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This research examines 44 images of Minoan tree cult as depicted in sphragistic jewellery, portable objects and wall paintings from Late Bronze Age Crete, mainland Greece and the Cyclades. The study also compares the Aegean images with evidence for sacred trees in the Middle and Late Bronze Age Levant, Egypt and Cyprus. The purpose of this investigation is the production of new interpretations of Minoan images of tree cult. Each of the chapters of the book looks at both archaeological and iconographic evidence for tree cult. The Aegean material is, in addition, examined more deeply through the lenses of modified Lacanian psychoanalytic modelling, "new" animism, ethnographic analogy, and a Neo-Marxist hermeneutics of suspicion. It is determined that Minoan images of tree cult depict elite figures performing their intimate association with the numinous landscape through the communicative method of envisioned and enacted epiphanic ritual. The tree in such images is a physiomorphic representation of a goddess type known in the wider eastern Mediterranean associated qualities of fertility, nurturance, protection, regeneration, order and stability. The representation of this deity by elite human females in ritual performance functioned to enhance their self-representation as divinities and thus legitimise and concretise the position of elites within the hegemonic structure of Neopalatial Crete. These ideological visual messages were circulated to a wider audience through the reproduction and dispersal characteristic of the sphragistic process, resulting in Minoan elites literally stamping their authority on to the Cretan landscape and hence society.

Tree worship --- Religion, Prehistoric --- Religious articles --- Minoans --- Civilization, Minoan --- Civilization, Aegean --- Cretans --- Articles, Religious --- Objects, Religious --- Religious art objects --- Religious goods --- Religious objects --- Sacred objects --- Religion --- Prehistoric religion --- Nature worship --- Trees --- Religious aspects --- Mediterranean Region --- Antiquities.

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Until now insular and continental material, mostly metal-work, found in pagan Viking Age graves in Norway, has been interpreted as looted material from churches and monasteries on the British Isles and the Continent. The raiding Vikings brought these objects back to their homeland where they were often broken up and used as jewellery or got alternative functions.0'Looting or Missioning' looks at the use and functions of these sacred objects in their original Christian contexts. Based on such an analysis the author proposes an alternative interpretation of these objects: they were brought by Christian missionaries from different parts of the British Isles and the Continent to Norway. The objects were either personal (crosses, croziers, portable reliquaries etc.), objects used for baptism (hanging bowls), equipment to officiate a mass (mountings from books or reading equipment, altars or crosses) or to give the communion (pitchers, glass vessels, chalices, paten). We know from contemporary sources (Ansgar in Birka, Sweden in the ninth century) that missionaries brought this sort of equipment on their mission journeys. We also hear that missionaries were robbed, killed or chased off. Mikkelson interprets the sacred objects found in Viking Age pagan graves as objects that originate from the many unsuccessful mission attempts in Norway throughout the Viking Age.

Religious articles --- Missions --- Christian missions --- Christianity --- Missions, Foreign --- Religion --- Theology, Practical --- Proselytizing --- Articles, Religious --- Objects, Religious --- Religious art objects --- Religious goods --- Religious objects --- Sacred objects --- Vikings --- Conversion --- Northmen --- Religious conversion --- Psychology, Religious --- Religion. --- History.

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The essays in the volume Consecration Rituals in South Asia address the ritual procedures that accompany the installation of temple images in Shaiva, Vaishnava, Buddhist and Jain contexts, in various traditions and historical periods. Through the performance of complex rites designated with the term pranapratishtha (establishment of, or infusion with, life), man-made sculptures are ritually transformed into (receptacles of) deities. The collection is thematically and methodically broad, with a large number of detailed textual studies, but also with ethnographic contributions that discuss contemporary instances of consecration rituals. Among the overarching themes are issues related to historical continuity and change, as well as transformational moments in such rituals. Contributors are: Marie-Luce Barazer-Billoret, Marzenna Czerniak-Drożdżowicz, Ronald M. Davidson, Shingo Einoo, Marko Geslani, Dominic Goodall, Ellen Gough, István Keul, Elisabeth Raddock, S.A.S Sarma, Anna A. Ślączka, Annette Wilke.

