Download or read book Magic and Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World written by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores aspects of ancient magic and religion in the ancient Mediterranean, specifically ways in which religious and mythical ideas, including the knowledge and practice of magic, were transmitted and adapted through time and across Greco-Roman, Near Eastern, and Egyptian cultures. Offering an original and innovative combination of case studies on the material aspects and cross-cultural transfers of magic and religion, this book brings together a range of contributions that cross and connect sub-fields with a pan-Mediterranean, comparative scope. Section I investigates the material aspects of magical practices, including first editions and original studies on papyri, gems, lamellae containing binding curses and protective texts, and other textual media in ancient book culture. Several chapters feature the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri, the compilation of magical recipes in the formularies, and the role of physical book-forms in the transmission of magical knowledge. Section II explores magic and religion as nodes of cultural exchange in the ancient Mediterranean. Case studies range from Egypt to Anatolia and from Syria-Phoenicia to Sicily, with Greco-Roman religion and myth integrated in a diverse and interconnected Mediterranean landscape. Readers encounter studies featuring charismatic figures of Magi and itinerant begging priests, the multiple understandings of deities such as Hekate, Herakles, or Aphrodite, or the perceived exotic origin of cult statues, mummies, amulets, and cursing formulae, which bring to light the rich intercultural networks of the ancient Mediterranean, and the crucial role of magic and religion in the process of cross-cultural adaptation and innovation. Magic and Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World appeals to both specialized and non-specialized audiences, with expert contributions written in an accessible way. This is a fascinating resource for students and scholars working on magic, religion, and mythology in the ancient Mediterranean.
Download or read book The Greco Egyptian Magical Formularies written by Christopher Faraone and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-11-14 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Greco-Roman Egypt, recipes for magical undertaking, called magical formularies, commonly existed for love potions, curses, attempts to best business rivals—many of the same challenges that modern people might face. In The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies: Libraries, Books, and Individual Recipes, volume editors Christopher Faraone and Sofia Torallas Tovar present a series of essays by scholars involved in a multiyear project to reedit and translate the various magical handbooks that were inscribed in the Roman period in the Greek or Egyptian languages. For the first time, the material remains of these papyrus rolls and codices are closely examined, revealing important information about the production of books in Egypt, the scribal culture in which they were produced, and the traffic in single recipes copied from them. Especially important for historians of the book and the Christian Bible are new insights in the historical shift from roll to codex, complicated methods of inscribing the bilingual papyri (in which the Greek script is written left to right and the demotic script right to left), and the new realization that several of the longest extant handbooks are clearly compilations of two or more shorter handbooks, which may have come from different places. The essays also reexamine and rethink the idea that these handbooks came from the personal libraries of practicing magicians or temple scriptoria, in one case going so far as to suggest that two of the handbooks had literary pretensions of a sort and were designed to be read for pleasure rather than for quotidian use in making magical recipes.
Download or read book Paul and Asklepios written by Christopher D. Stanley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-08-25 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What role did offers of physical healing (or the hope of receiving it) play in the missionary program of the apostle Paul? What did he do to treat the many illnesses and injuries that he endured while pursuing his mission? What did he advise his followers to do regarding their health problems? Such questions have been broadly neglected in studies of Paul and his churches, but Christopher D. Stanley shows how vital they truly become once we recognize how thoroughly “pagan” religion was implicated in all aspects of Greco-Roman health care. What did Paul approve, and what did he reject? Given Paul's silence on these subjects, Stanley relies on a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach to develop informed judgments about what Paul might have thought, said, and done with regard to his own and his followers' health care. He begins by exploring the nature and extent of sickness in the Roman world and the four overlapping health care systems that were available to Paul and his followers: home remedies, “magical” treatments, religious healing, and medical care. He then examines how Judeans and Christians in the centuries before and after Paul viewed and engaged with these systems. Finally, he speculates on what kinds of treatments Paul might have approved or rejected and whether he might have used promises of healing to attract people to his movement. The result is a thorough and nuanced analysis of a vital dimension of Greco-Roman social life and Paul's place within it.
