Overview
- Explores the experience of religion as embodied in physical artifacts
- Contains case studies drawn from Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas
- Discusses archaeological examples from both the major Judeo-Christian religions as well as smaller, indigenous religions
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: One World Archaeology (WORLDARCH)
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Table of contents (12 chapters)
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RELATIONAL ONTOLOGIES AND ENGAGEMENTS WITH LANDSCAPE
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PLAYING THE FIELD: ARCHAEOLOGY, ETHNOGRAPHY AND ORAL TRADITIONS
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EMBODIED SPIRITUALITIES: THE CASE OF THE MINOANS
Keywords
- African religious archaeology and excavation
- American Indian spirituality and archaeology
- Minoan spiritual archaeology
- archaeology of burial
- archaeology of religion
- cognitive and theoretical archaeology
- folk spirituality and archaeology
- religious landscape archaeology
- spiritual archaeology in Europe
- spirituality of prehistoric societies
About this book
Archaeology of Spiritualties provides a fresh exploration of the interface between archaeology and religion/spirituality. Archaeological approaches to the study of religion have typically and often unconsciously, drawn on western paradigms, especially Judaeo-Christian (mono) theistic frameworks and academic rationalisations. Archaeologists have rarely reflected on how these approaches have framed and constrained their choices of methodologies, research questions, hypotheses, definitions, interpretations and analyses and have neglected an important dimension of religion: the human experience of the numinous - the power, presence or experience of the supernatural.
Within the religions of many of the world’s peoples, sacred experiences – particularly in relation to sacred landscapes and beings connected with those landscapes – are often given greater emphasis, while doctrine and beliefs are relatively less important. Archaeology of Spiritualities asks how such experiences might be discerned in the archaeological record; how do we recognize and investigate ‘other’ forms of religious or spiritual experience in the remains of the past?.
The volume opens up a space to explore critically and reflexively the encounter between archaeology and diverse cultural expressions of spirituality. It showcases experiential and experimental methodologies in this area of the discipline, an unconventional approach within the archaeology of religion. Thus Archaeology of Spiritualities offers a unique, timely and innovative contribution, one that is also challenging and stimulating. It is a great resource to archaeologists, historians, religious scholars and others interested in cultural and religious heritage.
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Kathryn Rountree is an Associate Professor at the Social Anthropology Programme, School of People, Environment and Planning, at Massey University, in Auckland, New Zealand.
Christine Morris is the Andrew A. David Senior Lecturer in Greek Archaeology and History in the Department of Classics, in the School of History and Humanities, Trinity College, Dublin.
Alan A. D. Peatfield is a College Lecturer at the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Archaeology of Spiritualities
Editors: Kathryn Rountree, Christine Morris, Alan A. D. Peatfield
Series Title: One World Archaeology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3354-5
Publisher: Springer New York, NY
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4614-3353-8Published: 24 May 2012
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4614-9640-3Published: 07 November 2013
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4614-3354-5Published: 23 May 2012
Series ISSN: 2625-8641
Series E-ISSN: 2625-865X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 277
Number of Illustrations: 13 b/w illustrations, 29 illustrations in colour
Topics: Archaeology, Anthropology, Religious Studies, general