Ritual --- Religious articles --- Rituel --- Objets d'art religieux --- South Asia --- Asie méridionale --- Religion --- Rituals --- 291.3 --- 291.3 Godsdienstwetenschap: cultus; liturgie --- Godsdienstwetenschap: cultus; liturgie --- Articles, Religious --- Objects, Religious --- Religious art objects --- Religious goods --- Religious objects --- Sacred objects --- South Asia. --- Asie méridionale

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This collection of essays offers a comparative perspective on religious materiality across the early modern world. Setting out from the premise that artefacts can provide material evidence of the nature of early modern religious practices and beliefs, the volume tests and challenges conventional narratives of change based on textual sources. Religious Materiality in the Early Modern World brings together scholars of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Islamic and Buddhist practices from a range of fields, including history, art history, museum curatorship and social anthropology. The result is an unprecedented account of the wealth and diversity of devotional objects and environments, with a strong emphasis on cultural encounters, connections and exchanges

Christian special devotions --- Christian church history --- anno 1200-1799 --- Religious articles. --- Art religieux --- Objets religieux --- Matérialité --- Aspect religieux --- Aspect religieux. --- Religious art --- Religious articles --- Histoire. --- History. --- Material culture --- Anthropology of religion. --- Religious aspects. --- History of doctrines. --- History --- Articles, Religious --- Objects, Religious --- Religious art objects --- Religious goods --- Religious objects --- Sacred objects --- Religion --- Sacred art --- Art --- Religion, Material Culture, Early Modern, Global History, Images. --- Matérialité

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The volume is based on an international and interdisciplinary conference which took place at Tübingen, Germany in May 2010 on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Institute of Biblical Archaeology at the University of Tübingen. Jens Kamlah (ed.) brings these conference lectures along with four additional articles on recent archaeological finds related to temple building and temple cult together in one volume. From Aleppo to Ataroth - the volume is dedicated to city temples in the Levant, from the North to the South, from the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age. The storm god of Aleppo on one side and the bull of Ataroth on the other side symbolize its comprehensive approach and its wide geographical and chronological spectrum. From altars to votive vessels - within the various sub-regions of the Levant, several temple complexes and associated cultic paraphernalia have been recently excavated or re-evaluated. The results of these investigations significantly expand and modify our knowledge of temple building and temple cult in the Levant. From Jerusalem to Mount Gerizim - these new insights are of great importance for the research on the temple in Jerusalem and Old Testament research. Together, the articles lead to a better understanding of the complex religious history of the Levant in general and of the Levantine city temples in particular.

Temples --- Cults --- Excavations (Archaeology) --- Religious articles --- Architecture --- Cultes --- Fouilles (Archéologie) --- Objets religieux --- Congresses --- Congrès --- Middle East --- Moyen-Orient --- Antiquities --- Antiquités --- Fouilles (Archeologie) --- Congres --- Antiquites --- Conferences - Meetings --- Fouilles (Archéologie) --- Congrès --- Antiquités --- Alternative religious movements --- Cult --- Cultus --- Marginal religious movements --- New religions --- New religious movements --- NRMs (Religion) --- Religious movements, Alternative --- Religious movements, Marginal --- Religious movements, New --- Religions --- Sects --- Church architecture --- Religious institutions --- Articles, Religious --- Objects, Religious --- Religious art objects --- Religious goods --- Religious objects --- Sacred objects --- Religion --- Archaeological digs --- Archaeological excavations --- Digs (Archaeology) --- Excavation sites (Archaeology) --- Ruins --- Sites, Excavation (Archaeology) --- Archaeology --- History --- Congresses. --- Religious architecture