amulet or talisman, including the invocations required to activate their powers • Reviews different kinds of amulets and talismans, from ancient jewelry and magical objects to the modern rabbit’s foot or lucky horseshoe The use of talismans and amulets stretches back nearly to the dawn of man, from everyday items magically prepared, such as horns or coins, to intricate and beautiful jewelry imbued with protective powers. Drawing on his private collection of medieval manuscripts as well as his privileged access to the rare book archives of major European universities, Claude Lecouteux provides a comprehensive history of the use of talismans and amulets for protection, healing, and divine influence. He explores their use in the Western Mystery Tradition as well as Eastern and Middle Eastern beliefs about these magical objects and their incorporation--despite Church anathema--into the Christian tradition of Medieval Europe. Reviewing many different kinds of amulets and talismans used throughout the ages, such as a rabbit’s foot, horseshoe, gris-gris bag, or an inscribed parchment charged through ritual, he details the principles and symbology behind each object and shows that their use is still as widespread today as any time in the past. Lecouteux explains the high magic behind the hermetic art of crafting amulets and talismans: the chains of sympathy, astrological geography, and the invocations required to activate their powers. He explores the work of adepts such as Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Athanasius Kircher, including an in-depth look at Kircher’s work on planetary seals in his Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Illustrated throughout with period art depicting magical symbols, seals, and a wide array of talismans and amulets, this comprehensive study provides a practical guide to the historical development and step-by-step creation of magical objects.
Download or read book Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic written by David Frankfurter and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume seeks to advance the study of ancient magic through separate discussions of ancient terms for ambiguous or illicit ritual, the ancient texts commonly designated magical, and contexts in which the term magic may be used descriptively.
Download or read book Textual Amulets from Antiquity to Early Modern Times written by Christoffer Theis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-20 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparing amulets over time and space, this volume focuses on the function of written words on these fascinating artefacts. Ranging from Roman Egypt to the Middle Ages and the Modern period, this book provides an overview on these artefacts in the Mediterranean world and beyond, including Europe, Iran, and Turkey. A deep analysis of the textuality of amulets provides comparative information on themes and structures of the religious traditions examined. A strong emphasis is placed on the material features of the amulets and their connections to ritual purposes. The textual content, as well as other characteristics, is examined systematically, in order to establish patterns of influence and diffusion. The question of production, which includes the relationships that linked professional magicians, artists and craftsmen to their clientele, is also discussed, as well as the sacred and cultural economies involved.
Download or read book Restless Dead written by Sarah Iles Johnston and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-08-02 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the archaic and classical periods, Greek ideas about the dead evolved in response to changing social and cultural conditions—most notably changes associated with the development of the polis, such as funerary legislation, and changes due to increased contacts with cultures of the ancient Near East. In Restless Dead, Sarah Iles Johnston presents and interprets these changes, using them to build a complex picture of the way in which the society of the dead reflected that of the living, expressing and defusing its tensions, reiterating its values and eventually becoming a source of significant power for those who knew how to control it. She draws on both well-known sources, such as Athenian tragedies, and newer texts, such as the Derveni Papyrus and a recently published lex sacra from Selinous. Topics of focus include the origin of the goes (the ritual practitioner who made interaction with the dead his specialty), the threat to the living presented by the ghosts of those who died dishonorably or prematurely, the development of Hecate into a mistress of ghosts and its connection to female rites of transition, and the complex nature of the Erinyes. Restless Dead culminates with a new reading of Aeschylus' Oresteia that emphasizes how Athenian myth and cult manipulated ideas about the dead to serve political and social ends.
Download or read book The Trojan War written by Barry Strauss and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-08-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on archaeological research, an expert account of the famous historical battle confirms many details recounted in Homer's epic account, from Troy's alliance with the Hittite Empire to the significant fire at the end of the twelfth century and facts
Download or read book Homer written by Jonathan S. Burgess and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What reader could fail to be enthralled by the Iliad and the Odyssey, those greatest heroic epics of antiquity? Yet the author of those immortal text remains, in the end, an enigma. The central paradox of 'Homer' is that- while recognized as producing poetry of incomparable genius- even in the ancien world nobody knew who he was. As a result, the myth-maker became the subject of myth. For the satirist Lucian (c.125-180 CE) he ws a captive Babylonian. Other traditions have Homer born in Smyrna, or on the island of Chios, or portray him as a blind and wandering minstrel. In his new and authoritative introduction, Jonathan S. Burgess addresses fundamental questions of provenance and authorship. Besides conveying why these epics have been cherished down the ages, he discusses their historical sources and the possible impact on the Iliad and Odyssey of Indo-European, Near Eastern and folktale influences. Tracing their transmission through the ancient, medieval and modern periods, the author further examines questions of theory and reception.