Download or read book Dire Remedies A Social History of Healthcare in Classical Antiquity written by William V. Harris and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-10-07 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dire Remedies: a Social History of Healthcare in Classical Antiquity is the first wide-ranging social history of ancient healthcare. Greek medicine is at the origin of modern medicine, but it was very often ineffective. What did people actually do when faced with pain and illness? Starting with a review of ancient health conditions and a survey of what doctors had to offer, W.V. Harris describes the multifarious practices and diverse kinds of people to whom Greeks and Romans turned for help. Topics include the possible development of analgesics, ancient ideas about contagion, the history of the god Asclepius and more generally the role of religion and magic, opinions about abortion, ancient responses to mental illness, and the invention of the hospital. Taking into account the fill range of textual sources and archaeological material, this book attempts to provide an unprecedentedly realistic – and readable – depiction of the Greek and Roman responses to ill health.
Download or read book Living and Cursing in the Roman West written by Stuart McKie and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-03-10 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the Roman west, this book examines the rituals of cursing, their cultural contexts, and their impact on the lives of those who practised them. A huge number of Roman curse tablets have been discovered, showing their importance for helping ancient people to cope with various aspects of life. Curse tablets have been relatively neglected by archaeologists and historians. This study not only encourages greater understanding of the individual practice of curse rituals but also reveals how these objects can inform ongoing debates surrounding power, agency and social relationships in the Roman provinces. McKie uses new theoretical models to examine the curse tablets and focuses particularly on the concept of 'lived religion'. This framework reconfigures our understanding of religious and magical practices, allowing much greater appreciation of them as creative processes. Our awareness of the lived experiences of individuals is also encouraged by the application of theoretical approaches from sensory and material turns and through the consideration of comparable ritual practices in modern social contexts. These stimulate new questions of the ancient evidence, especially regarding the motives and motivations behind the curses.
Download or read book Magik T chne Formaci n y consideraci n social del mago en el Mundo Antiguo written by Isabel Canzobre and published by Dykinson S.L.. This book was released on 2019-11-21 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: El presente libro estudia la figura de los ‘magos’ en el mundo greco-romano, con especial atención a los autores de las recetas que se recopilaron en el conjunto que conocemos como papiros mágicos griegos, copiados en el Egipto de la época imperial romana. En principio la posesión de esa magia estaba limitada al entorno de los templos y sus practicantes tenían rango sacerdotal, pero los cambios histórico-sociales en el Egipto greco-romano determinaron una adecuación de estos magos a las nuevas circunstancias: la magia salió de los templos y se difundió por otros canales. En los distintos capítulos intentamos dar a conocer el modo en que los protagonistas de la magia se refieren a su propio oficio, a la adquisición de sus conocimientos y a su transmisión. Asimismo nos ocupamos de indagar acerca de los antecedentes, contexto y valoración externa de dichas prácticas mágicas, la relación de los textos mágicos con las corrientes religiosas y filosóficas coetáneas e incluso acerca del perfil de los hipotéticos clientes.
Download or read book Divination on stage written by Folke Gernert and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-02-08 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magicians, necromancers and astrologers are assiduous characters in the European golden age theatre. This book deals with dramatic characters who act as physiognomists or palm readers in the fictional world and analyses the fictionalisation of physiognomic lore as a practice of divination in early modern Romance theatre from Pietro Aretino and Giordano Bruno to Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca and Thomas Corneille.
Download or read book Brill s Companion to Theocritus written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-08-16 with total page 852 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brill's Companion to Theocritus offers an up-to-date guide to a thorough understanding of Theocritus’ literary output. Exploring his corpus from a variety of novel perspectives, it presents a detailed account of the intricacy of Theocritus’ poetic art.
