Mythologies, beliefs & rituals
With this issue's NBC, I would like to invite the reader onto a journey into the world of myths and explore a sample of recent publications that address religious beliefs and rituals of past peoples. This is rarely straightforward, given the nature of the sources—archaeological, textual, oral and iconographic—yet the topic attracts a huge number of scholars. We begin with a trip up the Nile in ancient Egypt, head across to the Aegean and to Iron Age male nudes, and then on to ritual caves in the Western Mediterranean, before moving north to visit the ‘Celtic druids’ in Britain and Gaul and ending with a vast sweep across North America, investigating the connection of climate change, new religious practices and cultural transformations before Columbus’ arrival.
The fascination with ancient Egypt and its gods, pharaohs, pyramids and temples seems undiminished. This is primarily due to the lasting impression their striking sites and colourful stories make even on very young audiences. It is also due to authors finding different angles to write about them in new publications. Garry Shaw, Egyptologist and writer of popular books, is one of them, and takes the reader on a unique journey not just along the Nile, but also back to the times of the gods of Egypt, visiting the ruins of temples and places that bear testimony to their legendary divinities and heroes.
The book begins with an Introduction to set the scene for the traveller about to delve into the mythology of a distant time. It gives a refreshingly honest response to the question: “How do we know any of this? The short answer: with difficulty” (p. 9). This is followed by a concise and accessibly written chronology of ancient Egypt and an explanation of where such sources of mythology can be found. It notes that the overall picture is pieced together from many different small parts yet still remains incomplete and in need of interpretation. This book is one way of how to tell the myths, based on the original sources, filling in gaps to make a good story—as was done in the distant past.
The 14 chapters of the book proceed from location to location, moving upstream along the Nile, from Aswan to Alexandria, with stops in Edfu, Thebes, Dendera, Abydos, Tell el-Amarna, Hermopolis, Faiyum Oasis, Memphis, Heliopolis, Bubastis and Pi-Ramesses. In this rather different way to approach Egyptian mythology, the myths connected with the location take centre stage, but are also embedded in the wider belief system. The reader visits temples, burial grounds and palaces, and learns about the gods and goddesses, as well as religious beliefs and rituals performed by priests, gaining valuable insights into dealings between deities and people.
Each chapter has a table with the key chronology, an overview of the sites visible today, and is filled with rich tales and historical information relating to the location. In the descriptions, the author conjures up pictures of the different places, skilfully combining the appearance of the sites today with the accounts and drawings of past explorers, and how they looked and were experienced in the ancient past. The reader is provided with a vast amount of information, yet mainly delivered in an easily digestible narrative. The skeleton of the source material is converted into a full-bodied corpus of stories that give a vivid picture of ancient Egyptian mythology. Myths about the gods and goddesses, and the places with which they are connected, helped the ancient Egyptians explain the world around them and manifested the relationships between humans and gods. The knowledge we have today about these belief systems might be still incomplete but is much richer and more detailed than most other contemporaneous societies. In this handsome volume—elegantly written and beautifully illustrated throughout, with blue-ink sketches of ruins, murals and inscriptions all adding to its timeless appeal—Shaw succeeds in turning the reader into the traveller and engages a wide audience in a wonderous and often strange world. “If the past is another country, mythology is another world” (p. 13).
Sarah Murray's book explores the beginnings of nude male figurines to shed new light on the question “Why did the male nude come to occupy such an important place in ancient Greek culture?” (p. xv). The study analyses the earliest of these figurines from the Aegean, which date to the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and Early Iron Age (EIA), during the late second and early first millennia BC. An in-depth and useful Preface explains the author's approach to this specific research and reveals to the reader beforehand the substance and direction of the book. The following seven chapters adopt a multifaceted approach to the material, and three appendices list the written sources (Homer and Hesiod), the bronze figurines discussed in the text and a sample of vase paintings.
