Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction to Volumes I and II
- Introduction to Volume I
- Part I Mesopotamia and the Near East
- Part II Egypt and North Africa
- Part III Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean
- Part IV The Western Mediterranean and Europe
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- General Index
- Index of Citations
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume II
- Part I Iran and the Near East
- Part II Egypt and North Africa
- 6 Traditional Religion in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt
- 7 Judaism in Egypt
- 8 Ancient Egyptian Christianity
- 9 Cult and Belief in Punic and Roman Africa
- 10 Christianity in Roman Africa
- Part III Greece and Asia Minor
- Part IV Italy, Roman Gaul, and Spain
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- General Index
- Index of Citations
- References
9 - Cult and Belief in Punic and Roman Africa
from Part II - Egypt and North Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
General editor
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction to Volumes I and II
- Introduction to Volume I
- Part I Mesopotamia and the Near East
- Part II Egypt and North Africa
- Part III Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean
- Part IV The Western Mediterranean and Europe
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- General Index
- Index of Citations
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume II
- Part I Iran and the Near East
- Part II Egypt and North Africa
- 6 Traditional Religion in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt
- 7 Judaism in Egypt
- 8 Ancient Egyptian Christianity
- 9 Cult and Belief in Punic and Roman Africa
- 10 Christianity in Roman Africa
- Part III Greece and Asia Minor
- Part IV Italy, Roman Gaul, and Spain
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- General Index
- Index of Citations
- References
Summary
The narrow belt of habitable lands that lines the southern shores of the Mediterranean – between Libya in the East and Morocco in the West – has always been an insular world. From their perspective, the Arab geographers logically named these lands the Jazirat al-Maghrib, the “Island of the West.” The countries that make up North Africa today are thus collectively called “the Maghrib.” The flow of sea currents and the predominant winds, the hard and rugged barrier formed by the coastal mountains, and a location between the world’s largest desert and its largest inland sea, have produced a peculiar mix of connectivity and isolation that has affected both ideas and economies. While moderating the exposure of its inhabitants to influences from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, these same forces have also promoted the rapid development of outside ideas and practices once they have entered North Africa.
One result of this double heritage of relative isolation and internalized intensity was the emergence of a bewildering variety, range, and localized identity of religious ritual and practice among Africans before the arrival of Christianity. In an area larger than that of the Iberian and Italian peninsulas combined, every environmental niche as small as a village or a valley came to have its own spirits, deities, rituals, and festivals. The practices and beliefs were so integrated into the life of each ethnic people, village, cultural or occupational group that they formed an almost out-of-mind part of daily routine. On the other hand, amid all this fragmentation and multiplicity, there was sufficient contact to encourage the formation of strands of unity that can be traced between Africa and the Mediterranean world of which it was part. When a Christian empire during the later fourth century CE began to threaten the local festivals, pilgrimages, parades, and other performances, it was apprehension over the loss of this vital core of everyday life that provoked distress as much as any danger to deeply held beliefs.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World , pp. 235 - 263Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
References
Les Flavii de Cillium: étude architecturale, épigraphique historique et littéraire du Mausolée de Kasserine (CIL VIII, 211–216) (Rome, 1993).
, and . Le Chettaba et les grottes à inscriptions latines du Chettaba et du Taya (Constantine, 1929).
and . “Stèles votives à Saturne découvertes près de N’gaous (Algérie).” CRAI (1931): 21–6.Google Scholar
Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley, 2000).
ed. Roman Religion (Edinburgh, 2003).
“Osservazioni sul culto delle Nymphae nell’Africa romana.” Africa romana
15 (2004): 1355–64.Google Scholar
“Capitoline Temples in Italy and the Provinces (especially Africa).” ANRW
2.12.1 (1982): 259–342.Google Scholar
, , and . Religions of Rome, 1: A History (Cambridge, 1996).
“La résistance religieuse.” In La résistance africaine à la romanisation (Paris, 1976): 259–380.
, . Le tophet de Salammbô à Carthage: essai de reconstitution (Rome, 2004).
“Epigraphie et ethnographie: d’une fête populaire de Dougga, en Tunisie, à la dédicace de l’aqueduc de Thugga, en Afrique romaine.” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (2000): 1173–81.Google Scholar
“Un brano di al-Mas’udi e il significato del gallo nel mondo semitico: alcune osservazioni.” [unpublished typescript].
Melqart: cultes et mythes de l’Héraclès tyrien en Méditerranée. Studia Phoenicia 8 (Leuven [Namur], 1988).
Temples et cultes de Tripolitaine (Paris, 1992).
“La place de la Tripolitaine dans la géographie religieuse de l’Afrique du Nord.” In Actes du Ve Colloque international sur l’histoire et l’archéologie de l’Afrique du Nord (Avignon, 1990) = 115e Congrès des sociétés savants (Paris, 1992): 113–9.
Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context (Sheffield, 1991).
Les syncrétismes religieux en Afrique romaine d’Auguste à Dioclétien: étude épigraphique. 2 vols. (Lille, 2001).
La Romanisation des dieux: l’interpretatio romana en Afrique du Nord sous le Haut-Empire (Leiden, 2007).
“L’Inscription de Béja et le problème des Dii Mauri.” Revue africaine
98 (1954): 233–60.Google Scholar
“Survivances par substitution des sacrifices d’enfants dans l’Afrique romaine.” RHR
106 (1932): 592–9.Google Scholar
Les religions de l’Afrique antique (Paris, 1954).
Cultores Mithrae: Die Anhängerschaft des Mithras-Kultes (Stuttgart, 1992).
