Talismans And Trojan Horses

Author : Christopher A. Faraone
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : History
ISBN : IND:30000025812995

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Talismans and Trojan Horses by Christopher A. Faraone Pdf

Greek legends and historical accounts contain many references to special statues or images designed to preserve the safety or livelihood of a city, a business or a house. These images, which fall into two often overlapping categories (talismans and apotropaia), were erected according to special rituals and took on a variety of intriguing forms, including lions, locusts, and bound effigies of destructive deities like Ares. Looking closely at a wide variety of Greek texts and artifacts, Faraone provides a detailed description and survey of these images and then uses this information to provide new interpretations of early Greek myths about Pandora, the Trojan Horse, and the "living statues" created by Hephaestus. At each step he sets the Greek evidence in a wider eastern-Mediterranean context, with detailed discussions of Near Eastern and Egyptian practices that bear close resemblance to the Greek rituals. The study closes with a re-evaluation of the traditional scholarly approach to religious art as purely representational, suggesting that some images instead of simply illustrating the power of a god, were actually created to restrain and control the power of inimical supernatural forces such as plague-gods and ghosts. Focusing renewed attention on these often misinterpreted talismans and apotropaia, Talismans and Trojan Horses will be illuminating for scholars and students of classics, art and archaeology, religion, the Ancient Near East, the Bible, and mythology.

Author : Christopher A. Faraone
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2024-06-27
Category : Mythology, Greek
ISBN : OCLC:59988429

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Talismans and Trojan Horses by Christopher A. Faraone Pdf

Author : Julia Kindt
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 371 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2024-01-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9781009411387

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The Trojan Horse and Other Stories by Julia Kindt Pdf

How does the non-human help define the human? This powerful exploration of ten mythical creatures reveals who we really are.

Author : Valerie Irene Jane Flint
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Magic
ISBN : 048589002X

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Witchcraft and Magic in Europe by Valerie Irene Jane Flint Pdf

Author : John Bodel,Saul M. Olyan
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2012-02-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781118293522

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Household and Family Religion in Antiquity by John Bodel,Saul M. Olyan Pdf

The first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian antiquity. Advances our understanding of household and familial religion, as opposed to state-sponsored or civic temple cults Reconstructs domestic and family religious practices in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia Explores many household rituals, such as providing for ancestral spirits, and petitioning of a household's patron deities or of spirits associated with the house itself Examines lifecycle rituals – from pregnancy and birth to maturity, old age, death, and beyond Looks at religious practices relating to the household both within the home itself and other spaces, such as at extramural tombs and local sanctuaries

Author : Claude Lecouteux
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2014-05-14
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781620552803

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The High Magic of Talismans and Amulets by Claude Lecouteux Pdf

A comprehensive study of the use of talismans and amulets in the Western Mystery Tradition • Provides an in-depth look at the medieval and Renaissance use of amulets and talismans, including the work of Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Athanasius Kircher • Provides a full summary of the magical knowledge required to make an amulet or talisman, including the invocations required to activate their powers • Reviews different kinds of amulets and talismans, from ancient jewelry and magical objects to the modern rabbit’s foot or lucky horseshoe The use of talismans and amulets stretches back nearly to the dawn of man, from everyday items magically prepared, such as horns or coins, to intricate and beautiful jewelry imbued with protective powers. Drawing on his private collection of medieval manuscripts as well as his privileged access to the rare book archives of major European universities, Claude Lecouteux provides a comprehensive history of the use of talismans and amulets for protection, healing, and divine influence. He explores their use in the Western Mystery Tradition as well as Eastern and Middle Eastern beliefs about these magical objects and their incorporation--despite Church anathema--into the Christian tradition of Medieval Europe. Reviewing many different kinds of amulets and talismans used throughout the ages, such as a rabbit’s foot, horseshoe, gris-gris bag, or an inscribed parchment charged through ritual, he details the principles and symbology behind each object and shows that their use is still as widespread today as any time in the past. Lecouteux explains the high magic behind the hermetic art of crafting amulets and talismans: the chains of sympathy, astrological geography, and the invocations required to activate their powers. He explores the work of adepts such as Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Athanasius Kircher, including an in-depth look at Kircher’s work on planetary seals in his Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Illustrated throughout with period art depicting magical symbols, seals, and a wide array of talismans and amulets, this comprehensive study provides a practical guide to the historical development and step-by-step creation of magical objects.

Author : David Frankfurter
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 817 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2019-03-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004390751

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Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic by David Frankfurter Pdf

This volume seeks to advance the study of ancient magic through separate discussions of ancient terms for ambiguous or illicit ritual, the ancient texts commonly designated magical, and contexts in which the term magic may be used descriptively.

Author : Sarah Iles Johnston
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2013-08-02
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780520922310

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Restless Dead by Sarah Iles Johnston Pdf

During the archaic and classical periods, Greek ideas about the dead evolved in response to changing social and cultural conditions—most notably changes associated with the development of the polis, such as funerary legislation, and changes due to increased contacts with cultures of the ancient Near East. In Restless Dead, Sarah Iles Johnston presents and interprets these changes, using them to build a complex picture of the way in which the society of the dead reflected that of the living, expressing and defusing its tensions, reiterating its values and eventually becoming a source of significant power for those who knew how to control it. She draws on both well-known sources, such as Athenian tragedies, and newer texts, such as the Derveni Papyrus and a recently published lex sacra from Selinous. Topics of focus include the origin of the goes (the ritual practitioner who made interaction with the dead his specialty), the threat to the living presented by the ghosts of those who died dishonorably or prematurely, the development of Hecate into a mistress of ghosts and its connection to female rites of transition, and the complex nature of the Erinyes. Restless Dead culminates with a new reading of Aeschylus' Oresteia that emphasizes how Athenian myth and cult manipulated ideas about the dead to serve political and social ends.