A lengthy Introduction emphasises the prominent place and interpretations of the male nude in Greek antiquity, a situation which is unique in the ancient Mediterranean. The dominant influence of Homer on interpretation has prevented objective scholarly assessment of the material, with the consequence that, to date, EIA figurines have been studied as the early forms of ‘objet d'art’. This approach fails to explain the reality of the EIA world and requires reassessment. The following chapters emphasise instead the production and use of the figurines at sanctuary sites, how their meaning and purpose can be understood and how the rituals involved can be explored. This starting chapter also highlights the methods, categories, definitions and the chronology used.
The following chapter, ‘Naked male figurines in the EIA Aegean’, looks at the corpus of these objects and revisits the chronology in detail in order to establish the development of this form and to investigate how different regions influenced each other. The iconographic evidence is investigated in the next chapter and combined with the regional patterns of the figurines. LBA Crete is identified as the most likely source of male nudity in connection with ritual behaviours. A re-interpretation of the archaeological and written evidence for the origins of athletic festivities and nude rituals on the mainland, for example Olympia and Delphi, strongly points to Cretan influence. This is underlined in the next chapter, where the comparison of the production processes of figurines from Crete, Delphi and Olympia comes to the same conclusion. The complex production sequence of the many male nudes cast in bronze with the ‘lost wax method’ is discussed in detail and illuminates the role of highly skilled craftspeople. This interesting point leads on to the next chapter, where metallurgy as a ritual practice in sanctuaries is investigated.
Building on the conclusions of the previous chapters, Chapter 6 revisits the historical perspective and makes the case for EIA societies as distinct historical entities, rather than as a transitional phase between the LBA and classical antiquity. The final chapter makes this point even clearer, highlighting and connecting with the larger framework of the EIA Aegean.
In summary, this book is thoroughly researched, well written and thought provoking. The summaries and conclusions at the end of the chapters help to guide the reader through the detailed information and ideas presented. Murray challenges traditional perspectives through the use of case studies and provides a perspective that convincingly positions EIA societies in the wider chronological setting of the Aegean. Furthermore, she illuminates the previously hidden connections of production processes such as bronze casting, metal objects and ritual activities. The starting question of why nude males became so important in Classical Greece, however, is only indirectly answered: Murray concludes that the nakedness of EIA figurines was intended principally to make clear that they were male, not female.
The editors and authors of the 13 chapters included in this volume originally came together at an EAA session in Barcelona in 2018. The topics encompass a wide geographical range across the Mediterranean and span the Bronze Age to late antiquity. With eight chapters concerning Iberia, including the Balearic Islands and one chapter from the adjacent Pyrenees, the main focus is on the Western Mediterranean. The outliers are two chapters giving overviews on caves in Greece and one that discusses standing stones in the Levant (Scheyhing). The final chapter goes far beyond Mediterranean shores and looks at Maya rituals and highlights the comparable elements of religious behaviour in Mesoamerican caves (Moyes). Nine chapters are dedicated to research on caves, but all contributions address the topic of natural sacred places, rock shelters, shrines or caves, how they were used and the evidence for ritual, and how these places changed over time.
The introduction invites the reader to embrace the ‘potency of landscapes’ and of the rocks and caves as being part of, or staged in, this framework, and to understand caves as ‘sensescapes’ (Skeates). The following contributions are evenly balanced between those presenting detailed research based on a single or a few sites, and chapters offering a diachronic perspective or a more general overview.
The first site-based study highlights the finds from the Bronze Age cave Cova de Fum on Formentera. Due to its special location with distant views, the site is understood as a landmark and gathering point for the island people (Martín et al.). The Late Iron Age and Roman finds from the Umbria de Salchite caves and broader region in south-east Spain are investigated to examine the changing role of these caves (González Reyero). Two rural Punic shrines, one from a cave on Ibiza and the other an open-air one from Cadiz, are placed in the context of the wider landscape in order to explore the topic of pilgrimage through figurines and other objects, identifying rituals that appear to have been mainly the tasks of women (López-Bertran).
Three studies look at the diachronic use and changes in forms of worship at a single site: Font Major cave in Tarragona (Cots Serret et al.) during the Bronze Age to Roman times; a Greek ‘rock spring’ in the Pyrenees (Dunyach); and Roman remains in the Cava dels Jurats, Menorca (Gutiérrez-Rodríguez), as studied through a highly detailed soil analysis.
