Umfang:
1 Online-Ressource (237 pages)
ISBN:
9783447199353
,
3447199350
Serie:
Leipziger Altorientalistische Studien 11
Inhalt:
The animated picture of myths and magic, prayers and offerings in ancient Mesopotamian Religion, is a reflection of a world where gods and humans were part of a much more complex and multi-layered system, where every single part was closely connected with each other in a dense network of symbolic and ritual meanings. Mountains, rivers, trees, and plants were regarded as cosmic entities, deeply entangled with the sacred landscape, as "other-than-human" persons, and sometimes as deities, who engaged in a multitude of ways with the life of ancient Mesopotamians, and partook of their divine and relational cosmos. Anna Perdibon explores the modalities of the human-environmental relationships by studying how mountains, rivers, and trees were embedded within the ancient Mesopotamian religious framework. The analysis is based on reading the ancient myths, rituals, incantations, and other textual evidence dealing with religious life, together with iconographical sources, through the lens of the current debate about animism and anthropology of religions, in order to investigate and further explain the connection between nature, the sacred, and the materiality of an ancient religion. The book suggests different understandings of divinity, personhood, and nature on the part of ancient Mesopotamians, and sheds new light onto their emic worldviews regarding nature, the cosmos, and the divine. These notions are considered in order to draw a picture of the sacred landscape of the ancient Mesopotamians, while highlighting the actual fluidity and sensuous reality of those ancient polytheisms
Anmerkung:
Includes bibliographical references and index
,
Chapter I -- Animism and Mesopotamian Religion; 1 What is animism? -History of the term in anthropological literature; 2 The state of research into Mesopotamian religion -- Chapter II -- Sacred Mountains and Mountain Deities; 1 The mountain: an entangled sacred being in Mesopotamia and beyond; 2 The mountain; 3 Specifically named mountains -- Chapter III -- River Deities, Cosmic Rivers and Sacred Springs; 1 Bodies of flowing water: places, persons and gods; 2 The divine River: mother, healer and judge; 3 Waters, springs and the Apsû; 4 Specifically named rivers; 5 Rivers as borders, ritual settings and communication channels -- Chapter IV -- Sacred Trees and Plant Persons; 1 Trees as sacred animate beings worldwide and in ancient Mesopotamia; 2 Cosmic trees, sacred trees and tree-persons; 3 The animate and relational universe of plants, wood and trees in the antiwitchcraft incantations and healing rituals -- Chapter V -- Nature, Divinity and Personhood in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion; 1 How animism can contribute to assess some emic notions of nature, divinity and personhood; 2 From myths to magic: animism, analogism and the community of living beings; 3 Mountains, rivers and trees: an entangled relationship
Weitere Ausg.:
ISBN 9783447113212
Weitere Ausg.:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe Perdibon, Anna, 1986 - Mountains and trees, rivers and springs Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz Verlag, 2019 ISBN 9783447113212
Weitere Ausg.:
ISBN 3447113219
Sprache:
Englisch
Fachgebiete:
Komparatistik. Außereuropäische Sprachen/Literaturen
,
Theologie/Religionswissenschaften
Schlagwort(e):
Mesopotamien
;
Sumerer
;
Religion
;
Natur
;
Animismus
;
Polytheismus
;
Mesopotamien
;
Animismus
;
Hochschulschrift
Mehr zum Autor:
Perdibon, Anna 1986-
