Textiles and cult in the ancient Mediterranean
"Twenty-four experts from the fields of ancient history, Semitic philology, Assyriology, classical archaeology, and classical philology come together in this volume to explore the role of textiles in ancient religion in Greece, Italy, the Levant and the Near East. Recent scholarship has illustr...
| Summary: | "Twenty-four experts from the fields of ancient history, Semitic philology, Assyriology, classical archaeology, and classical philology come together in this volume to explore the role of textiles in ancient religion in Greece, Italy, the Levant and the Near East. Recent scholarship has illustrated how textiles played a large and very important role in the ancient Mediterranean sanctuaries. In Greece, the so-called temple inventories testify to the use of textiles as votive offerings, in particular to female divinities. Furthermore, in several cults, textiles were used to dress the images of different deities. Textiles played an important role in the dress of priests and priestesses, who often wore specific garments designated by particular colours. Clothing regulations in order to enter or participate in certain rituals from several Greek sanctuaries also testify to the importance of dress of ordinary visitors. Textiles were used for the furnishings of the temples, for example in the form of curtains, draperies, wall-hangings, sun-shields, and carpets. This illustrates how the sanctuaries were potential major consumers of textiles; nevertheless, this particular topic has so far not received much attention in modern scholarship. Furthermore, our knowledge of where the textiles consumed in the sanctuaries came from, where they were produced, and by who is extremely limited. Textiles and Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean examines the topics of textile production in sanctuaries, the use of textiles as votive offerings and ritual dress using epigraphy, literary sources, iconography and the archaeological material itself"--Publisher description List of contributors -- Foreword and acknowledgements / Cecilie Brøns and Marie-Louise Nosch -- Part I. Greece -- Offering of cloth and/or clothing to the sanctuaries : a case of ritual continuity from the 2nd to the 1st millennium BCE in the Aegean? / Tina Boloti -- What does the clothing say about the killer? : some thoughts on textiles in depictions of sacrifice in archaic Athens / Karine Riviere -- Not nothing : conceptualising textile whiteness for cult practice / Liza Cleland -- Weaving the Chalkeia reconstruction and ritual of an Athenian festival / Jacquelyn H. Clements -- Dress, code and identity-of-place in Greek religion : some cases from classical and Hellenistic Athens / Karen Rørby Kristensen and Jens A. Krasilnikoff -- Textiles go public : priestly dress in the ancient Mediterranean : Herodotus as a source-book / Maria Gerolemou -- Headdress for success : cultic uses of the Hellenistic Mitra / Maria Papadopoulou -- Astral symbols on a loom weight from Adjiyska Vodenitsa (ancient Pistiros), Thrace : measurement, astronomy, and cult / Zosia Halina Archibald -- Part III. Italy -- Building V and ritual textile production at Timpone della Motta / Signe Grove Saxkjaer, Jan Kindberg Jacobsen and Gloria Paola Mittica -- The loom weights from the "Scarico di Grotta Vanella" : evidence for a sanctuary on the North Acropolis of Segesta? / Hedvig Landenius Enegren -- Loom weights in sacred contexts : the square building of the Heraion near the mouth of the Sele River / Bianca Ferrara and Francesco Meo -- "Temple key" or distaff? : an ambiguous artefact from the Greek and indigenous sanctuaries of Southern Italy / Alessandro Quercia -- On priests, priestesses, and clothing in Roman cult practices / Lena Larsson Lovén -- Part III. The Levant and the Near East -- Textiles in Assyrian and Babylonian temples of the 1st millennium BCE / Salvatore Gaspa -- Textile production in the Neo-Babylonian Eanna archive / Elizabeth E. Payne -- The description of Anahita's attire in the Yast 5 / Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo -- Modes of textile production in cultic contexts in the Iron Age Southern Levant : the finds from Tell es-Sâfi/Gath / Deborah Cassuto -- The high priest's garments of mixed wool and linen (sha'atnez) compared to textiles found in the land of Israel / Orit Shamir -- Between fashion phenomena and status symbols : contextualising the wardrobe of the so-called "former priests" of Palmyra / Rubina Raja -- Women in Palmyrene rituals and religious practices / Signe Krag -- Part IV. Late antiquity -- Textiles as gifts to god in late antiquity Christian altar cloths as cultic objects / Sean V. Leatherbury |
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| Item Description: | Literaturangaben "... volume is the result of the conference Textiles and Cult in the Mediterranean Area in the 1st Millennium BC, held in Copenhagen in November 2013" - (Preface, Seite xii) |
| ISBN: | 1785706721 |