An overview of modes of religious behaviour focuses on caves in Iberia—mainly in the fourth/third centuries BC—and considers the cognitive behaviour of the worshipper within caves as sensorial spaces (Rueda Galán et al.). This is complemented by research on the astronomical orientation of Iberian ritual caves, as the Iron Age ones are often illuminated from the west. This was probably intentional, as necessary for certain rituals or to dramatise the lighting effects during religious ceremonies (Esteban).
Two chapters on the Greek sphere offer overviews on caves: one discusses the ritual role of caves in the Cyclades from prehistory to the present (Trimmis); and the second looks at the symbolic value of caves within the context of the iconographic and written sources of ancient Greece (Giuman).
These diverse chapters with their different scales and timeframes highlight how many natural places, often overlooked or seen as less important than built structures (e.g. temples, sanctuaries), were significant places of worship, even during the Classical period. The volume gives many examples as to how the often-meagre evidence in the archaeological record can give persuasive results if analysed from different perspectives. Attending to the thoughts and the sensorial experiences of past people helps to illuminate perceptions of the rituals. The approach of comparing religious behaviour across time and space in these natural sacred places is inspiring and will certainly lead to further research seeking to unlock understanding of past rituals in these sacred places.
In this book, renowned scholar Miranda Aldhouse-Green shares her thoughts on the legendary Celtic druids in Britain and Gaul and brings a more archaeological perspective to the lengthy and ongoing debates. The written records of ancient writers remain at the centre of the book's discussions, but rather than following the more common path and explaining the archaeological evidence through these sources, the archaeology is here used to evaluate the written sources. The author adds many personal observations and incorporates comparative religious studies into her reflections. The Prologue sets the scene for the following chapters, detailing the thoughts and research that led to this work, which can be seen as a companion to Nora Chadwick's 1966 book on the written sources on druids. What Aldhouse provides is also a lively written overview with both famous and lesser-known examples of the religious beliefs and rituals of the Celtic world.
In the first two chapters, mentions of the druids in the often-ambiguous ancient written sources are scrutinised and compared. The druids were present in both Britain and Brittany, most likely from the second century BC onwards, and through to the end of the Roman occupation in Britain and even beyond. The ancient writers and their motives are closely and critically questioned. Sources are validated, or dismissed, to distil the information down to the remaining and most probable facts. From the third chapter onwards, the archaeological evidence is explored—often also ambiguous in its interpretation, but still valuable and offering a good comparative perspective to evaluate the ancient writers. Aldhouse explores the ‘spiritual spaces’, including caves, groves, ‘temples’, shrines and cemeteries from Iron Age Britain. In the following chapter on ‘images and symbols’, the material evidence of the druid's religion is presented. Torcs are here highlighted as one of the main categories of evidence.
Chapter 5 gives important insight and puts a ‘spotlight on druidic Wales’, as recent finds point to this area not as the periphery but rather as a centre of the druid ‘culture’. Chapter 5 is devoted to Boudicca, as she is seen as both a leader and performer of druidic rites and is the case study for the broader exploration of the connection between druids and political power. The chapter ‘From runes to spoons: divining the divine’ explores the artefacts possibly used in druidic rituals. This is followed by an assessment of the complex debates on the changes of beliefs in deities during Roman occupation in Gaul and Britain. Even though the final chapter on ‘Ideas of the afterlife: death, burial and reincarnation’ is represented by extensive archaeological evidence, it is much harder to interpret these beliefs, and again written sources are needed to provide a fuller, if still incomplete picture.
The Epilogue brings all these thoughts and lines of enquiries together and concludes that the druids remain enigmatic. Although the written sources cannot always be trusted, they are helpful in illuminating some of the archaeological evidence thought to be connected to the beliefs and rituals. This suggests a powerful group of theocrats existed in ‘Celtic Gaul and Britain’, but they remain in the shadows. The Romans called them druids; we still do not know what they called themselves.
