Indo-European Fire Rituals

Indo-European Fire Rituals PDF Author: Anders Kaliff
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000822877
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Indo-European Fire Rituals is a comparative study of Indo-European fire rituals from modern folklore and ethnography in Scandinavia and archaeological material in Europe from the Bronze Age onwards to the Vedic origins of cosmos in India and today’s cremations on open pyres in Hinduism. Exploring Indo-European fire rituals and sacrifices throughout history and fire in its fundamental role in rites and religious practices, this book analyses fire rituals as the unifying structure in time and space in Indo-European cultures from the Bronze Age onwards. It asks the question how and why was fire the ultimate power in culture and cosmology? Fire as an agent and divinity was fundamental in all major sacrifices. In Europe, ritual fires in relation to agriculture and fertility may also explain the enigma of cremation. Cremated remains were ground and used in fertility rituals, and ancestral fires played an essential role in metallurgy and the creation of cosmos. Thus, the role of fire rituals in culture and cosmology enables a unique understanding of historic developmental processes. For students and academics studying Indo-European culture history from the Bronze Age onwards, this book has a broad interdisciplinary audience including archaeology, ethnography, folklore, religious and Indo-European studies.

Indo-European Fire Rituals

Indo-European Fire Rituals PDF Author: Anders Kaliff
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000822877
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book Here

Book Description
Indo-European Fire Rituals is a comparative study of Indo-European fire rituals from modern folklore and ethnography in Scandinavia and archaeological material in Europe from the Bronze Age onwards to the Vedic origins of cosmos in India and today’s cremations on open pyres in Hinduism. Exploring Indo-European fire rituals and sacrifices throughout history and fire in its fundamental role in rites and religious practices, this book analyses fire rituals as the unifying structure in time and space in Indo-European cultures from the Bronze Age onwards. It asks the question how and why was fire the ultimate power in culture and cosmology? Fire as an agent and divinity was fundamental in all major sacrifices. In Europe, ritual fires in relation to agriculture and fertility may also explain the enigma of cremation. Cremated remains were ground and used in fertility rituals, and ancestral fires played an essential role in metallurgy and the creation of cosmos. Thus, the role of fire rituals in culture and cosmology enables a unique understanding of historic developmental processes. For students and academics studying Indo-European culture history from the Bronze Age onwards, this book has a broad interdisciplinary audience including archaeology, ethnography, folklore, religious and Indo-European studies.

Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity

Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity PDF Author: Roger D. Woodard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107022401
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This book examines the figure of the returning warrior as depicted in the myths of several ancient and medieval Indo-European cultures. In these cultures, the returning warrior was often portrayed as a figure rendered dysfunctionally destructive or isolationist by the horrors of combat. This mythic portrayal of the returned warrior is consistent with modern studies of similar behavior among soldiers returning from war. Roger Woodard's research identifies a common origin of these myths in the ancestral proto-Indo-European culture, in which rites were enacted to enable warriors to reintegrate themselves as functional members of society. He also compares the Italic, Indo-Iranian, and Celtic mythic traditions surrounding the warrior, paying particular attention to Roman myth and ritual, notably to the etiologies and rites of the July festivals of the Poplifugia and Nonae Caprotinae, and to the October rites of the Sororium Tigillum.

The Journal of Indo-European Studies

The Journal of Indo-European Studies PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Indo-Europeans
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description


Fire

Fire PDF Author: Hazel Rossotti
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 9780486422619
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
This fascinating study examines the nature of fire, its symbolic significance, exploitation, and control. Lively, well-illustrated text explores the use of fire for comfort, in ancient forms of worship, more.

Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture

Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture PDF Author: J. P. Mallory
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9781884964985
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 890

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Book Description
The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture is a major new reference work that provides full, inclusive coverage of the major Indo-European language stocks, their origins, and the range of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. The Encyclopedia also includes numerous entries on archaeological cultures having some relationship to the origin and dispersal of Indo-European groups -- as well as entries on some of the major issues in Indo-European cultural studies.There are two kinds of entries in the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture: a) those that are devoted to archaeology, culture, or the various Indo -European languages; and b) those that are devoted to the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European words.Entries may be accessed either via the General Index or the List of Topics: Entries by Category where all individual reconstructed head-forms can also be found. Reference may also be made to the Language Indices.In order to make the book as accessible as possible to the non-specialist, the Editors have provided a list of Abbreviations and Definitions, which includes a number of definitions of specialist terms (primarily linguistic) with which readers may not be acquainted. As the writing systems of many Indo-European groups vary considerably in terms of phonological representation, there is also included a list of Phonetic Definitions.With more than 700 entries, written by specialists from around the world, the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture has become an essential reference text in this field.

