Hindu gods in West Africa : Ghanaian devotees of Shiva and Krishna.
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In Hindu Gods in West Africa , Wuaku offers an account of the histories, beliefs and practices of the Hindu Monastery of Africa and the Radha Govinda Temple, two Hindu Temples in Ghana. Using historical material and data from his field work in southern Ghana, Wuaku shows how these two Hindu Temples build their traditions on popular Ghanaian religious notions about the powerful magicality of India's Hindu gods. He explores how Ghanaian soldiers who served in the colonial armies in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma during World War II, Bollywood films, and local magicians, have contributed to the production and the spreading of these cultural ideas. He argues that while Ghanaian worshippers appropriated and deployed the alien Hindu religious world through their own cultural ideas,as they engage Hindu beliefs and rituals in negotiating challenges their own worldviews would change considerably.
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1 online resource (346 pages) :
9789004255715 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Khōjā of Tanzania : discontinuities of a postcolonial religious identity /
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The Khōjā of Tanzania, Discontinuities of a Postcolonial Religious Identity attempts to reconstruct the development of Khōjā religious identity from their arrival to the Swahili coast in the late 18th century until the turn of the 21st century. This multidisciplinary study incorporates Gujarati, Kacchī, Swahili, and Arabic sources to examine the formation of an Afro-Asian Islamic identity (jamatī) from their initial Indic caste identity (jñāti) towards an emergent Near Eastern imaged Islamic nation (ummatī) through four disciplinary approaches: historiography, politics, linguistics, and ethnology. Over the past two centuries, rapid transitions and discontinuities have produced the profound tensions which have resulted from the willful amnesia of their pre-Islamic Indic civilizational past for an ideological and politicized 'Islamic' present. This study aims to document, theorize, and engage this theological transformation of modern Khōjā religious identities as expressed through dimensions of power, language, space, and the body.
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1 online resource (xvii, 226 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004292888 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The earliest history of the Christian gathering : origin, development and content of the Christian gathering in the first to third centuries /
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Recent research has made a strong case for the view that Early Christian communities, sociologically considered, functioned as voluntary religious associations. This is similar to the practice of many other cultic associations in the Greco-Roman world of the first century CE. Building upon this new approach, along with a critical interpretation of all available sources, this book discusses the social and religio-historical background of the weekly gatherings of Christians and presents a fresh reconstruction of how the weekly gathering originated and developed in both form and content. The topics studied here include the origins of the observance of Sunday as the weekly Christian feast-day, the shape and meaning of the weekly gatherings of the Christian communities, and the rise of customs such as preaching, praying, singing, and the reading of texts in these meetings.
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Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Leiden University, 2009. :
1 online resource (xvii, 342 pages) : illustrations, plans. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-321) and indexes. :
9789004190702 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Historical and archaeological aspects of Egyptian funerary culture : religious ideas and ritual practice in Middle Kingdom elite cemeteries /
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Historical and Archaeological Aspects of Egyptian Funerary Culture , a thoroughly reworked translation of Les textes des sarcophages et la démocratie published in 2008, challenges the widespread idea that the "royal" Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom after a process of "democratisation" became, in the Middle Kingdom, accessible even to the average Egyptian in the form of the Coffin Texts. Rather they remained an element of elite funerary culture, and particularly so in the Upper Egyptian nomes. The author traces the emergence here of the so-called "nomarchs" and their survival in the Middle Kingdom. The site of Dayr al-Barshā, currently under excavation, shows how nomarch cemeteries could even develop into large-scale processional landscapes intended for the cult of the local ruler. This book also provides an updated list of the hundreds of (mostly unpublished) Middle Kingdom coffins and proposes a new reference system for these.
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1 online resource (pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004274990 :
1566-2055 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islamic piety in medieval Syria : mosques, cemeteries and sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146-1260) /
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A study of religious thought and practice across a broad social spectrum, but within a well-defined historical context, this book is an interdisciplinary endeavor that incorporates the tools of philology, social-history and historical-anthropology. Focusing on the mosques, public assemblies, cemeteries and shrines of Syrian Muslims in the period of the crusades and the anti-Frankish jihad, the book describes and deciphers religious rites and experiences, liturgical calendars, spiritual leadership, and perceptions of impiety and dissent. Working from a perspective that breaks down the dichotomization of religion into 'official' and 'popular,' it exposes the negotiation, construction and dissemination of hybrid forms of religious life. The result is an intimate and complex presentation of the texture of medieval Islamic piety.
