A COMPANION TO THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF RELIGION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS VOLUME:

Marlis Arnhold, Gideon Bohak, Kimberley Bowes, Olivier de Cazanove, Sylvia Estienne, Steven Fine, Valentino Gasparini, Laura Gawlinski, Susanne Gödde, Richard Gordon, Henner von Hesberg, Valérie Huet, Dr. Robin M. Jensen, Julia Kindt, Thierry Luginbühl, Marleen Martens, Patrice Méniel, Eva M. Mol, Frits Naerebout, Richard Neudecker, Inge Nielsen, Christiane Nowak, Robert Parker, Rubina Raja, Eric Rebillard, Jörg Rüpke, Günther Schörner, Anne Viola Siebert, Christopher Smith, Wolfgang Spickermann, Eftychia Stavrianopoulou, Ellen Thiermann, William Van Andringa, Zsuzsana Várhelyi, Miguel John Versluys, Lara Weiss, and Greg Woolf

A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive overview of a wide range of topics and archaeological materials relating to the practices, expressions, and interactions of religion in antiquity. Chapters are primarily focused on "lived religion" – religious experience rather than belief – in the Greco-Roman world, and take their point of departure in concepts, aspect, and empirical material relating to central themes within the archaeology of religion.

Featuring 35 contributions from leading specialists, researchers, and theorists from a variety of relevant fields, chapters are structured around themes that include archaeology of ritual, embodiment, experiences, creating spaces of experiences, designing and appropriating sacred space, sharing public space, expressiveness, and agents and transformations.

Collectively, chapters serve to shape our understanding of the role of objects in cultural practices of constructing religion and encountering and appropriating such a religion as objectified representations of the sacred. Combining the best current scholarship with a wide-ranging geographical scope and chronological span, A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World offers illuminating insights into everyday religious life and ritual practice during antiquity.

A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive overview of a wide range of topics relating to the practices, expressions, and interactions of religion in antiquity, primarily in the Greco-Roman world.

• Features readings that focus on religious experience and expression in the ancient world rather than solely on religious belief

• Places a strong emphasis on domestic and individual religious practice

• Represents the first time that the concept of “lived religion” is applied to the ancient history of religion and archaeology of religion

• Includes cutting-edge data taken from top contemporary researchers and theorists in the field

• Examines a large variety of themes and religious traditions across a wide geographical area and chronological span

• Written to appeal equally to archaeologists and historians of religion