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Death Rituals, Ideology, and the Development of Early Mesopotamian Kingship : Toward a New Understanding of Iraq's Royal Cemetery of Ur /
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At the beginning of Mesopotamia's Early Dynastic period, the political landscape was dominated by temple administrators, but by the end of the period, rulers whose titles we translate as "king" assumed control. This book argues that the ritual process of mourning, burying, and venerating dead elites contributed to this change. Part one introduces the rationale for seeing rituals as a means of giving material form to ideology and, hence, structuring overall power relations. Part two presents archaeological and textual evidence for the death rituals. Part three interprets symbolic objects found in the Royal Cemetery of Ur, showing they reflect ideological doctrines promoting the office of kingship. This book will be particularly useful for scholars of Mesopotamian archaeology and history.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047416791
9789004146358
The performative structure : ritualizing the pyramid of Pepy I /
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In The Performative Structure: Ritualizing the Pyramid of Pepy I , Nils Billing investigates the ancient Egyptian pyramid complex as a performative structure, ritualized through the operative faculty inherent in monumental architecture, text, and image. The main body of research is given over to an analysis of the Pyramid Texts found in the pyramid of king Pepy I of the Sixth Dynasty (ca 2300 BCE). It is demonstrated that the texts were distributed on distinct space-bound thematic and ritual levels in order to perpetuate a cultic activity from which the lord of the tomb could be transformed by moving through the different chambers and corridors towards the exit. Just as the decoration program of the mortuary temple once delineated the ritual and ideological structure of the royal mortuary cult, the corpus of texts distributed in the pyramid provided a monumentalized performative structure that effectuated the perennial rebirth for its owner.
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"This is a lightly revised version of a doctoral thesis in the History of Religions, defended in the spring term of 2013 at the Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University." :
1 online resource. :
9789004372375 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Processional and Chapel Oracular Practice in The Place of Truth /
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Standing in stark contrast to the relative wealth of evidence about royal and temple based oracles, there is little to give us some notion of the analogous oracular practices of private religion during the New Kingdom of Egypt. The surviving documentation suggests that private individuals could approach their gods for oracular advice during festival processions. However, based on the Deir el-Medina materials, I argue that in addition to processional oracles, chapel oracles were employed by the villagers as well, if not more largely by common people in ancient Egypt. At Deir el-Medina, the former was given by the patron of the village, the deified king Amenhotep I, and was employed in an official setting in order to solve legal disputes. In contrast, the less documented chapel oracles, which could be perhaps delivered by deities other than Amenhotep I, concerned mostly mundane affairs. In both cases, however, oracles were mediated by the priests servicing the gods. This paper seeks to bring together and examine two sorts of evidence that are usually dealt with separately. Firstly, it provides an analysis of the available written testimonies on oracular ostraca found at Deir el-Medina, and discusses their textual significance by showing who the petitioners were, what kind of questions they asked and what the structure of the questions was. Secondly, it examines the archaeological remains of the chapels connected with oracles at Deir el-Medina and the role of the “brotherhood” of priests associated with them. I conclude with some remarks about the mechanics of the chapel oracles in connection with the modalities of their reception and the status of belief and faith. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5913/jarce.53.2017.a013
Life and loyalty : a study in the socio-religious culture of Syria and Mesopotamia in the Graeco-Roman period based on epigraphical evidence /
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The formula 'for the life of' is often found in votive inscriptions, cast in Aramaic and other languages, which originate from the Syrian-Mesopotamian desert and adjacent areas and which roughly date from the first three centuries A.D. They belong to objects like statues and altars that usually were erected in temples and other structures with a ritual or sacred function. The inscriptions establish a relationship between the dedicator and one or more beneficiaries, those persons for whose life the dedication was made. Since the social context evidently bears on both the meaning of the inscriptions as well as the status of the dedications, this volume deals with the nature of the relationships and the socio-religious function the dedications perform.
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1 online resource (xii, 375 pages) : color illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 351-366) and index. :
9789004295865 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Old Kingdom, new perspectives : Egyptian art and archaeology 2750-2150 BC /
: "Proceedings of the Old Kingdom Art and Archaeology Conference, held May 20-23, 2009 at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge". : 319 pages : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 29 cm. : Includes bibliographical references. : 9781842174302