Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Demythologizing Homer: Investigating Religion In Minoan Crete, Elizabeth Rybarczyk

Student Research Submissions

The Minoan civilization of Bronze-Age Crete has, until recently, been obscured in mythological uncertainty. As a prehistoric civilization, the available evidence for historic analysis is sparse and ambiguous. This paper evaluates the material evidence for ritual activity to chart the religious developments of Minoan Crete. In the earliest periods of their civilization, the Minoans practiced animism, which reflected their ideals towards survival and cooperation. As their prosperity grew due to technological advancements, a social hierarchy formed. The emerging elite employed religion to justify their claim to power by appropriating religion, which culminated in a dual-monotheistic Knossian theocracy. This lasted until …

Wak'as, Mallkis, And The Inca Afterlife: The Hydrological Connection Between The Incan Empirical And Nonempirical Worlds, Marius C. Vold

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

The ruling elite amongst the indigenous groups of the Andes region, often referred to as the Incas, were, before European contact, a non-literal society. Therefore, our understanding of their religious beliefs pertaining to the relationship between life and death, and the intricate relationship between this belief system and the environment surrounding the Inca is heavily influenced by post-European contact, often clouded by European propaganda and a lack of cultural relativism. This project aims at exploring the relationship between the hydrological cycle and the Incan empirical and nonempirical worlds by comparing and synthesizing post-European contact written records, ethnohistorical records, archeological evidence, …

Searching For Hades In Archaic Greek Literature, Daniel Stoll

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No single volume of mythological or philological research exists for Hades. In the one moment Hades appears in archaic Greek literature, speaking for only ten lines, Hermes stands nearby. Thus, to understand and journey to Hades is to reckon with Hermes’ close presence. As I synthesize research by writers from several different disciplines, may some light be brought into the depths. May we analyze Hades’ brief appearance in archaic Greek literature, examining how what I define as the “Hermetic” emits from his breath in the one moment he physically appears and speaks.

Digital And Spatial Humanities Mapping: Eurasia-Pacific Early Trade And Belief Linkages, Igor Sitnikov, David Blundell

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The Eurasia-Pacific is a dynamic region of rapid economic growth, cultural awareness, natural resource exploration, and military buildup. The concept of the region is relatively new, featuring contested vast areas of geo-resource space of numerous cultures and languages. The current findings in anthropology and archaeology and even its more specific subfields such as folklore are important contribution to the understanding of periodic environmental changes and technical innovations were the main forces of transformations in social structures that have determined the mechanisms and levels of cross-cultural trade activity across the region. We have traced early trade and belief linkages across Eurasia-Pacific …

Remembering Jacob: The Literary Representation Of Memory In The Jacob Narrative, Isaac Borbon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to describe the Jacob narrative through the lens of memory. Taking Gen 28:10-22 as a case study, the objective is to place Jacob’s visit to Bethel alongside other ancient referential claims, analyzing it for authentic memories. However, the complex nature of memory is susceptible to preservation and revision. That is to say, having no desire to comport to modern historical-critical sensibilities, memory’s epistemological underpinnings are concerned primarily with reconstructing a remembered past for subsequent generations of Israelite tradents. In order to understand the historical background to the Jacob narrative in its entirety, a formal analysis of Iron …

Children Of A One-Eyed God: Impairment In The Myth And Memory Of Medieval Scandinavia, Michael David Lawson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the lives of impaired individuals catalogued in the Íslendingasögur as a narrative framework, this study examines medieval Scandinavian social views regarding impairment from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Beginning with the myths and legends of the eddic poetry and prose of Iceland, it investigates impairment in Norse pre-Christian belief; demonstrating how myth and memory informed medieval conceptualizations of the body. This thesis counters scholarly assumptions that the impaired were universally marginalized across medieval Europe. It argues that bodily difference, in the Norse world, was only viewed as a limitation when it prevented an individual from fulfilling roles that …

The Influence Of Hellenism On The Literary Style Of 1 And 2 Maccabees, Dimitra S. Fellman

Young Historians Conference

The Jewish people living within Hellenistic Greece experienced great freedoms, and many assimilated into the non-Jewish societies around them. Yet, under the Seleucid King Antiochus IV in the 2nd century BCE, the Jewish people experienced oppression and persecution, which has been chronicled in the books 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees. At a glance, these books appear opposed to the blending of Hellenistic culture and society into surrounding Jewish communities, but a deeper analysis of both texts reveals that the authors depended on Hellenistic constructs to effectively tell their story. This paper explores the degree to which the authors of 1 …

The Giant In A Thousand Years: Tracing Narratives Of Gigantism In The Hebrew Bible And Beyond, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

"This essay is an attempt to organize the Bible’s giants by category and to continue to elevate these figures as a rightful object of scholarly attention."