Wolves of Rome

Wolves of Rome PDF Author: Krešimir Vuković
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110690187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
The Roman foundation myth has been the subject of classical scholarship for centuries. But much in the story of Romulus and Remus remains unexplained. This is the first English language book-length study of the Lupercalia, a religious festival central to understanding both the Roman foundation myth and the history of Rome. The festival of the Lupercalia was a male initiation ritual and shares a number of traits with similar rituals across the world. The agonistic elements in the story of Romulus and Remus and the Lupercalia can be compared to a number of Vedic rituals and traced back to a common Indo-European prehistory. The Lupercalia celebration remained a central annual event throughout the history of Rome and reflected political and social life in the city. Caesar used it to stage a refusal of kingship and Augustus restored its initiatory aspect, which continued in the period of the Empire. It survived all attempts of Christian prohibition to appear in the form of a carnival that criticized the pope in the late 5th century. In sum, the book offers a new interpretation of the Roman foundation myth and the Lupercalia. It follows the transformation of a unique ritual from its Indo-European roots through Roman history to late antiquity.

Kalatattvakosa

Kalatattvakosa PDF Author: Bettina Bäumer
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
ISBN: 9788120814028
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description


Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan

Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan PDF Author: Fabio Rambelli
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110720213
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
In premodern Japan, legitimization of power and knowledge in various contexts was sanctioned by consecration rituals (kanjō) of Buddhist origin. This is the first book to address in a comprehensive way the multiple forms and aspects of these rituals also in relation to other Asian contexts. The multidisciplinary chapters in the book address the origins of these rituals in ancient Persia and India and their developments in China and Tibet, before discussing in depth their transformations in medieval Japan. In particular, kanjō rituals are examined from various perspectives: imperial ceremonies, Buddhist monastic rituals, vernacular religious forms (Shugendō mountain cults, Shinto lineages), rituals of bodily transformation involving sexual practice, and the performing arts: a history of these developments, descriptions of actual rituals, and reference to religious and intellectual arguments based on under-examined primary sources. No other book presents so many cases of kanjō in such depth and breadth. This book is relevant to readers interested in Buddhist studies, Japanese religions, the history of Japanese culture, and in the intersections between religious doctrines, rituals, legitimization, and performance.

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism PDF Author: Anders Kaliff
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443891800
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Death matters and the matters of death are initially, and to a large extent, the decaying flesh of the corpse. Cremation as a ritual practice is the fastest and most optimal way of dissolving the corpse’s flesh, either by annihilation or purification, or a combination. Still, cremation was not the final rite, and the archaeological record testifies that the dead represented a means to other ends – the flesh, and not the least the bones – have been incorporated in a wide range of other ritual contexts. While human sacrifices and cannibalism as ritual phenomena are much discussed in anthropology, archaeology has an advantage, since the actual bone material leaves traces of ritual practices that are unseen and unheard of in the contemporary world. As such, this book fleshes out a broader and more coherent understanding of prehistoric religions and funeral practices in Scandinavia by focusing on cremation, corpses and cannibalism.

Greek Mythology and Poetics

Greek Mythology and Poetics PDF Author: Gregory Nagy
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501732021
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Gregory Nagy here provides a far-reaching assessment of the relationship between myth and ritual in ancient Greek society. Nagy illuminates in particular the forces of interaction and change that transformed the Indo-European linguistic and cultural heritage into distinctly Greek social institutions between the eighth and the fifth centuries B.C. Included in the volume are thirteen of Nagy's major essays—all extensively revised for book publication—on various aspects of the Hellenization of Indo-European poetics, myth and ritual, and social ideology. The primary aim of this book is to examine the Greek language as a reflection of society, with special attention to its function as a vehicle for transmitting mythology and poetics. Nagy's emphasis on the language of the Greeks, and on its comparison with the testimony of related Indo-European languages such as Latin, Indic, and Hittite, reflects his long-standing interest in Indo-European linguistics. The individual chapters examine the development of Hellenic poetics in the traditions of Homer and Hesiod; the Hellenization of Indo-European myths and rituals, including myths of the afterlife, rituals of fire, and symbols in the Greek lyric; and the Hellenization of Indo-European social ideology, with reference to such cultural institutions as the concept of the city-state. A path-breaking application of the principles of social anthropology, comparative mythology, historical linguistics, and oral poetry theory to the study of classics, Greek Mythology and Poetics will be an invaluable resource for classicists and other scholars of linguistics and literary theory.