The Bloomsbury Handbook of Material Religion in the Ancient Near East and Egypt

With contributions spanning from the Neolithic Age to the Iron Age, this book offers important insights into the religions and ritual practices in ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern communities through the lenses of their material remains. The book begins with a theoretical introduction to the concept of material religion and features editor introductions to each of its six parts, which tackle the following themes: the human body; religious architecture; the written word; sacred images; the spirituality of animals; and the sacred role of the landscape. Illustrated with over 100 images, chapters provide insight into every element of religion and materiality, from the largest building to the smallest amulet. This is a benchmark work for further studies on material religion in the ancient Near East and Egypt. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Figures 9 Contributors 14 Introduction 20 PART ONE Material Religion 26 CHAPTER ONE Chance and Lived Religion: The Material Culture of Transforming Randomness into Purpose 28 PART TWO The Human Body 40 CHAPTER TWO Material Religion and the Body in the Ancient Near East 42 CHAPTER THREE Jewelry as a Powerful Tool in the Religious Discourse between Humans and the Supernatural in the Ancient Near Eas 56 CHAPTER FOUR Body Politic: Body-Objects and Necropolitics Past and Present 74 CHAPTER FIVE Behind the Cultic Statue: The Materiality of Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia 88 CHAPTER SIX Meanings and Practices in the Design of Objects: What Does Design Reveal about Experiences? 96 CHAPTER SEVEN The Brief but Spectacular Lives of Figurines in Hittite Ritual 110 PART THREE The Architecture 122 CHAPTER EIGHT Religious Life, Urban Fabric, and Regeneration Processes at Mari during the Second Half of the Third Millennium 124 CHAPTER NINE Sacred Space and Immigrant Identity in the Middle Bronze Age: The Case of Tell el Dab.a 138 CHAPTER TEN Evidence for an Urartian Belief System: The Institutionalization of Religion in the Mountainous Eastern Anatolian H 148 CHAPTER ELEVEN The Price of Devotion: Costly Signals in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Architecture on the Anatolian Plateau (SHA 172 CHAPTER TWELVE Building Temples in the Northern Levant 186 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Sacred Architecture in Iron II Southern Levant 208 PART FOUR The Written Words 220 CHAPTER FOURTEEN Scribes in the Temple: Materializing Missing Monuments in Mesopotamia 222 CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Heraldry of Early Iranian Religion 232 CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Materials of Hittite Magic and Religion 244 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Experiencing the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: A Funerary Text Corpus as a Material Object 256 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Pottery and Magic: A Glimpse into Late-Antique Mesopotamian Religious Tradition and Its Materiality 272 CHAPTER NINETEEN The Biblical Priestly Tradition as Material Religion: A Comparative Ancient Mediterranean Approach 280 PART FIVE The Animals 294 CHAPTER TWENTY Man, Animal, and Gods: Animal Remains as Indicators of Beliefs in the Ancient Near East 296 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Resting on Strong Shoulders: The Power of Animal Scapulae in the Near Eastern Neolithic 308 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Animals and Ideology in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the Southern Levant 324 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Sharing Animals: Animal Imagery as Late Antique Intercultural Dialogue 334 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The Theriomorphic Images of the Hittite Gods 352 PART SIX The Landscape 360 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Material Religion and the Perception of the Sacred Landscape in Ancient Mesopotamia 362 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Imagining the Supernatural: The Landscape of Kura-Araxes Sacred Funerary Mounds 370 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Cultic Aspects of the Egyptian Desert 390 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Deconstructing the Shrine: An Assay in Understanding Desert Cult 406 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Maritime Viewscapes and the Material Religion of Levantine Seafarers 418 References 432 Index 518