Download or read book Demotic Literary Texts from Tebtunis and Beyond written by Joachim Friedrich Quack and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tebtunis temple library is the only ancient Egyptian temple library of which substantial remains are preserved by far the richest, single source of Egyptian literary texts. This volume contains a selection of demotic texts: a theological treatise, manuals on dream interpretation, a manual on birth prognosis, three lists of professions and plants, a list recording the titles of twenty cultic treatises, new fragments of the Great Demotic Book of Wisdom text and an astronomical text. It further includes an illustration from a manual on the pantheistic Bes and three fragments of demotic narrative of unknown origin. None of the papyri have previously been edited. "
Download or read book Ethnic Constructs Royal Dynasties and Historical Geography Around the Black Sea Littoral written by Altay Coskun and published by Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethnicity is a social construct within an ideological framework, ancient or modern. This wisdom has penetrated most scholarly disciplines, but its reception is delayed in Black Sea studies, where essentialist views still prevail. Nationalism, Rostovtzeff's culture-history and Marxist-Leninist materialism have cast longer shadows on this part of the ancient world. Likewise, the balance between documentary sources and ancient literature needs redressing. The latter has often been either accepted in a positivist manner or rejected due to perceived inconsistencies. More rewarding is to try to understand what exactly the ancient authors knew or intended. In this light, the contributors discuss the concept of Sarmatization, the implications of rural versus urban cults, ethnic hierarchies, interaction patterns in colonial settings, inversions of barbarian stereotypes, cultural affiliations of Bosporan kings, imperial policies of Pharnakes I and II, foreign princes on the Ara Pacis Augustae, the reorganization of Pontos under Pompey and Deiotaros, the sanctuary of Leukothea in Kolchis, Christian urbanism in Scythia Minor and crop selections of Anatolian farmers. Though selective, the book covers the four coastlines of the Black Sea, ranging from the archaic to the Byzantine periods.
Download or read book Hellenistic Astronomy written by Alan C. Bowen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-02-17 with total page 783 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in Its Contexts, renowned scholars address questions about what the ancient science of the heavens was and the numerous contexts in which it was pursued.
Download or read book The History Use of Amulets Charms and Talismans written by Gary R. Varner and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008-01-27 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amulets and charms have been used since mankind evolved from its distant origins millions of years ago. They have been used to protect and to harm, and in both the practice and avoidance of witchcraft and sorcery. They are made of wood and stone, clay, metal, plants and dead animals. They are carved into crude shapes and in the most exquisite forms. They may also be composed entirely of words, which are believed to have great power and magical properties. Used by pagans, Christians, Jews and followers of every faith and tradition known across the world, they are considered direct links to the gods and local spirits. All are links to the supernatural. Regardless if they are called amulets, charms or talismans, these objects are credited with providing cures, causing evil, and bringing health and prosperity. This book, using ethnographic studies, ancient records and folklore, will explore the history and use of amulets and will show that they continue to be an important part of our modern culture.
Download or read book Spellbound written by Sophie Page and published by Ashmolean Museum Oxford. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spellbound' explores the concept of 'magical thinking', which describes how people in all ages and cultures have sought to connect with an unseen world of perceived power. This concept of magical thinking is used here to explore the history of medicine and the mind, focusing in particular on magic's secular expressions. Spells, magical objects and rituals are engines of hope, and hope is essential to physical and mental health, indeed to survival. These ideas are explored and conveyed through the extraordinary visual culture of magic, offering an introduction to diverse magical objects, from the exquisite, such as engraved rings and illuminated manuscripts, to the unsettling - a shoe embedded in a wall or a bull's heart pierced with nails. Exhibition: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (31.08.2018 -- 06.01.2019)
Download or read book Egyptian Mythology A to Z written by Pat Remler and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alphabetically listed entries identify and explain the places, figures, animals, beliefs, and other important themes of Egyptian mythology.
Download or read book Dancing for Hathor written by Carolyn Graves-Brown and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-05-07 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fragmentary evidence allows us only tantalising glimpses of the sophisticated and complex society of the ancient Egyptians, but the Greek historian Herodotus believed that the Egyptians had 'reversed the ordinary practices of mankind' in treating their women better than any of the other civilizations of the ancient world . Carolyn Graves-Brown draws on funerary remains, tomb paintings, architecture and textual evidence to explore all aspects of women in Egypt from goddesses and queens to women as the 'vessels of creation'. Perhaps surprisingly the most common career for women, after housewife and mother, was the priesthood, where women served deities, notably Hathor, with music and dance. Many would come to the temples of Hathor to have their dreams interpreted, or to seek divine inspiration. This is a wide ranging and revealing account told with authority and verve.
Download or read book Amulets and Talismans written by E. A. Wallis Budge and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Techniques of Graeco Egyptian Magic written by Stephen Skinner and published by Llewellyn Publications. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book looks at very specific identifiable techniques, consumables, nomina magica and implements found in the Greek Magical Papyri, and how they were used, and not just at generalised themes."--Page 14
