“Hagiography and the Reconstruction of Local Religion in Late Antique Egypt: Memories, Inventions, and Landscapes" (2006) (original) (raw)
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MESSENGERS Between Worlds: Searching for the origins of Ancient Egypt's religious traditions
Slides and text from a talk presented to The Egyptian Society of South Africa (TESSA), March 2024. Archaeo-anthropology suggests a long tradition of shamanistic beliefs among Eurasia's ancient Hunter cultures, from pre-Ice Age times. Continuity of ideas through the Mesolithic and into the Neolithic (agricultural revolution) periods is evident, as is their spread. Comparisons are made with burial items, symbols and funerary rituals of Ancient Egypt, which, it is proposed, had inherited and preserved these ancient traditions.
2020
The Lived Ancient Religion project has radically changed perspectives on ancient religions and their supposedly personal or public character. This volume applies and further develops these methodological tools, new perspectives and new questions. The religious transformations of the Roman Imperial period appear in new light and more nuances by comparative confrontation and the integration of many disciplines. The contributions are written by specialists from a variety of disciplinary contexts (Jewish Studies, Theology, Classics, Early Christian Studies) dealing with the history of religion of the Mediterranean, West-Asian, and European area from the (late) Hellenistic period to the (early) Middle Ages and shaped by their intensive exchange. From the point of view of their respective fields of research, the contributors engage with discourses on agency, embodiment, appropriation and experience. They present innovative research in four fields also of theoretical debate, which are “Experiencing the Religious”, “Switching the Code”, „A Thing Called Body“ and “Commemorating the Moment”.
2015
The Egyptian Religion, an omnipresent element of this civilization, is a composite reality where different aspects fit. One of these aspects is the Household Religion – the set of religious expressions made by the believer in his house. This religious practice was, up until the moment of this investigation, insufficiently known. The scarcity of textual sources and the features of the material sources – with great dispersion, both in time and space, and without secure origins and interpretations – were always determinant constrains for the accomplishment of this goal. It was with clear conscience of the existing difficulties, but motivated by the singularity and importance of the theme, that we initiated our research. We started our characterization of the Household Religion in the ancient Egypt by identifying the sources, and, in the case of the material sources, it was created a database. After that, we did a time and spatial framework that allowed us to know the diachronic and geographic presence of this practice. These two previous steps were essential for us to analyze cautiously this phenomenon – the Household Religion – taking into account the gods involved, the motivations, the ritual space implicated – in the house – and its expressions. The knowledge and acknowledgement of this religious phenomenon and its relevance in the religious context of this civilization are, from now on, more evident, intelligible and, above all, accessible. This was what driven us to do this work. KEYWORDS: Household Religion, ancient Egypt, home, family, ancestors, gods, magic, material sources (Thesis and database written in Portuguese. If you are interested in the subject please do not hesitate to contact me.)
Archaeopress Egyptology , 2017
The region corresponding to the Western Harpoon province (7th nome of Lower Egypt) lacks systematic archaeological exploration – including surveys – and an in-depth study; most of the available documentation related to this province comes from the so-called ‘cult-topographical manuals’, mainly dated to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The hierogrammateis were in charge of sketching mythological and religious geographies, playing a key role in the formation, development and ‘administration’ of the conceptual space inside the imaginary of the ancient Egyptian society. This paper aims at mapping all the topographical elements, cities, multiple canals, rural territories, and marshlands, which constituted the religious topographical map of the Western Harpoon as imagined by the hierogrammateis.