Ancient Religion

Call for Papers and Posters
The first part of the congress will be in Cascia (Italy) on 25-26 October 2019 ; the second part at Le Mans in 2020
Contacts:  terremoti-med@sciencesconf.org
Conference Web site: https://terremoti-med.sciencesconf.org/

Examining the depiction of both gods and mortals in Ovid’s Fasti allows the reader to develop a complex portrait of Ovid’s poetic ambitions as well as the development of the poem’s narrator. The characterization of mortals in the Fasti presents a uniquely Ovidian impression of individual autonomy through reference to an aetiological framework, the origins of Roman religious rituals and history. Although the extant text is supposedly left unfinished, the poem nevertheless develops distinct narrative attitudes rather different from the ones presented in the Metamorphoses and other elegiac poems written by Ovid. Much of the text informs themes on the agency of mortal beings, the raw and unrefined nature of the gods, apotheosis, and the authority and immortality of the textual poet. By contextualizing in the poem in its aetiological and narrative framework, I intend to uncover the authorial traces and agentive implications of the Fasti through its episodic framework. This contributes to understanding the genre-defying bibliography of Ovid just before exile, and, possibly, determining the poet’s underlying poetic goals. While the poem does not directly give access to Ovid’s particular intentions in writing, it does hint at some of his underlying attitudes that were at play; it is these, I argue, that play a significant role in the development of the narrator figure as well as the interplay of divine and mortal characters.

El relato de las Bodas de Caná del Evangelio de San Juan narra cómo Jesús convirtió en vino de gran calidad el agua que se guardaba en tinajas destinadas a las purificaciones durante una boda. Este episodio, considerado el primero de los signos realizados por Jesús, se enmarca dentro de una larga tradición de prodigios de la Antigüedad en los que interviene el vino. En el presente estudio me centraré en los motivos en los que coincide la narración evangélica con varios relatos que vinculan el origen del vino con Dioniso y determinados prodigios con fiestas dionisíacas.

En este capítulo me propongo analizar la aparición de la luz y su simbolismo en una serie de cosmogonías griegas no filosóficas, cuyos testimonios abarcan desde la época arcaica, representada por Hesíodo y Alcmán, pasando por los períodos clásico y helenístico hasta el romano, en que se sitúan varias cosmogonías órficas. El elenco de textos es muy limitado porque en la literatura griega apenas se han conservado una decena de textos cosmogónicos de los muchos que debieron de componerse en la Antigüedad; solo se ha salvado completa la Teogonía de Hesíodo, y nos ha llegado información, escasa, eso sí, de algunas otras, como las de Alcmán, Ferecides de Siro, Epiménides y de diversas Teogonías órficas. En segundo lugar, de todas las cosmogonías solo las de Hesíodo, Alcmán y algunas órficas presentan un interesante contraste entre oscuridad y luz en alguno de sus estadios

Professor Allegro (Univ. of Manchester) has hitherto been known for his several excellent books on the Dead Sea Scrolls. In an unusual reversal, he has now produced a book that will make The Passover Plot seem the last refuge of theological ultra-conservatism. The thesis of the book is simple enough: Jesus did not exist, the Gospels were & are a hoax, & Christianity is the atavistic vestige of an ancient fertility cult in which the object of worship was a peculiarly phallic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, capable of producing psychedelic reactions. As farfetched as all this may seem, it cannot be denied that he has brought to this work the same care & scholarly detachment that have characterized his earlier, & more conventional, works; & he has made not one concession to the sensational nature of his thesis. The book is, in fact, a demanding one, which presupposes in the reader at least a working knowledge of the ancient Semitic tongues & of the sciences considered auxiliary to biblical studies. Only the most determined non-professional iconoclast will be willing to wade through his unrelenting jargon. None of which, of course, will affect the demand for what is probably to become a very controversial work.

"A distinguished British scholar has written a
sensational book that is certain to cause the
greatest upheaval in orthodox christian thinking
since Charles Darwin said Man was descended from the ape.
For he not only argues the non-existence of Jesus Christ and the
Apostles, but claims that Christianity itself as
well as Judaism and other religions of the
Near and Middle East- are no more than
hangovers from an ancient fertility cult. Such a
claim, such a challenge to orthodox belief,
coming as it does from one of the country's
leading experts in his field, is something of a
religious H-bomb - threatening a shattering
fall-out." - Sunday Mirror

'I knew from the way it was attacked by the
religious Establishment in the Press that this
was a book it was important to read for its
challenge to common assumptions'
- The Daily Telegraph Magazine