Author : Christoffer Theis,Paolo Vitellozzi
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 217 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2022-10-20
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781350254541

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Textual Amulets from Antiquity to Early Modern Times by Christoffer Theis,Paolo Vitellozzi Pdf

Comparing amulets over time and space, this volume focuses on the function of written words on these fascinating artefacts. Ranging from Roman Egypt to the Middle Ages and the Modern period, this book provides an overview on these artefacts in the Mediterranean world and beyond, including Europe, Iran, and Turkey. A deep analysis of the textuality of amulets provides comparative information on themes and structures of the religious traditions examined. A strong emphasis is placed on the material features of the amulets and their connections to ritual purposes. The textual content, as well as other characteristics, is examined systematically, in order to establish patterns of influence and diffusion. The question of production, which includes the relationships that linked professional magicians, artists and craftsmen to their clientele, is also discussed, as well as the sacred and cultural economies involved.

Author : Barry Strauss
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2007-08-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9780743264426

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The Trojan War by Barry Strauss Pdf

Drawing on archaeological research, an expert account of the famous historical battle confirms many details recounted in Homer's epic account, from Troy's alliance with the Hittite Empire to the significant fire at the end of the twelfth century and facts

Author : Jonathan S. Burgess
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2014-11-13
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780857726247

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Homer by Jonathan S. Burgess Pdf

What reader could fail to be enthralled by the Iliad and the Odyssey, those greatest heroic epics of antiquity? Yet the author of those immortal text remains, in the end, an enigma. The central paradox of 'Homer' is that- while recognized as producing poetry of incomparable genius- even in the ancien world nobody knew who he was. As a result, the myth-maker became the subject of myth. For the satirist Lucian (c.125-180 CE) he ws a captive Babylonian. Other traditions have Homer born in Smyrna, or on the island of Chios, or portray him as a blind and wandering minstrel. In his new and authoritative introduction, Jonathan S. Burgess addresses fundamental questions of provenance and authorship. Besides conveying why these epics have been cherished down the ages, he discusses their historical sources and the possible impact on the Iliad and Odyssey of Indo-European, Near Eastern and folktale influences. Tracing their transmission through the ancient, medieval and modern periods, the author further examines questions of theory and reception.

Author : Despina Kakoudaki
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2014-07-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780813562179

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Anatomy of a Robot by Despina Kakoudaki Pdf

Why do we find artificial people fascinating? Drawing from a rich fictional and cinematic tradition, Anatomy of a Robot explores the political and textual implications of our perennial projections of humanity onto figures such as robots, androids, cyborgs, and automata. In an engaging, sophisticated, and accessible presentation, Despina Kakoudaki argues that, in their narrative and cultural deployment, artificial people demarcate what it means to be human. They perform this function by offering us a non-human version of ourselves as a site of investigation. Artificial people teach us that being human, being a person or a self, is a constant process and often a matter of legal, philosophical, and political struggle. By analyzing a wide range of literary texts and films (including episodes from Twilight Zone, the fiction of Philip K. Dick, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, Metropolis, The Golem, Frankenstein, The Terminator, Iron Man, Blade Runner, and I, Robot), and going back to alchemy and to Aristotle’s Physics and De Anima, she tracks four foundational narrative elements in this centuries-old discourse— the fantasy of the artificial birth, the fantasy of the mechanical body, the tendency to represent artificial people as slaves, and the interpretation of artificiality as an existential trope. What unifies these investigations is the return of all four elements to the question of what constitutes the human. This focused approach to the topic of the artificial, constructed, or mechanical person allows us to reconsider the creation of artificial life. By focusing on their historical provenance and textual versatility, Kakoudaki elucidates artificial people’s main cultural function, which is the political and existential negotiation of what it means to be a person.

Author : Cathleen A. Fleck
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2022-10-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004525894

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Reimagining Jerusalem’s Architectural Identities in the Later Middle Ages by Cathleen A. Fleck Pdf

This book explores several fascinating medieval Christian and Islamic artworks that represent and reimagine Jerusalem’s architecture as religious and political instruments to express power, entice visitors, console the devoted, offer spiritual guidance, and convey the city’s mythical history.

Author : Yehudah Cohn
Publisher : Society of Biblical Lit
Page : 217 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Tefillin
ISBN : 9781930675568

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Tangled Up in Text by Yehudah Cohn Pdf

Author : Hans Kippenberg,Guy Stroumsa
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2018-11-13
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789004378872

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Secrecy and Concealment by Hans Kippenberg,Guy Stroumsa Pdf

This volume deals with secrecy and concealment in the history of mediterranean religions as pattern of social interaction. Secrecy is a powerful means in establishing identity and interaction as G. Simmel has demonstrated. Using his approach the scholars of this volume describe and explain the practical meaning of concealment in two different religious systems: in Egyptian and Greek polytheism and in Jewish, Christian, Gnostic and Shi'i monotheisms. This point of view reveals that all these religions shaped social norms concerning public and private aspects of the human self.