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The discovery of Noah's Ark is one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century, solving a mystery that has puzzled scientists for many centuries. The story of the clues which led to its detection - not on Mount Ararat, as had been thought, but on Mount Mahser Dagi (the Doomsday Mountain) some 17 miles to the south - is astonishing, and the material uncovered reveals much about life in the Middle East thousands of years BC. David Fasold headed one of the last teams to be allowed exca...

In recent study Greek religion has often dissolved itself into many religions. This collection of 11 original essays examines the earliest traces of religious thought in the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, and explores the resemblances between the religious ideas of the Greeks and of non-Greek areas of Asia. Patterns are revealed in the archaic and classical thought of Heraclitus, Herodotus and Sophocles.

This book is the tenth volume in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series. It is the first edition, complete with introduction, translation, and commentary, of one of the most important documents found at Qumran: a letter from one of the leaders of the Dead Sea sect (perhaps the "Teacher of Righteousness") to one of the leaders of Israel (perhaps Jonathan Maccabeus). The scroll is a unique and exceptionally interesting legal document from the first century AD, listing a number of important...

Die Herausforderung religionsgeschichtlicher Forschung besteht darin, die Erschliessung von Quellen in ihren Kontexten und ihre theoriegeleitete Erklarung mit einer historisch-kritischen Reflexion der Wissensproduktion selbst zu verknupfen. Die Reihe Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten (RGVV) will dieser Komplementaritat von historischer Kontextualisierung, theoretischer Verdichtung und disziplinarer Positionierung Rechnung tragen. Studien zu kulturspezifischen Sachzusammenhangen st...

Discusses the origins and development of Roman religion, its close ties with Roman history, and its ultimate capitulation to Christianity.

For nearly two millenia, despite repeated prohibitions, Christian women have preached. Some have preached in official settings; others have found alternative routes for expression. Prophecy, teaching, writing and song have all filled a broad definition of preaching. This anthology, with essays by an international group of scholars from several disciplines, investigates the diverse voices of Christian women who claimed the authority to preach and prophesy. The contributors examine the centuries o...

Kurt Weitzmann, a renowned art historian who for many years was a professor of art at Princeton University, often demonstrated in hiw own writing the value of crossing the boundaries that have traditionally divided ancient, Byzantine and Western medieval art. The legacy of that approach is apparent in the wide range of essays making up this volume, in which 70 American, European and Asian scholars pay homage to this scholar. The articles presented in this book include studies of ancient, Late An...

Die frankischen Kapitularien sind seit je ein exklusiver Gegenstand der historischen Forschung gewesen. Das belegen nicht nur die sich vom 17. bis ins spate 19. Jahrhundert erstreckenden textkritischen Bemuhungen der bisherigen drei Haupteditoren. Es kommt auch darin zum Ausdruck, dass die Kapitularien schon fruh zu einer zentralen Quellengattung der fruhmittelalterlichen Sozial-, Wirtschafts- und Rechtsgeschichte avancierten. Lange Zeit stand dabei allein der gesetzgeberisch-administrative Aspe...

This book examines one of the most intriguing figures in the religious life of the ancient Mediterranean world, the Phrygian Mother Goddess, known to the Greeks and Romans as Cybele or Magna Mater, the Great Mother. Her cult was particularly prominent in central Anatolia (modern Turkey), and spread from there through the Greek and Roman world. She was an enormously popular figure, attracting devotion from common people and potentates alike. This book is the first comprehensive assembly and discu...

The Gospel of Thomas is an enigmatic collection of 114 sayings of Jesus. Here, April DeConick explores tough questions that have occupied scholars since the discovery of this gospel in the sands of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the 1940's. Where did this gospel come from? When was it written? Who wrote it? Why was it composed? What is its meaning? Rather than taking the conventional approach to answering these questions, DeConick examines these issues anew by proposing that the gospel developed within...

Textiles comprise a vast and wide category of material culture and constitute a crucial part of the ancient economy. Yet, studies of classical antiquity still often leave out this important category of material culture, partly due to the textiles themselves being only rarely preserved in the archaeological record. This neglect is also prevalent in scholarship on ancient Greek religion and ritual, although it is one of the most vibrant and rapidly developing branches of classical scholarship. The...