Aniconism in Greek Antiquity

Aniconism in Greek Antiquity
Author: Milette Gaifman
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780199645787

Gaifman explores the phenomenon aniconism - the adoption of aniconic monuments, objects such as pillars and poles, to designate the presence of the divine. Shifting our attention from the well-known territories of Greek anthropomorphism and naturalism, it casts new light on the realm of non-figural objects in Greek religious art.

Divine Images and Human Imaginations in Ancient Greece and Rome

Divine Images and Human Imaginations in Ancient Greece and Rome
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 455
Release: 2015-08-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047441656

The polytheistic religious systems of ancient Greece and Rome reveal an imaginative attitude towards the construction of the divine. One of the most important instruments in this process was certainly the visualisation. Images of the gods transformed the divine world into a visually experienceable entity, comprehensible even without a theoretical or theological superstructure. For the illiterates, images were together with oral traditions and rituals the only possibility to approach the idea of the divine; for the intellectuals, images of the gods could be allegorically transcended symbols to reflect upon. Based on the art historical and textual evidence, this volume offers a fresh view on the historical, literary, and artistic significance of divine images as powerful visual media of religious and intellectual communication.

Intangible Spirits and Graven Images: The Iconography of Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World

Intangible Spirits and Graven Images: The Iconography of Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World
Author: Michael Shenkar
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2014-09-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004281495

Winner of the the Roman and Tania Ghirshman Prize 2015 by the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. This prize was established in 1973 by the donation made by Roman Ghirshman, one of the prominent French archaeologists of Pre-Islamic Iran. It is awarded annually for a publication in the field of Pre-Islamic Iranian Studies. In Intangible Spirits and Graven Images, Michael Shenkar investigates the perception of ancient Iranian deities and their representation in the Iranian cults. This ground-breaking study traces the evolution of the images of these deities, analyses the origin of their iconography, and evaluates their significance. Shenkar also explores the perception of anthropomorphism and aniconism in ancient Iranian religious imagery, with reference to the material evidence and the written sources, and reassesses the value of the Avestan and Middle Persian texts that are traditionally employed to illuminate Iranian religious imagery. In doing so, this book provides important new insights into the religion and culture of ancient Iran prior to the Islamic conquest.

Empires of Faith in Late Antiquity

Empires of Faith in Late Antiquity
Author: Jaś Elsner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2020-03-19
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1108473075

Explores the problems for studying art and religion in Eurasia arising from ancestral, colonial and post-colonial biases in historiography.

The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture

The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture
Author: Rachel Neis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2013-08-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107032512

This book explores the power of sight for ancient rabbis across the realms of divinity, sexuality, idolatry and rabbinic subjectivity.

Galla Placidia

Galla Placidia
Author: Hagith Sivan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2011-09-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0195379128

Wedding in Gaul (414) -- Funerals in Barcelona (414-416) -- Making of an empress (417-425) -- Restoration and rehabilitation (425-431) -- Bride, a book, and a pope (437-438) -- Between Rome and Ravenna (438-450).

Mixanthrôpoi

Mixanthrôpoi
Author: Emma Aston
Publisher: Presses universitaires de Liège
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2017-10-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 2821895631

Many of the beings in this book – Cheiron, Pan, Acheloos, the Sirens and others – will be familiar from the narratives of Greek mythology, in which fabulous anatomies abound. However, they have never previously been studied together from a religious perspective, as recipients of cult and as members of the ancient pantheon. This book is the first major treatment of the use of part-animal – mixanthropic – form in the representation and visual imagination of Greek gods and goddesses, and of its significance with regard to divine character and function. What did it mean to depict deities in a form so strongly associated in the ancient imagination with monstrous adversaries? How did iconography, myth and ritual interact in particular sites of worship? Drawing together literary and visual material, this study establishes the themes dominant in the worship of divine mixanthropes, and argues that, so far from being insignificant curiosities, they make possible a greater understanding of the fabric of ancient religious practice, in particular the tense and challenging relationship between divinity and visual representation.

The Frame in Classical Art

The Frame in Classical Art
Author: Verity Platt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 737
Release: 2017-04-20
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1316943275

The frames of classical art are often seen as marginal to the images that they surround. Traditional art history has tended to view framing devices as supplementary 'ornaments'. Likewise, classical archaeologists have often treated them as tools for taxonomic analysis. This book not only argues for the integral role of framing within Graeco-Roman art, but also explores the relationship between the frames of classical antiquity and those of more modern art and aesthetics. Contributors combine close formal analysis with more theoretical approaches: chapters examine framing devices across multiple media (including vase and fresco painting, relief and free-standing sculpture, mosaics, manuscripts and inscriptions), structuring analysis around the themes of 'framing pictorial space', 'framing bodies', 'framing the sacred' and 'framing texts'. The result is a new cultural history of framing - one that probes the sophisticated and playful ways in which frames could support, delimit, shape and even interrogate the images contained within.

Phoenician Aniconism in Its Mediterranean and Ancient Near Eastern Contexts

Phoenician Aniconism in Its Mediterranean and Ancient Near Eastern Contexts
Author: Brian R. Doak
Publisher: SBL Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2015-11-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0884140989

A close look at Phoenician religion The Hebrew Bible contains a prohibition against divine images (Exod 20:2-5a). Explanations for this command are legion, usually focusing on the unique status of Israel's deity within the context of the broader Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. Doak explores whether or not Israel was truly alone in its severe stance against idols. This book focuses on one particular aspect of this iconographic context in Israel's Iron Age world: that of the Phoenicians. The question of whether Phoenicians employed aniconic (as opposed to iconic) representational techniques has significance not only for the many poorly understood aspects of Phoenician religion generally, but also for the question of whether aniconism can be considered a broader trend among the Semitic populations of the ancient Near East. Features: More than fifty images and illustrations Examination of textual and archaeological evidence Application of art historical methods

Unearthly Powers

Unearthly Powers
Author: Alan Strathern
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2019-03-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108477143

This ground-breaking study sets out a new understanding of transformations in the interaction between religion and political authority throughout history.