A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World

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

Notes on Contributors x

Abbreviations xiv

1 Archaeology of Religion, Material Religion, and the Ancient World 1
Rubina Raja and Jörg Rüpke

Part I Archaeology of Ritual 27

2 The Archaeology of Ancient Sanctuaries 29
William Van Andringa

3 Ritual Activities, Processions and Pilgrimages 41
Thierry Luginbühl

4 Perpetuated Action 60
Lara Weiss

5 Public and Private 71
Robert Parker

Part II Embodiment 81

6 Amulets 83
Gideon Bohak

7 Dress and Ornaments 96
Laura Gawlinski

8 Dance 107
Frederick Naerebout

9 Gendered Agents and Embodied Religious Experience 120
Zsuzsanna Várhelyi

Part III Experiences 131

10 Polychromy and Jewish Visual Culture of Roman Antiquity 133
Steven Fine

11 Watching Rituals 144
Valérie Huet

12 Killing and Preparing Animals 155
Patrice Méniel

13 Communal Dining: Making Things Happen 167
Marleen Martens

14 WATER 181
Olivier de Cazanove

15 Temporary Deprivation: Rules and Meanings 194
Richard Gordon

Part IV Creating Spaces of Experiences 207

16 At Home 209
Kimberly Bowes

17 Gardens 220
Richard Neudecker

18 Religion and Tomb 235
Henner von Hesberg, Christiane Nowak and Ellen Thiermann

Part V Designing and Appropriating Sacred Space 251

19 Archaeology of Christian Initiation 253
Robin M. Jensen

20 Oracular Shrines as Places of Religious Experience 268
Julia Kindt

21 Buildings of Religious Communities 279
Inge Nielsen

22 Sanctuaries and Urban Spatial Settings in Roman Imperial Ostia 293
Marlis Arnhold

Part VI Sharing Public Space 305

23 Complex Sanctuaries in the Roman Period 307
Rubina Raja

24 Temples and Temple Interiors 320
Henner von Hesberg

25 Theater 333
Susanne Gödde

26 The Archaeology of Processions 349
Eftychia Stavrianopoulou

27 Urbanization and Memory 362
Christopher Smith

Part VII Expressiveness 377

28 Images 379
Sylvia Estienne

29 Instruments and Vessels 388
Anne Viola Siebert

30 Anatomical ex votos 397
Günther Schörner

31 Monumental Inscriptions 412
Wolfgang Spickermann

Part VIII Agents 425

32 Material Culture and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity 427
Eric Rebillard

33 Individual Choices and Individuality in the Archaeology of Ancient Religion 437
Jörg Rüpke

34 Material Culture and Imagined Communities in the Roman World 451
Eva Mol and Miguel John Versluys

Part IX Transformations 463

35 Ritual Traditions of Non‐Mediterranean Europe 465
Greg Woolf

36 Tracing Religious Change in Roman Africa 478
Valentino Gasparini

Index 489

THE EDITORS

Rubina Raja is professor of Classical Archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark. She studied Classical Archaeology in Copenhagen, Rome and Oxford and heads an excavation project in Jerash, Jordan. Among other things she works on the archaeology of religion in the Roman period and is involved as co???director of the ERC funded project "Lived ancient religion" at Erfurt University.

Jörg Rüpke is Fellow for History of Religion at the Max Weber Centre of the University of Erfurt. He has held positions in Classical Philology and Comparative Religion and is director of the ERC project "Lived ancient religion".

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.