The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries. Trans. (Edinburgh, 2000). Originally published as Mithras: Kult und Mysterien (Munich, 1990).
“Le centre monumental de Carthage: un ensemble cultuel sur la colline de Byrsa.” In Carthage et son territoire dans l’Antiquité, eds. , et al. (Paris, 1990): 143–55.
“Dionysus.” In The Mosaics of Roman Africa: Studies in Iconography and Patronage (Oxford, 1978): 173–87.
“Who Paid for Public Buildings in Roman Cities?” In Roman Urban Topography in Britain and the Western Empire, eds. , and (London, 1985): 28–33.
Eschatologie phénicienne-punique (Tunis, 1970).
é and . “Une inscription grecque magique de la région de Bou Arada (Tunisie), ou les quatre plaies de l’agriculture antique en Proconsulaire.” BCTH n.s. 19B (1985): 109–25.Google Scholar
Le sanctuaire de Henchir el-Hami: de Ba’al Hammon au Saturne africain, Ier s. av. J.-C.—IV s. apr. J.-C. (Tunis, 2008).
Approches du Maghreb romain. 2 vols. (Aix-en-Provence, 1989–90).
“Religion et domination dans l’Afrique romaine.” DHA
2 (1976): 305–36 = La Méditerranée, vol. 2 (Rome, 1996): 789–812.Google Scholar
The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire. 3 vols. (Boston, 1987–2002).
“Le paganisme en Afrique proconsulaire sous l’Empire romain. Bilan d’un demi siècle de recherche.” [unpublished posthumous paper] ()
, ed. Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford, 1992).
“Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity.” In Persecution and Toleration, ed. (Oxford, 1984): 1–27.
“What is Ancient Mediterranean Religion?” In Ancient Religions, ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 2007): 3–15.
Histoire ancienne de l’Afrique du Nord, 6: Les royaumes indigènes: vie matérielle, intellectuelle et morale (Paris, 1927).
“Les sacrifices d’enfants à Carthage: l’hypothèse de L. W. Stage reconsiderée.” Reppal
12 (2002): 73–8.Google Scholar
La colline de Byrsa à l’époque romaine: étude épigraphique et état de la question = Karthago, vol. 26. (Paris, 2005).
Pagans and Christians (New York, 1986).
Saturne africaine. Monuments, 1: Afrique proconsulaire (Paris, 1961).
Saturne africain. Histoire (Paris, 1966).
Saturne africaine. Monuments, 2: Numidie, Maurétanies (Paris, 1966).
“Le paganisme en Numidie et dans les Maurétanies sou l’empire romain: état des recherches entre 1954 et 1990.” Antiquités africaines
42 (2006): 57–86.Google Scholar
Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven, 1981).
The Pagan Divinities and their Worship as Depicted in the Works of Saint Augustine, exclusive of the City of God (Washington, 1930).
“Sur deux tabellae devotionis de la nécropole romaine d’Hadrumète.” Bibliothèque égyptologique
2 (1893): 303–11.Google Scholar
“Representations and the ‘Meaning’ of Ritual Change: The Case of Hadrumetum.” In Ritual Dynamics in the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. (Heidelberg, 2011): 197–228.
Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion: A Study in Mulk and [Molech], diss. Harvard University, 1975.
Gli adoratori di Moloch: indagine su un celebre rito cartaginese (Milan, 1991).
Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Oxford, 1933).
“Binding Spells: Curse Tablets and Voodoo Dolls in the Greek and Roman Worlds.” In Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome, eds. and (Philadelphia, 1999): 1–90.
Le Tell nord-est tunisien dans l’Antiquité: essai de monographie régionale (Paris, 1991).
“La romanisation de l’ancien territoire de la Carthage punique à la lumière des découvertes épigraphiques récentes.” AntAfr
4 (1970): 75–117 = Afrique romaine: Scripta Varia 1 (Paris, 1978): 300–44.Google Scholar
L’Autel de la gens Augusta à Carthage (Tunis, 1929).
“On the Sacking of Carthage and Corinth.” In Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell, eds. , , and (Oxford, 1994): 133–48.
Ếtude médico-légale des urnes sacrificielles puniques et de leur contenu. Institut Médico-Légal de Lille. Thèse pour le Doctorat en medicine (Lille, 1961).
Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from Augustus to Constantine (Oxford, 1995).
Religion in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2007).
Religion et piété à Rome, 2nd ed. (Paris, 2001). Engl. trans. J. Lloyd as An Introduction to Roman Religion (Bloomington, Ind., 2003).
“The Structure of Local Society in the Early Maghrib: The Elders.” The Maghrib Review
16 (1991): 18–54.Google Scholar
At the Edge of the Corrupting Sea (Oxford, 2006).
La magie en Afrique du Nord sous l’Empire romain. 2 vols. (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1992).
“The Rite of Child Sacrifice at Carthage.” In New Light on Ancient Carthage, ed. (Ann Arbor, Mich, 1980): 1–11.
L’area sacra di Ras Almunfakh presso Sabratha: Le stele = Rivista di Studi Fenici, vol. 20, supplemento (Rome, 1992).
“Les cultes africaines.” In Les cultes païens dans l’Empire romain. Vol. 1 (Paris, 1907): 15–119.
The Cults of the Roman Empire. Trans. (Oxford, 1996).
Sexe et pouvoir à Rome, préface de Lucien Jerphagnon (Paris, 2005).
“A Sea of Faith?” In Mediterranean Paradigms and Classical Antiquity, ed. (London, 2005): 126–43.
The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Trans. (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1988).
- 1
- Cited by