Download or read book Anatomy of a Robot written by Despina Kakoudaki and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we find artificial people fascinating? Drawing from a rich fictional and cinematic tradition, Anatomy of a Robot explores the political and textual implications of our perennial projections of humanity onto figures such as robots, androids, cyborgs, and automata. In an engaging, sophisticated, and accessible presentation, Despina Kakoudaki argues that, in their narrative and cultural deployment, artificial people demarcate what it means to be human. They perform this function by offering us a non-human version of ourselves as a site of investigation. Artificial people teach us that being human, being a person or a self, is a constant process and often a matter of legal, philosophical, and political struggle. By analyzing a wide range of literary texts and films (including episodes from Twilight Zone, the fiction of Philip K. Dick, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, Metropolis, The Golem, Frankenstein, The Terminator, Iron Man, Blade Runner, and I, Robot), and going back to alchemy and to Aristotle’s Physics and De Anima, she tracks four foundational narrative elements in this centuries-old discourse— the fantasy of the artificial birth, the fantasy of the mechanical body, the tendency to represent artificial people as slaves, and the interpretation of artificiality as an existential trope. What unifies these investigations is the return of all four elements to the question of what constitutes the human. This focused approach to the topic of the artificial, constructed, or mechanical person allows us to reconsider the creation of artificial life. By focusing on their historical provenance and textual versatility, Kakoudaki elucidates artificial people’s main cultural function, which is the political and existential negotiation of what it means to be a person.
Download or read book Reimagining Jerusalem s Architectural Identities in the Later Middle Ages written by Cathleen A. Fleck and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-10-10 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores several fascinating medieval Christian and Islamic artworks that represent and reimagine Jerusalem’s architecture as religious and political instruments to express power, entice visitors, console the devoted, offer spiritual guidance, and convey the city’s mythical history.
Download or read book Tangled Up in Text written by Yehudah Cohn and published by Society of Biblical Lit. This book was released on 2008 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Greek Art in Motion Studies in honour of Sir John Boardman on the occasion of his 90th Birthday written by Rui Morais and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2019-03-11 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 50 papers, first presented at the international congress ‘Greek Art in Motion’ (Lisbon, 2017) in honour of Sir John Boardman’s 90th Birthday, are collected here under the following headings: Sculpture, Architecture, Terracotta & Metal, Greek Pottery, Coins, Greek History & Archaeology, Greeks Overseas, Reception & Collecting, Art & Myth.
Download or read book Secrecy and Concealment written by Hans Kippenberg and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deals with secrecy and concealment in the history of mediterranean religions as pattern of social interaction. Secrecy is a powerful means in establishing identity and interaction as G. Simmel has demonstrated. Using his approach the scholars of this volume describe and explain the practical meaning of concealment in two different religious systems: in Egyptian and Greek polytheism and in Jewish, Christian, Gnostic and Shi'i monotheisms. This point of view reveals that all these religions shaped social norms concerning public and private aspects of the human self.
Download or read book A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World written by Rubina Raja and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-01-09 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive overview of a wide range of topics relating to the practices, expressions, and interactions of religion in antiquity, primarily in the Greco-Roman world. • Features readings that focus on religious experience and expression in the ancient world rather than solely on religious belief • Places a strong emphasis on domestic and individual religious practice • Represents the first time that the concept of “lived religion” is applied to the ancient history of religion and archaeology of religion • Includes cutting-edge data taken from top contemporary researchers and theorists in the field • Examines a large variety of themes and religious traditions across a wide geographical area and chronological span • Written to appeal equally to archaeologists and historians of religion
