Gods and Cults in Scandinavian Rock Carvings

Gods and Cults in Scandinavian Rock Carvings PDF Author: Anders Askåsen
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
ISBN: 9177854128
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
The Bronze Age in Scandinavia is a period of significant societal changes where religious cult activity thrived. The rock carvings scattered throughout the landscape hold incredible cultural value and perhaps the key to unlocking the mystery of the religion of the time. However, the absence of written sources and the complexities of interpretation have left much of the meaning shrouded in enigma. The author, inspired by the local rock carvings in Askim and around western Sweden, aims to unravel their secrets, particularly their religious significance to the Bronze Age peoples. Although the interpretations of rock carvings vary, the author aims to identify religious elements and provide a complementary picture of their connections and parallels to later religious practices. The book explores the development of worldview from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age mythology and examines whether there are traces of cultural and religious exchanges with other parts of the world. By comparing the petroglyphs with symbolism worldwide, the author shows the intimate relationship between spirituality, religion, society, and humans. The book serves as a testament to the afterworld, attempting to shed light on the enigmatic Scandinavian petroglyphs and archaeologists' interpretations of them. Despite extensive studies of the petroglyphs, the mysterious and arcane nature of these ancient carvings often leaves more questions than answers.

Gods and Cults in Scandinavian Rock Carvings

Gods and Cults in Scandinavian Rock Carvings PDF Author: Anders Askåsen
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
ISBN: 9177854128
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Bronze Age in Scandinavia is a period of significant societal changes where religious cult activity thrived. The rock carvings scattered throughout the landscape hold incredible cultural value and perhaps the key to unlocking the mystery of the religion of the time. However, the absence of written sources and the complexities of interpretation have left much of the meaning shrouded in enigma. The author, inspired by the local rock carvings in Askim and around western Sweden, aims to unravel their secrets, particularly their religious significance to the Bronze Age peoples. Although the interpretations of rock carvings vary, the author aims to identify religious elements and provide a complementary picture of their connections and parallels to later religious practices. The book explores the development of worldview from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age mythology and examines whether there are traces of cultural and religious exchanges with other parts of the world. By comparing the petroglyphs with symbolism worldwide, the author shows the intimate relationship between spirituality, religion, society, and humans. The book serves as a testament to the afterworld, attempting to shed light on the enigmatic Scandinavian petroglyphs and archaeologists' interpretations of them. Despite extensive studies of the petroglyphs, the mysterious and arcane nature of these ancient carvings often leaves more questions than answers.

The Age of the Gods

The Age of the Gods PDF Author: Christopher Dawson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description


Rock Art and Sacred Landscapes

Rock Art and Sacred Landscapes PDF Author: Donna L. Gillette
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461484065
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Social and behavioral scientists study religion or spirituality in various ways and have defined and approached the subject from different perspectives. In cultural anthropology and archaeology the understanding of what constitutes religion involves beliefs, oral traditions, practices and rituals, as well as the related material culture including artifacts, landscapes, structural features and visual representations like rock art. Researchers work to understand religious thoughts and actions that prompted their creation distinct from those created for economic, political, or social purposes. Rock art landscapes convey knowledge about sacred and spiritual ecology from generation to generation. Contributors to this global view detail how rock art can be employed to address issues regarding past dynamic interplays of religions and spiritual elements. Studies from a number of different cultural areas and time periods explore how rock art engages the emotions, materializes thoughts and actions and reflects religious organization as it intersects with sociopolitical cultural systems.

Thinking Through Images

Thinking Through Images PDF Author: Christopher Tilley
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789257042
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book provides a general self-reflexive review and critical analysis of Scandinavian rock art from the standpoint of Chris Tilley’s research in this area over the last thirty years. It offers a novel alternative theoretical perspective stressing the significance of visual narrative structure and rhythm, using musical analogies, putting particular emphasis on the embodied perception of images in a landscape context. Part I reviews the major theories and interpretative perspectives put forward to understand the images, in historical perspective, and provides a critique discussing each of the main types of motifs occurring on the rocks. Part II outlines an innovative theoretical and methodological perspective for their study stressing sequence and relationality in bodily movement from rock to rock. Part III is a detailed case study and analysis of a series of rocks from northern Bohuslän in western Sweden. The conclusions reflect on the theoretical and methodological approach being taken in relation to the disciplinary practices involved in rock art research, and its future.