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Extensively revised and expanded edition of the author's Hebrew Ph. D. thesis entitled: Dat ṿe-ḥevrah be-Suryah mi-Nur Aldin ṿe-ʻad la-kibush ha-Mongoli (1154-1260). :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-286) and index. :
9789047422846 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Private associations and Jewish communities in the Hellenistic and Roman cities /
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In Private Associations and Jewish Communities in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities, Benedikt Eckhardt brings together a group of experts to investigate a problem of historical categorization. Traditionally, scholars have either presupposed that Jewish groups were "Greco-Roman Associations" like others or have treated them in isolation from other groups. Attempts to begin a cross-disciplinary dialogue about the presuppositions and ultimate aims of the respective approaches have shown that much preliminary work on categories is necessary. This book explores the methodological dividing lines, based on the common-sense assumption that different questions require different solutions. Re-introducing historical differentiation into a field that has been dominated by abstractions, it provides the debate with a new foundation. Case studies highlight the problems and advantages of different approaches.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004407602
The Religious and Cultural Landscape of Ottoman Manastır /
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In this ground-breaking work on the Ottoman town of Manastir (Bitola), Robert Mihajlovski, provides a detailed account of the development of Islamic, Christian and Sephardic religious architecture and culture as it manifested in the town and precincts. Originally a town on the edge of the Via Egnatia, this small provincial town gradually developed into a significant administrative, military, religious, cultural and intellectual centre for the Balkans; a vibrant place, nurturing progressive multi-cultural and multi-confessional values with considerable influence on the formation of modern Balkan identities. The present work is the culmination of thirty years of research using primary source material from archives and chronicles and the monuments themselves for the purpose of both preserving and extending the boundaries of current knowledge. It offers a comprehensive biography of a great cultural knot in the Balkans and offers a rich source for further use by scholars, students and non-technical readership alike.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004465268
9789004465251
The Nuṣayrī-ʻAlawīs : an introduction to the religion, history, and identity of the leading minority in Syria /
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Friedman offers new and updated research on the Nusayrī-'Alawī sect, today a leading group in Syria, covering a variety of aspects and focusing on the Middle Ages. A century after Dussaud's Histoire et religion des Nosairîs (1900), he reviews the history and religion of the sect in the light of old documents used by orientalists in the nineteenth century, documents that became available in the twentieth century, and later sources of the Nuṣayrī-'Alawī sect published most recently in Lebanon. Also studied in depth for the first time is the question of the identity of the sect through the 'Alawī-Sunnī-Shī'ī triangle.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [311]-315) and index. :
9789047441274 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
La raison des signes : présages, rites, destin dans les sociétés de la méditerranée ancienne /
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Comment prévoir l'inconnu et contrôler l'inattendu ? Les Anciens ont tenté de répondre à ces questions en interprétant des signes dans lesquels il reconnaissaient des messages divins. Ce recueil permet de comparer la diversité de leurs questionnements dans les sociétés polythéistes ou monothéistes de la Méditerranée antique. Il interroge premièrement la construction rituelle des signes au sein des institutions divinatoires ; deuxièmement, des phénomènes naturels spontanés, qui, apparus hors de toute institution, ont néanmoins valeur de présages ou d'avertissements ; troisièmement, l'intentionnalité manifestée à travers l'intervention divine dans l'histoire des peuples ou les vies singulières ; quatrièmement, l'épistémologie des signes dans des élaborations philosophiques ou théologiques qui éclairent la tension entre données oraculaires et contrôle ritualisé des signes, entre données révélées et argumentations raisonnées visant à neutraliser les injonctions du destin. How to foresee the unknown and master the unexpected? Ancient people tried to answer those questions by interpreting signs considered as divine messages. In this volume, the writers compare and examine this manifold questioning in the polytheistic and monotheistic societies of the ancient Mediterranean Sea. In the first place, it is shown how signs were ritually constructed within instituted practice of divination ; second, how, although some spontaneous natural phenomena appeared out of any instituted context, may nevertheless constitute omens or monition ; third, how the gods' intervention may reveal a sort of intention in the course of national history or individual life ; finally, the essays study the epistemology of signs at work in some philosophical or theological elaborations, which may enlighten the tension between oracular evidence and ritual control of signs, and between revealed facts and reasoning arguments intending to neutralize the injunctions of the divine.
