Bevölkerungsgeschichte - Gallien - Siedlungsgeschichte - Tempel - Ritus - Religion - Götter.

Large state temples in ancient Egypt were vast agricultural estates, with interests in mining, trading, and other economic activities. The temple itself served as the mansion or palace of the deity to whom the estate belonged, and much of the ritual in temples was devoted to offering a representative sample of goods to the gods. After ritual performances, produce was paid as wages to priests and temple staff and presented as offerings to private mortuary establishments. This redistribution became a daily ritual in which many basic necessities of life for elite Egyptians were produced. This book evaluates the influence of common temple rituals not only on the day to day lives of ancient Egyptians, but also on their special events, economics, and politics. Author Katherine Eaton argues that a study of these daily rites ought to be the first step in analyzing the structure of more complex societal processes.

"The Temples and Ritual of Asklepios at Epidauros and Athens" is a highly valued compilation of two lectures delivered by Richard Caton at the Royal Institution of Great Britain at the turn of the 20th century. Written after over two decades of visits and on-site research in Greece, Richard Caton became an expert on some of the ancient religious history of the original population in Athens. His expertise led to plausible speculation about the religious rituals that took place in ancient Greece which have continued to be studied over a century after his lectures.

Ritual happens in distinct places – in temples, in caves, along pilgrimage routes – and religious activities there incorporate a diverse set of objects such as holy water, cult statues, and sacred texts. Understanding religious ritual requires viewing it not as a disembodied event, but as emplaced, grounded in both built and natural surroundings, and integrated with its associated material objects. Here authors examine various religious practices in the Greco-Roman world and pilgrimage routes in contemporary Israel. Other contributions focus on the East, on domestic religion in prehistoric Taiwan, and the palimpsest of ritual activity in Buddhist China. One author considers not just ritual’s built and natural setting, but also the landscape of the human mind. By way of conclusion, many of the recurring issues concerning the material and topographic matrix of ritual practice are expanded upon in a final meditation on sacred space. The papers in this volume, with their disciplinary, geographic, and chronological diversity, will serve as a resource for theoretical approaches to the study of ritual practice that may have broad cross-cultural application and provide new insight into the relationship between ritual and place. The volume is based on a conference held at Brown University.

The sacred in the Indian tradition is more an experience than a concept and goes much beyond the narrow confines of an organised temple or even a shrine. The gods of this tradition, as well as those who hold them sacred, are simple and unpretentious yet dignified and self-assured. Whether it is a tree that is held sacred or a naturally occurring stone that is reverred, a river that is the embodiment of divinity itself, an ancestor that is the embodiment of divinity itself, an ancestor that is worshipped, a fabric that is simply draped, a road side shrine on a busy street or a votive terracota horse that is lovingly made and offered, a narrative scroll that holds its audience spell-bound; here is religion at work that is as spontaneous as it is intense, charged with faith, fervor and commitment; now private and now shared, that forms an integral part of the lived lives of these common people, be they rural or urban, tribal or traditional. The rituals and practices for these deities are neither scripted nor canonized, but what they may lack in grandeur, erudition and ceremony, they more than make up in the faith and feeling that they generate. In a civilisation which has encountered majestic truths and erected grand temples, these sacred manifestations and expressions of the ordinary people tend to be sidelined or dismissed by scholars as well as the world at large, as minor or lesser gods worthy of curiosity but not of serious study, but it is important to remember that they have a beauty and presence of their own in the pluralistic Indian tradition.

Everlasting Egypt: Kemetic Rituals for the Gods continues Richard Reidys groundbreaking work and collects more temple rituals from Egypt. The author presents rites for personal and group use, augmenting and updating those in his first volume, Eternal Egypt: Ancient Rituals for the Modern World. The guidebook: Presents over 37 rituals for Gods, Goddesses, and Annual and Lunar Festivals in a form designed to assist practitioners in restoring the ancient rites of Egypt; Provides for modern usage, with key ritual texts coming from authenticated ancient sources, as well as commentaries and background information; Includes a comprehensive Introduction with a model for organizing a modern Kemetic Temple or Group; Includes updated Egyptian vocalizations and a pronunciation key; Offers practical information for conducting these rituals in todays world. These ritual texts reveal once more the deeply spiritual understanding of humanitys relationship to divinity that characterized the ancient Egyptian sense of the sacred. Cover Image: Ritual scene from the Temple of Hathor at Deir el Medina. Ptolemaic Period. Matthew Whealton, 2018.