Handbook of Rock Art Research

Handbook of Rock Art Research PDF Author: David S. Whitley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742502567
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 876

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Book Description
While there has always been a large public interest in ancient pictures painted or carved on stone, the archaeological study of rock art is in its infancy. But intensive amounts of research has revolutionized this field in the past decade. New methods of dating and analysis help to pinpoint the makers of these beautiful images, new interpretive models help us understand this art in relation to culture. Identification, conservation and management of rock art sites have become major issues in historical preservation worldwide. And the number of archaeologically attested sites has mushroomed. In this handbook, the leading researchers in the rock art area provide cogent, state-of-the-art summaries of the technical, interpretive, and regional advances in rock art research. The book offers a comprehensive, basic reference of current information on key topics over six continents for archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians, and rock art enthusiasts.

Medieval Scandinavia

Medieval Scandinavia PDF Author: Phillip Pulsiano
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780824047870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 838

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Book Description
With full-page maps and supplementary photos, this encyclopedia covers every aspect of Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, including rulers and saints, overviews of the countries, religion, education, politics and law, culture and material life, history, literature, and art.

The Nordic Languages

The Nordic Languages PDF Author: Oskar Bandle
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110148765
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1086

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Book Description
The handbook is not tied to a particular methodology but keeps in principle to a pronounced methodological pluralism, encompassing all aspects of actual methodology. Moreover it combines diachronic with synchronic-systematic aspects, longitudinal sections with cross-sections (periods such as Old Norse, transition from Old Norse to Early Modern Nordic, Early Modern Nordic 1550-1800 and so on). The description of Nordic language history is built upon a comprehensive collection of linguistic data; it consists of more than 200 articles written by a multitude of authors from Scandinavian and German and English speaking countries. The organization of the book combines a central part on the detailed chronological developments and some chapters of a more general character: chapters on theory and methodology in the beginning and on overlapping spatio-temporal topics in the end.

The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought

The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought PDF Author: Ruth W. Mellinkoff
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1579100880
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
An interdisciplinary study touching not only upon medieval art, but also upon such disciplines as medieval history, history of the Church, Latin and vernacular literature both religious and secular, medieval drama, mythology, and folklore. Mellinkoff's goal is to provide an iconographical interpretation of horned Moses in as deep a sense as possible.

The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants

The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants PDF Author: Christian Rätsch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594776628
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 3143

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Book Description
The most comprehensive guide to the botany, history, distribution, and cultivation of all known psychoactive plants • Examines 414 psychoactive plants and related substances • Explores how using psychoactive plants in a culturally sanctioned context can produce important insights into the nature of reality • Contains 797 color photographs and 645 black-and-white illustrations In the traditions of every culture, plants have been highly valued for their nourishing, healing, and transformative properties. The most powerful plants--those known to transport the human mind into other dimensions of consciousness--have traditionally been regarded as sacred. In The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants Christian Rätsch details the botany, history, distribution, cultivation, and preparation and dosage of more than 400 psychoactive plants. He discusses their ritual and medicinal usage, cultural artifacts made from these plants, and works of art that either represent or have been inspired by them. The author begins with 168 of the most well-known psychoactives--such as cannabis, datura, and papaver--then presents 133 lesser known substances as well as additional plants known as “legal highs,” plants known only from mythological contexts and literature, and plant products that include substances such as ayahuasca, incense, and soma. The text is lavishly illustrated with 797 color photographs--many of which are from the author’s extensive fieldwork around the world--showing the people, ceremonies, and art related to the ritual use of the world’s sacred psychoactives.

A History of Swedish Literature

A History of Swedish Literature PDF Author: Lars G. Warme
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803247505
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
Volume 3.