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Primary Sources for Ancient History: Volume I: The Ancient Near East and Greece By: Gary Forsythe Despite being condensed into neat identities of the Near East and Greece, these two titles cover a wide-ranging period of time, peoples, lands, and philosophies. Indeed, at first glance these peoples might have nothing in common except for their profound impact on our own world. In these comprehensive readings, however, we understand how all people struggled to define their relationship with their rulers, their gods, and their neighbors. Primary Sources for Ancient History, Volume I: The Ancient Near East and Greece is a comprehensive selection of ancient writings to supplement a narrative history. Beginning with the Old Babylonian Kingdom of nearly four millennia ago and moving chronologically and geographically to the Egyptian Pharaohs, the dispossessed Jewish nations, the fractured city-kingdoms of Ancient Greece, to end with Alexander’s domination of the known world, this book is comprehensive in scope. Every major period and people has at least one reading. From the Law Code of Hammurabi engraved on a stone pillar to scraps of Greek poetry, from Babylonia epics to tallies of food at religious festivals, these readings allow the personalities and actions of tyrants, philosophers, poets, and gods to take center stage. The same events and leaders can be seen through different peoples and viewpoints, giving a rich perspective. The Ancient Near East and Greece is a valuable resource for understanding the forces - religious, political, and cultural - that have developed the modern world.
This accessible case study of Northern European shamanistic practice, or seidr, explores the way in which the ancient Norse belief systems have been rediscovered and reinvented by groups in Europe and North America.
The first book to consider British history from a magical perspective, and how these arcane magical themes developed over time.
Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests examines the impact of the Persian Sasanian context on the Babylonian Talmud, perhaps the most important corpus in the Jewish sacred canon. What impact did the Persian Zoroastrian Empire, as both a real historical force and an imaginary interlocutor, have on rabbinic identity and authority as expressed in the Talmud? Drawing from the field of comparative religion, Jason Sion Mokhtarian addresses this question by bringing into mutual fruition Talmudic studies and ancient Iranology, two historically distinct disciplines. Whereas most research on the Talmud assumes that the rabbis were an insular group isolated from the cultural horizon outside their academies, this book contextualizes the rabbis and the Talmud within a broader sociocultural orbit by drawing from a wide range of sources from Sasanian Iran, including Middle Persian Zoroastrian literature, archaeological data such as seals and inscriptions, and the Aramaic magical bowl spells. Mokhtarian also includes a detailed examination of the Talmud’s dozens of texts that portray three Persian "others": the Persians, the Sasanian kings, and the Zoroastrian priests. This book skillfully engages and demonstrates the rich penetration of Persian imperial society and culture on the Jews of late antique Iran.
In the Western world, magic has often functioned as an umbrella term for various religious beliefs and ritual practices that seek to influence events by harnessing supernatural power. The definition of these myriad occult and esoteric traditions have, however, usually come from those that are opposed to its practice; notably authorities in religious, legal and intellectual spheres. This book seeks to provide a new perspective, directly from the practitioners of modern Western magic, by exploring how a distinctive mode of embodiment and consciousness can produce a transition from an ‘ordinary’ to a ‘magical’ worldview. Starting with an introduction to the study of magic in the Western academy, the book then presents the author’s own participant observation of five ethnographic case studies of modern Western magic. The focus of these ethnographic case studies is directed towards ideas and methods the informants employ to self-legitimise and self-represent as ‘magicians’. It concludes by discussing the phenomenological implications and issues around embodiment that are inherent to the contemporary practice of magic. This is a unique insight into the lived experience of practitioners of modern magic. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of the Occult and New Religious Movements, as well as Religious Studies academics examining issues around the embodiment and the anthropology of religion.
The world's most comprehensive, well documented, and well illustrated book on this subject. With extensive subject and geographic index. 100 photographs and illustrations - mostly color. Free of charge in digital PDF format.
This important and overdue book examines illuminated manuscripts and other book arts of the Global Middle Ages. Illuminated manuscripts and illustrated or decorated books—like today’s museums—preserve a rich array of information about how premodern peoples conceived of and perceived the world, its many cultures, and everyone’s place in it. Often a Eurocentric field of study, manuscripts are prisms through which we can glimpse the interconnected global history of humanity. Toward a Global Middle Ages is the first publication to examine decorated books produced across the globe during the period traditionally known as medieval. Through essays and case studies, the volume’s multidisciplinary contributors expand the historiography, chronology, and geography of manuscript studies to embrace a diversity of objects, individuals, narratives, and materials from Africa, Asia, Australasia, and the Americas—an approach that both engages with and contributes to the emerging field of scholarly inquiry known as the Global Middle Ages. Featuring more than 160 color illustrations, this wide-ranging and provocative collection is intended for all who are interested in engaging in a dialogue about how books and other textual objects contributed to world-making strategies from about 400 to 1600.
Written by specialists in the field of Egyptology, this book is a readable introduction to ancient Egypt, covering all anticipated subjects and stressing the monuments and material culture of this remarkable ancient civilization. The rich natural resources of ancient Egypt provided a wealth of raw material for its structures, sculptures, and art, while its geographic isolation helped to ensure the survival of its rich culture for centuries. While other references focus on the people and battles central to Egyptian history, this reference explores the material culture and social institutions of ancient Egypt. The book focuses on pharaonic Egypt, covering the period from roughly 5000 BCE to the beginning of the Greco-Roman Period in 320 BCE. At the front of the work, a timeline provides a quick look at the major events in Egyptian history, and an introduction surveys ancient Egypt's physical geography and history. Alphabetically arranged reference entries written by expert contributors then provide fundamental information about the buildings, jewelry, social practices, and other topics related to the material culture and institutions that made up the Egyptian world. Excerpts from primary source historical documents provide evidence for what we know about ancient Egyptian culture, and suggestions for further reading direct users to additional sources of information.