'Allegro boldly sketches in the origins of the
primitive fertility cult with an exciting plunge
into the catacombs of antiquity where mythology
and mycology mingle in a poetict hallucinatory
haze of credible speculation. It is a
dazzling foray into the obscure hinterlands of
comparative philology'
- Dennis Potter, The Times

'A remarkable feat of scholarship'
The Glasgow Herald

Table of contents :
Preface
Introduction
1 In the Beginning God Created .. . .
2 Sumer and the Beginnings of History
3 The Names of the Gods
4 Plants and Drugs
5 Plant Names and the Mysteries of the Fungus
6 The Key of the Kingdom
7 The Man-child Born of a Virgin
8 Woman's part in the Creative Process
9 The Sacred Prostitute
10 Religious Lamentation
1 1 The Mushroom "Egg·' and Birds of Mythology
12 The Heavenly Twins
13 Star of the Morning
14 Colour and Consistency
15 Mushroom Cosmography
16 David, Egypt, and the Census
17 Death and Resurrection
18 The Garden of Adonis, Eden and Delight;
Zealots and Muslims
19 The Bible as a Book of Morals
Index

Conventional scholarship holds that in the third century BCE, the Seleukid dynasty controlled the various populations of their empire by respecting indigenous ‘traditions’. This paper takes issue with the alleged passivity of the Seleukids and the conceptualization of local culture as primordial, coherent and stagnant by focusing on the famous Antiochos Cylinder from Borsippa. This document is commonly foregrounded as evidence for the early Seleukids’ willingness to adopt the role of ‘traditional’ Babylonian kings. Using globalization theory and Richard White's notion of Middle Ground, I argue instead that the indigenous monarchy outlined by the Cylinder is in fact the innovative result of negotiations between 'global' imperial elite and the local priestly elite, who cooperated to their mutual benefit. The Cylinder thus reflects neither a top-down imposition of imperial ideology on so-called ‘subalterns’, nor the bottom-up instruction by native experts on how to be a good Babylonian king. The Cylinder instead offers us a unique insight into the internal power changes that took place in Babylonian cities after the Macedonian conquest, when priestly families in alliance with the imperial dynasty were able to re-assert the supremacy of the central sanctuaries, and hence of their own political dominance.

This essay’s aim is to show that monotheism is not a useful means of understanding Zoroastrianism, particularly in a historical sense, and that if any term is to be used polytheism is far more applicable.

Author's Note:
Let me make it clear that I consider Zoroastrians who identity as monotheists as being Zoroastrians and that Zoroastrian theology is more complex than this paper will allow in its heterodox fashion. For now, as long as we use these terms in our academic and lay vocabulary, I am against using monotheism and instead stand for its "opposite".

Uno dei periodi storici più dibattuti, dal punto di vista archeologico, è quello dell'Esodo, del quale non c'è notizia nelle cronache egiziane del tempo, malgrado l'eccezionalità degli eventi provocati dalle piaghe d'Egitto. Attraverso questo libro si vogliono esaminare le teorie partorite dagli studiosi e le prove indiziarie fornite dall'archeologia che dimostrerebbero la veridicità dei fatti narrati nella Bibbia.

The objects found within a single “house” from the plateau of Himera (NW coast of Sicily) allow us to put forward some suggestive hypotheses in relation to a very peculiar type of sanctuary: a sacred house belonging to a phratry. Within this extraordinary context it is possible to record an anomalous concentration of red-figure pottery made by a single workshop. Besides that, it is possible to appreciate the presence of numerous fragments of terracotta female statuettes and arulae, and large numbers of loom-weights, arrowheads and knucklebones.
The selection of some particular and unusual iconographic themes, with their semantic and symbolic dimension, would seem to refer to the nuptial world and to the passages of status of both the female and male component.
The combination of the information coming from the reappraisal of the archaeological context and from the iconographic analysis of the scenes depicted on the red-figure Sicilian vases allow us to suggest the existence of a special commission for someone that could have used these objects for some very peculiar ritual activities within one of the most interesting examples of sacred house in an ancient Greek city, probably related to a phratry.
The widespread iconographies on red-figure vases and on the other objects found inside this building confirm a use of these artefacts as sacra suppellex and ornamenta, involving the participation of a small community (local phratry). This archaeological case-study can constitute a fruitful opportunity to re-thinking on some information coming from ancient literary sources. The phratry is the intermediary between the family and the civic community; the ritual meetings organized by the phrateres were needed to legitimize the most important “changes” and the admission into the phratry itself; an important reference to the “sense of community” is also depicted on the B-side of the vases because the intention is to allude to the city and to legitimate citizenship. And this is another important aspect that needs an in-depth discussion.

