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Youth and Age in the Medieval North
This interdisciplinary volume explores social, cultural and biological definitions of youth and age specific to the medieval north, and changing mentalities towards youth and age as a result of political, cultural, and religious transformations in the north.
The Well Spring of the Goths
The Goths-a rumored people first known by history around the river Vistula in present Poland-was the people that more than other contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. It was however also the Goths who preserved the Roman culture against other Germanic tribes. Earlier it has been generally assumed the Goths originated in Scandinavia but during the 20th c. many scholars have grown skeptical. The author has, using both Classical and Nordic sources and supplementary sciences, made probable there is an intimate connection between the Goths and the Nordic countries. Consequently it is quite possible that at least part of the Goths have a Nordic origin. The book rests on the basic hypothesis...
Ancient Landscapes of Zoara II
Ancient Landscapes of Zoara II reveals the unique set of objects discovered through the meticulous excavations at the Ghor as-Safi in Jordan. Some of them are unique works of art, but others are no less valuable for the knowledge they hold. Complementing the previous volume Ancient Landscapes of Zoara I, this book explores Ghor as-Safi’s ancient history and archaeology through the material remains found during excavations. The finds described are from historical periods and include unpublished early Christian and Aramaic inscriptions as well as Arabic writing and graffiti. Newly discovered mosaic pavements are presented along with other noteworthy finds such as glazed imported wares, local...
The Source of the Blue Nile
Ethiopia has a rich and fascinating cultural heritage structured around water. The River Nile has been seen by many as the most important river in the world, and the secrets of the sources of the Nile and their mysteries have, from the dawn of civilization, attracted philosophers, emperors and explorers searching for answers. The source of the Blue Nile, Gish Abay, is believed to be the outlet of the biblical river Gihon, flowing directly from Paradise, linking this world with Heaven. The holiness of Abay (the Blue Nile) and its source in particular still has an important role in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In the Lake Tana region, there are also numerous other myths, traditions and ritua...
Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism
Death matters and the matters of death are initially, and to a large extent, the decaying flesh of the corpse. Cremation as a ritual practice is the fastest and most optimal way of dissolving the corpse’s flesh, either by annihilation or purification, or a combination. Still, cremation was not the final rite, and the archaeological record testifies that the dead represented a means to other ends – the flesh, and not the least the bones – have been incorporated in a wide range of other ritual contexts. While human sacrifices and cannibalism as ritual phenomena are much discussed in anthropology, archaeology has an advantage, since the actual bone material leaves traces of ritual practices that are unseen and unheard of in the contemporary world. As such, this book fleshes out a broader and more coherent understanding of prehistoric religions and funeral practices in Scandinavia by focusing on cremation, corpses and cannibalism.
Indo-European Fire Rituals
Indo-European Fire Rituals is a comparative study of Indo-European fire rituals from modern folklore and ethnography in Scandinavia and archaeological material in Europe from the Bronze Age onwards to the Vedic origins of cosmos in India and today’s cremations on open pyres in Hinduism. Exploring Indo-European fire rituals and sacrifices throughout history and fire in its fundamental role in rites and religious practices, this book analyses fire rituals as the unifying structure in time and space in Indo-European cultures from the Bronze Age onwards. It asks the question how and why was fire the ultimate power in culture and cosmology? Fire as an agent and divinity was fundamental in all m...
Religion at Work in Globalised Traditions
Why do traditions disappear? How is the disappearance of tradition also a vehicle for social change and re-inventions of practices and new traditions? Using case studies from one Sukuma area along the southern shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania, global processes of how religions work in practice are analysed by focusing on rainmaking, witchcraft and Christianity. Traditionally, Sukuma society was culturally and cosmologically structured around the chief, the ancestors and rainmaking. Everything was dependent upon the rain. Rainmaking as a ritual practice has disappeared and ancestral propitiations are declining, while, at the same time, Christianity is spreading and witchcraft and witch kil...
The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion
A comprehensive overview, by period and region, of the archaeology of ritual and religion. The coverage is global, and extends from the earliest prehistory to modern times. Written by over sixty renowned specialists, the Handbook presents the very best in current scholarship, and will also stimulate further research.
Rulership in 1st to 14th century Scandinavia
This book seeks to revitalise the somewhat stagnant scholarly debate on Germanic rulership in the first millennium AD. A series of comprehensive chapters combines literary evidence on Scandinavia’s polities, kings, and other rulers with archaeological, documentary, toponymical, and linguistic evidence. The picture that emerges is one of surprisingly stable rulership institutions, sites, and myths, while control of them was contested between individuals, dynasties, and polities. While in the early centuries, Scandinavia was integrated in Germanic Europe, profound societal and cultural changes in 6th-century Scandinavia and the Christianisation of Continental and English kingdoms set norther...
