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The Nile is arguably the most famous river in the world. For millennia, the search for its source defeated emperors and explorers. Yet the search for its source also contained a religious quest - a search for the origin of its divine and life-giving waters. Terje Oestigaard reveals how the beliefs associated with the river have played a key role in the cultural development and make-up of the societies and civilizations associated with it. Drawing upon his personal experience and fieldwork in Africa, including details of rites and ceremonies now fast disappearing, the author brings out in rich detail the religious and spiritual meanings attached to the life-giving waters by those whose lives are so bound to the river. Part religious quest, part exploration narrative, the author shows how this mighty river is a powerful source for a greater understanding of human nature, society and religion.
The Nile is arguably the most famous river in the world. For millennia, the search for its source defeated emperors and explorers. Yet the search for its source also contained a religious quest - a search for the origin of its divine and life-giving waters. Terje Oestigaard reveals how the beliefs associated with the river have played a key role in the cultural development and make-up of the societies and civilizations associated with it. Drawing upon his personal experience and fieldwork in Africa, including details of rites and ceremonies now fast disappearing, the author brings out in rich detail the religious and spiritual meanings attached to the life-giving waters by those whose lives are so bound to the river. Part religious quest, part exploration narrative, the author shows how this mighty river is a powerful source for a greater understanding of human nature, society and religion.
Photography
Egypt, land of the Bible, has been home since the time of Christ to an ancient sect of Christians called the Copts. According to legend, Mark the Evangelist founded their church in Alexandria in the 1st century AD, when Egypt was under Roman rule and practiced polytheistic religions. Though Egypt long ago became a Muslim nation, the Copts maintained their traditions and rites at monasteries and villages throughout the Nile Valley, the river delta, and the Mediterranean coast, and still do so today.
The famous Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, ancient Praeneste in central Italy, dating to c. 100 B.C., is one of the earliest large mosaics which have been preserved from the classical world. It presents a unique, comprehensive picture of Egypt and Nubia. The interpretation of the mosaic is disputed, suggestions ranging from an exotic decoration to a topographical picture or a religious allegory. The present study demonstrates that the mosaic depicts rituals connected with Isis and Osiris and the yearly Nile flood. The presence of these Egyptian religious scenes at Praeneste can be explained by the assimilation of isis and Fortuna, the tutelary goddess of Praeneste, and by the interpretation of the mosaic as a symbol of divine providence.
As a thriving port city, nineteenth-century Bombay attracted migrants from across India and beyond. Nile Green's Bombay Islam traces the ties between industrialization, imperialism and the production of religion to show how Muslim migration fueled demand for a wide range of religious suppliers, as Christian missionaries competed with Muslim religious entrepreneurs for a stake in the new market. Enabled by a colonial policy of non-intervention in religious affairs, and powered by steam travel and vernacular printing, Bombay's Islamic productions were exported as far as South Africa and Iran. Connecting histories of religion, labour and globalization, the book examines the role of ordinary people - mill hands and merchants - in shaping the demand that drove the market. By drawing on hagiographies, travelogues, doctrinal works, and poems in Persian, Urdu and Arabic, Bombay Islam unravels a vernacular modernity that saw people from across the Indian Ocean drawn into Bombay's industrial economy of enchantment.
Friendship, deceit, fear, and persecution at an elite boarding school for young women in Rwanda, fifteen years before the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi . . . “Mukasonga’s masterpiece” (Julian Lucas, NYRB) Scholastique Mukasonga drops us into an elite Catholic boarding school for young women perched on the edge of the Nile. Parents send their daughters to Our Lady of the Nile to be molded into respectable citizens and to escape the dangers of the outside world. Fifteen years prior to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, we watch as these girls try on their parents’ preconceptions and attitudes, transforming the lycée into a microcosm of the country’s mounting racial tensions and violence. In the midst of the interminable rainy season, everything unfolds behind the closed doors of the school: friendship, curiosity, fear, deceit, prejudice, and persecution. With masterful prose that is at once subtle and penetrating, Mukasonga captures a society hurtling towards horror.
Nubia had a rich pagan heritage, stretching back thousands of years. During probably the 6th century AD various factors led to the adoption of Christianity. This book charts this huge cultural transition and its impact.
The ongoing Egyptian-Ethiopian dispute over the Nile waters is potentially one of the most difficult issues on the current international agenda, central to the very life of the two countries. Analyzing the context of the dispute across a span of more than a thousand years, The Cross and the River delves into the heart of both countries' identities and cultures. Erlich deftly weaves together three themes: the political relationship between successive Ethiopian and Egyptian regimes; the complex connection between the Christian churches in the two countries; and the influence of the Nile river system on Ethiopian and Egyptian definitions of national identity and mutual perceptions of the Other. Drawing on a vast range of sources, his study is key to an understanding of a bond built on both interdependence and conflict.
Although Herodot's dictum that "Egypt is a gift of the Nile" is proverbial, there has been only scant attention to the way the river impacted on ancient Egyptian society. Egyptologists frequently focus on the textual and iconographic record, whereas archaeologists and earth scientists approach the issue from the perspective of natural sciences. The contributions in this volume bridge this gap by analyzing the river both as a natural and as a cultural phenomenon. Adopting an approach of cultural ecology, it addresses issues like ancient land use, administration and taxation, irrigation, and religious concepts.