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Text in French; summaries in English. :
1 online resource (xviii, 626 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004210912 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Empire and religion : religious change in Greek cities under Roman rule /
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This volume explores the nature of religious change in the Greek-speaking cities of the Roman Empire. Emphasis is put on those developments that apparently were not the direct result of Roman actions: the intensification of idiosyncratically Greek features in the religious life of the cities (Heller, Muñiz, Camia); the active role of a new kind of Hellenism in the design of imperial religious policies (Gordillo, Galimberti, Rosillo-López); or the locally different responses to central religious initiatives, and the influence of those local responses in other imperial contexts (Cortés, Melfi, Lozano, Rizakis). All the chapters try to suggest that religion in the Greek cities of the empire was both conservative and innovative, and that the 'Roman factor' helps to explain this apparent paradox.
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1 online resource (xvii, 221 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004347113 :
1572-0500 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The impact of imperial Rome on religions, ritual, and religious life in the Roman Empire : proceedings of the Fifth International Network, Münster, June 30-July 4, 2004 /
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This volume presents the proceedings of the fifth workshop of the international thematic network ,Impact of Empire', which concentrates on the history of the Roman Empire, c. 200 B.C. - A.D. 476, and, under the chairmanship of Lukas de Blois and Olivier Hekster (University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands), brings together ancient historians, archaeologists, classicists and specialists on Roman law from some 28 European and North American universities. The fifth volume focuses on the impact of imperial Rome on religions, ritual and religious life in the Roman Empire. The following topics are treated: connections between Roman expansion and religion, the imperial impact on local cults, cultic personnel (priests, priestesses and bishops), and the divinity of Roman Emperors.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047411345
Roots of reform : contextual interpretation of church fittings in Norfolk during the English Reformation /
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'Roots of Reform' provides a thorough examination of the impact of the English Reformation through a detailed analysis of medieval and early modern church fittings surviving at parish churches located throughout the county of Norfolk in England. By utilizing an archaeological approach along with the written record, a deeper and more nuanced understanding of public worship reveals the theological imperatives of the reformers and conformers. This study compiled data from both rural and urban parish churches which provides a regional approach to engaging the issues of visuality, space and identity. Church fittings were selected based on their liturgical function and propensity to feature decorative iconography. This includes baptismal fonts, screens, wall paintings, and sculptures.
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Also issued in print: 2021. :
1 online resource (182 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour) :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781789697674 (PDF ebook) :
Ex Asia et Syria : Oriental religions in the Roman Central Balkans /
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This title examines the cults of Asia Minor and Syrian origin in the Roman provinces of the Central Balkans. The author analyses all hitherto known epigraphical and archaeological material attesting to the presence of the cults in that region, a subject yet to be the object of serious scholarly study.
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Also issued in print: 2021. :
1 online resource (266 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour), maps (black and white, and colour). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781789699142 (PDF ebook) :
La implantación del culto imperial de la provincia en Hispania /
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This study shows how the Imperial Cult was introducted and organised in provincial Hispania. The book also examines the collaboration with the Romanised native elites who came from Lusitania, Baetica, and Hispania Citerior.
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Also issued in print: 2015. :
1 online resource (ix, 150 pages) : illustrations (black and white). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9781784911775 (PDF ebook) :
Religious practice and cultural construction of animal worship in Egypt from the Early Dynastic to the New Kingdom : ritual forms, material display, historical development /
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This study presents an articulated historical interpretation of Egyptian 'animal worship' from the Early Dynastic to the New Kingdom, and offers a new understanding of its chronological development through a fresh review of pertinent archaeological and textual data.
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Also issued in print: 2021. :
1 online resource (242 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9781789698220 (PDF ebook) :
Late Roman to late Byzantine/early Islamic period lamps in the Holy Land : the collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority /
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This volume illustrates lamps from the Byzantine period excavated in the Holy Land and demonstrates the extent of their development since the first enclosing/capturing of light (fire) within a portable man-made vessel.
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Previously issued in print: 2017. :
1 online resource : illustrations (black and white, and colour). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781784915711 (ebook) :