In his first novel since the Pulitzer Prize-winning House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday shapes the ancient Kiowa myth of a boy who turned into a bear into a timeless American classic. The Ancient Child juxtaposes Indian lore and Wild West legend into a hypnotic, often lyrical contemporary novel--the story of Locke Setman, known as Set, a Native American raised far from the reservation by his adoptive father. Set feels a strange aching in his soul and, returning to tribal lands for the funeral of his grandmother, is drawn irresistibly to the fabled bear-boy. When he meets Grey, a beautiful young medicine woman with a visionary gift, his world is turned upside down. Here is a magical saga of one man's tormented search for his identity--a quintessential American novel, and a great one.

On a dangerous journey from fabled Baghdad to the desolate mountains of Armenia, a caravan of soldiers and diplomats is stalked by a mysterious vampyr, and the only way for the men to ward the demon off is to tell stories of magic and enchantment. Reissue.

Among the many religious acts condemned in the Hebrew Bible, child sacrifice stands out as particularly horrifying. The idea that any group of people would willingly sacrifice their own children to their god(s) is so contrary to modern moral sensibilities that it is difficult to imagine that such a practice could have ever existed. Nonetheless, the existence of biblical condemnation of these rites attests to the fact that some ancient Israelites in fact did sacrifice their children. Indeed, a close reading of the evidence—biblical, archaeological, epigraphic, etc.—indicates that there are at least three different types of Israelite child sacrifice, each with its own history, purpose, and function. In addition to examining the historical reality of Israelite child sacrifice, Dewrell’s study also explores the biblical rhetoric condemning the practice. While nearly every tradition preserved in the Hebrew Bible rejects child sacrifice as abominable to Yahweh, the rhetorical strategies employed by the biblical writers vary to a surprising degree. Thus, even in arguing against the practice of child sacrifice, the biblical writers themselves often disagreed concerning why Yahweh condemned the rites and why they came to exist in the first place.

"Baby and Child Heroes in Ancient Greece is the first systematic study of the considerable number of Greek babies and children who became enduring myths, objects of worship, and the recipients of sacrifice." "Examining literary, pictorial, and numismatic representations, Pache opens up a vast territory once occupied by children such as Charila, Opheltes, Melikertes, and the children of Hercules and Medea. She argues that the stories, songs, and sanctuaries honoring these heroes express parental fears and guilt about children's death."--Jacket.

A shocking reminder of the cruel history of childhood that has been largely hidden and forgotten. Children Forsaken provides a long, historical, overarching examination of the phenomenon of child abuse. In the UK battered child syndrome was 'discovered' in the 1960s, whilst child sexual abuse gained attention in the early 1980s. Subsequent enquiries, legislation and practice developments have focused narrowly on reacting to events giving the impression that child abuse is a recent problem. Yet the historical record provides a multitude of examples of the ritual slaughter, sexual and physical abuse of children continuing since Ancient times. This book place child abuse in the context of the way children and childhood have been understood throughout the ages, but also show that despite legal definitions, and children's rights laws, children and young people continue to suffer. This book enables practitioners and those training in the helping professions to gain a deeper understanding of how embedded in human society child abuse has been and still is. Practitioners need to perceive child abuse as a long-standing problem about children's status in the World, their legal and human rights, and that much work is still needed to ensure children's needs and safety are paramount. "This ambitious book paints an important and erudite picture of child abuse and social responses to it, bringing us up-to-date with a call for continued vigilance, compassion, and action." Professor Jonathan Parker, Bournemouth University

Children were an important part of the ancient Near Eastern household. This idea seems straightforward, but it can be understood in many ways. On a basic level, children are necessary for the perpetuation of a household. On a deeper level, the definitions of child and member of the household are far from categorical. This book begins to explore the multiple definitions of child and the way the child fits within a household. It examines what membership in the household looks like for children and what factors contribute to it. A study addressing what a child is and how a child's gender and social status affect her place in the household is vital to a proper understanding of the ancient Near Eastern household. Despite their importance, children have long been marginalized in discussions of ancient societies. Only recently has this trend begun to change within biblical and ancient Near Eastern scholarship. A recent wave of studies, especially in relation to the Hebrew Bible, has started to address children in their own right. In light of the current state of scholarship on children, the purpose of this book is threefold. First, Garroway continues to fill out the picture of the child in the ancient Near East by compiling child-centric texts and archaeological realia. In analyzing these materials, she surveys the relationship between children and ancient Near Eastern society by examining the extent to which structuring forces in a community, such as social status and gender, contribute to the process of a child's becoming a member of his household and society. Finally, this information provides a base for future research, for example, a cross-cultural study of children in the ancient Near East in Classical Antiquity.

This collection employs a multi-disciplinary approach treating ancient childhood in a holistic manner according to diachronic, regional and thematic perspectives. This multi-disciplinary approach encompasses classical studies, Egyptology, ancient history and the broad spectrum of archaeology, including iconography and bioarchaeology. With a chronological range of the Bronze Age to Byzantium and regional coverage of Egypt, Greece, and Italy this is the largest survey of childhood yet undertaken for the ancient world. Within this chronological and regional framework both the social construction of childhood and the child’s life experience are explored through the key topics of the definition of childhood, daily life, religion and ritual, death, and the information provided by bioarchaeology. No other volume to date provides such a comprehensive, systematic and cross-cultural study of childhood in the ancient Mediterranean world. In particular, its focus on the identification of society-specific definitions of childhood and the incorporation of the bioarchaeological perspective makes this work a unique and innovative study. Children in Antiquity provides an invaluable and unrivalled resource for anyone working on all aspects of the lives and deaths of children in the ancient Mediterranean world.