The nature of Carthaginian religion was multifaceted and deeply reflective of Carthage's cultural contacts both beyond and within the Punic world. From the Phoenician settlement of Carthage in the ninth century BCE to its collapse in 146 BCE, Carthaginian religion was constantly changing. These developments are best understood through an examination of the 'tophet', a sacred enclosure on the outskirts of the city where ritual sacrifice is thought to have taken place. Here, three distinct strata have been identified. The first stratum of the tophet, Tanit I (730 - 600BCE) shows strong 'Phoenicionising' elements in funerary practices and afterlife, which are indicative of Carthage's roots as a Phoenician settlement. By comparison, Tanit II (600 - 300BCE) shows evidence of Carthage's role as a trade power in the Mediterranean and contact with contrasting cultures on outposts such as Sicily. By Tanit III (300 -146BCE) the 'Tophet' is deeply Hellenised, and marks an exponential increase in child sacrifice. This paper will argue that these three stages in the development of the Tophetare evidence of the way in which religion reflects the evolution of Carthage from Phoenician settlement to multicultural Punic city-state.

Why did religion become more and more important during the Roman Empire? Instead of assuming the existence of "religions", this book looks at the diversity of lived ancient religion and at the effects of the overarching political framework, the Imperium Romanum. In this tension, so the thesis, new norms of religious action are developed. Urbanization, empire building and the development of individualization proved to be the decisive factors of religious transformation.

Warum wurde Religion im Laufe der römischen Kaiserzeit immer wichtiger? Anstatt von „Religionen“ auszugehen, blickt dieses Buch auf die Vielfalt gelebter antiker Religion und auf die Auswirkungen des umfassenden politischen Großraumes, des Imperium Romanum. In dieser Spannung, so die These, werden neue Normen religiösen Handelns entwickelt. Urbanisierung, Reichsbildung und Selbst-Bildung erweisen sich als die entscheidenden Faktoren religiöser Transformation.
ISBN 978-3-11-063740-3

This paper is devoted to the ‘public’ priesthoods of imperial Rome and their contribution to the wider patterns of religious innovation. It focuses on two key areas of interaction: between priests and the wider public in the city of Rome, through a close reading of the evidence of Cassius Dio, and between priests and emperor, especially in the first decades of the Principate. In focusing on the impact of priesthoods ‘beyond duty’, and looking beyond the setting of priesthoods within the elite networks of Republican Rome, it focuses on two key issues: choice and power. What degree of choice could be exercised in testing and exceeding the remit of collectively-defined prerogatives? What range of options were open, both to agents who exceeded the remit of their duty and to
those affected by their actions? What powers did religious experts dispose of, which allowed or enabled them to exceed the remit of their duty? What factors prompted them to seek to modify the tasks that they were expected to perform? Any decision to exceed the remit of one’s duty implied some degree of challenge to existing power arrangements or institutional frameworks.

Zusammenfassung: Religion in der Großstadt ist ein brennendes Thema, nicht nur für die Forschung. Der Blick auf die Stadt als Hort der Säkularisierung ist durch neue Formen religiöser Präsenz, Debatten um Religion als kulturelles Erbe, durch blutige Pogrome und Erfahrungen der "fundamentalistischen Stadt" er-schüttert worden. Der Blick auf Religion und Stadt in der Antike durch die Linse von Numa Fustel de Coulange kann einen unerwarteten Beitrag zur gegenwärtige Debatte liefern: nämlich dann, wenn man einen verengten Blick auf Polisreligion als Staatsreligion überwindet. Der Aufsatz will die These plausibilisieren, dass religiöse Praktiken und Vorstellungen wichtig für die Stabilisierung und weitere Verbreitung von Städten in der Antike waren und sich Religion und Urbanität als zwei Seiten einer Medaille entwickelt haben. In diesem Sinne wird eine Weiter-entwicklung des Begriffs "urban religion" als "urbanisierte Religion" vorgeschla-gen. Schlagwörter: Stadtreligion-Fustel de Coulange-Diversität-Heterarchie-ur-banisierte Religion Abstract: In the light of present-day urbanization the paper takes a fresh look at religion in the cities of the ancient Mediterranean. The widespread model of "po-lis" or "civic religion" is checked against its origins in Numa Fustel de Coulange's La cité antique of 1864. The re-reading of this work lays open the deficit in the widespread model of coextension of political dominion and identity with religious practices and identity. The critical review will then be extended to concepts of the relationship between city and religion in other periods and areas. Only against that backdrop a new concept of "urbanized religion" will be proposed.