This NBC started with an expedition through time along the Nile and will end with another journey. In his new book, Tim Pauketat travels across North America, tracing the connections between climate change and the emergence of new religious beliefs in the ‘Medieval Warm period’ (AD 800–1300). The Introduction, ‘In search of Medieval America’, makes the reader aware that the well-known European medieval era has an equally important counterpart in America, both of which experienced a change to a warmer climate—part of a global phenomenon argued to bring about major cultural transformations. North America is here to be understood as the entire continent, reaching from Alaska to Honduras. A timeline and maps at the beginning help to keep track of the many movements and events.
The author mixes personal travels, archaeological research, written records and Indigenous knowledge into an engaging narrative. It is not always linear or easy to follow, and is sometimes rather circular, which may be intended by the author as his own ‘circle of power’ (a term used to describe the circular shrines). The vast quantity of information from diverse sources that the book compiles makes it hard to summarise. Twelve chapters take us to different stops along the journey, discussing many key archaeological sites and following the paths of Indigenous people from the past and Spanish conquistadors. To follow—truly—in the steps of this research, Pauketat provides practical information at the end of the chapters on places to visit.
The first chapter, ‘Temples of wind and rain’, looks at similar architecture, especially circular pyramids and platforms, across the continent and the second, ‘Lost in ancient America’, eases us into the journey by following Spanish survivors of the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition (1527–1536) from Florida to Mexico. In Chapter 3, ‘Dark secrets of the Crystal Maiden’, we meet the Maya, the protagonists who start a new religious movement around the ‘gods of thunder’ or “wind-that-brings-rain gods” (pp. 70–78). Chapters 4 to 10 follow this phenomenon, tracing a path north across the continent, through Mexico, into the Southwest and Southern Plains and up the Mississippi. The final two chapters look at the possible reasons for how and why the beliefs and rituals of the ‘gods of thunder’ were spread in the way described in the previous chapters.
The book is a rich assemblage of sources and stories, giving a vivid impression of the ritual practices of ‘Medieval America’ and beyond and brings forth many thought-provoking ideas. The researching and tracing of the strikingly similar archaeological features, among them the circular shrines or temples for wind and rain and their association with seashells, flint daggers and ceremonial poles, leads Pauketat to look deeply into the pre-Columbian period and combine the written records with oral histories, memories and knowledge of Indigenous people. Through these multiple perspectives, a new narrative for ‘Medieval America’ is proposed: change to a warmer and sometimes wetter climate made the Maya turn to ‘wind-that-brings-rain gods’, and from there these religious beliefs and practices spread north across the continent over several centuries and substantially transformed cultures along the way. Pauketat emphasises the combination of climate change and religious beliefs as the motor of these movements, and at the heart of it the Indigenous peoples who trusted in and worshipped their ‘gods of thunder’.
All these publications provide fascinating insights into past societies and their ritual behaviour. Religious activities are often difficult to identify, as the interaction of people with and within a ‘sacred sphere’ can be hard to grasp in the archaeological remains. These examples show that religious practices and their related mythologies are constantly evolving, but also retain elements of the longue durée in their practices and places. The explanations for changes can range from the political, for example, in some of the Mediterranean ritual caves or the druids’ ‘culture’, to the environmental, as in North America. The difference in the levels of detail in the diverse areas highlighted here is immense. In Egypt, we know the names of the gods and have pictures and descriptions of rituals, even down to personal curses or blessings. In contrast, in the caves and sanctuaries of prehistoric Europe, we often only have little knowledge beyond ‘ritual activities’. Where there are written sources, they are often describing outsiders’, and frequently colonisers’, perspectives, such as the Romans and the Spanish conquistadors, which often leads to misinterpretations of the archaeological record. The diversity of beliefs visible in the archaeological record across time and space provides an important lesson. We need to look carefully at the material that remains with fresh perspectives and not simply interpret them by imposing the agendas of ancient written sources, traditional frameworks or modern ideas.
This list includes all books received between 1 January 2023 and 28 February 2023. Those featuring at the beginning of New Book Chronicle, however, have not been duplicated in this list. The listing of a book in this chronicle does not preclude its subsequent review in Antiquity.