Power Relations At The Cistercian Abbey Of St. Mary At Rushen: With Special Interest In Connections At Furness And Influence Through The Kingdom Of The Isles, Valerie Dawn Hampton

Dissertations

The Isle of Man is an island situated in the Irish Sea at the geographical center of the British Isles. During the Middle Ages, the Isle of Man, which was only two hundred and twenty-two square miles, surprisingly was the seat of an important Viking kingdom that controlled and patrolled the Irish Sea and Hebrides. Rushen Abbey, a Savigniac monastery, was founded in 1134 near Ballasalla, in the parish of Malew, in the southeast of the Isle of Man.

This dissertation focuses on the influence that Rushen Abbey exerted on the ecclesiastical institutions and secular personas within the area of …

Academic Library Core Collection For Celtic And Roman Religions In Roman Britain, Kim Woodring

ETSU Faculty Works

Presented here is a bibliography representing a core collection on the Celtic and Roman religion in Roman Britain. This religion, which was formed from the mixing of Celtic and Roman religions, was truly a new religion. It was formed from two powerful but different religions. The Celts believed in nature and the power it held within everything in their world. The Romans believed in the power of their pantheon of gods and goddesses. When these two factors merged it produced a religion unlike any other in the world during the Iron Age. This bibliography will list the resources to form …

With An Eye On A Set Of New Eyes: Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Kette Thomas

Journal of Religion & Film

This article focuses on how, Beasts of the Southern Wild, represents both divergence and transgression from paradigmatic structures that determine how certain visual representations are to be used. Specifically, the cinematic detours taken by the filmmakers, Lucy Alibar and Behn Zeitlin, do not lead to alien places for most viewers; on the contrary, ancient myths, legends, heroes and prehistoric references are recalled in total isolation from current social and political discourse. In this way, Beasts of the Southern Wild, effectively, highlights mythological structures operating in contemporary American society. Mircea Eliade, Roger Caillois and G.S. Kirk define mythology as a …

Resurrecting Gods, Ahissa Branson

sbranson@oglethorpe.edu

No abstract provided.

Not All Autobiography Is Scholarship: Thinking, As A Catholic, About History, Una M. Cadegan

History Faculty Publications

My premise in this essay is that the historian of religion who is a believer has a distinctive need for conscious reflection on this autobiographical connection. Without conscious reflection, it is too easy fall into cheerleading on the one hand or score-settling on the other. is even easier, perhaps, to lapse into self-indulgence-hence the caveat of my title, which is aimed primarily at myself. Thinking about the roots of my work as an historian has made me more consciously attentive to doing the work of the historian, as historian, well. Thinking about where that work has taken me not only …

Revealing Iberian Woodcraft: Conserved Wooden Artefacts From South-East Spain, Pablo Rosser

pablo rosser

Yolanda Carrion & Pablo Rosser Six wells at Tossal de les Basses in Spain captured a large assemblage of Iberian woodworking debris. The authors’ analysis distinguishes a wide variety of boxes, handles, staves, pegs and joinery made in different and appropriate types of wood, some – like cypress – imported from some distance away. We have here a glimpse of a sophisticated and little known industry of the fourth century BC.

Seis Mil Años De Historia De Alicante: El Tossal De Les Basses., Pablo Rosser

pablo rosser

Catálogo de la exposición Seis mil años de historia de Alicante, realizada en el edificio anexo a los Pozos de Garrigós, Alicante, en donde se mostraban y explicaban las distintas culturas que se asentaron en este yacimiento, el más antiguo e importante de Alicante.

Beer, Barbarism, And The Church From Late Antiquity To The Early Middle Ages, Joseph Wayne Strickland

Masters Theses

At the height of the Roman Empire, Roman citizens undoubtedly favored wine. As the Empire expanded into surrounding areas, increased exposure to beer even further solidified Romans’ preference for wine, not just as a drink, but as a symbol of Romanitas. Beer, brewed mostly in the provincial regions not climatically suited for grapes and wine, quickly became associated with barbarians and therefore stood in opposition to Roman values. As Roman authority waned in the West through the fifth and sixth centuries, Christianity remained powerful, and Christian sources betray an acceptance of beer, tacitly and later more explicitly. This ecclesiastical …

Religious Change And Plateau Indians: 1500 -1850, Larry Cebula

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This study is an ethnohistorical examination of Indian religious responses to contact with Euroamericans on the Columbia Plateau, from 1600 to 1850. Plateau natives understood their encounter with European civilization primarily as a momentous spiritual event, and sought new sources of spiritual power to cope with their rapidly changing world. White people seemed to the Indians to have an abundance of spirit power, and many native religious efforts were aimed at capturing some of this power for themselves. These efforts included the protohistoric Prophet Dance, the syncretic "Columbian Religion" of the fur trade era, and the initial enthusiastic response to …

Ritual Aspects Of The Far Eastern Secular Arts, William George Webster Mcconnell

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

A few words with regard to certain aspects of the terms religious art and secular art seem appropriate to a proper statement of the problem to be investigated in this thesis. In recent years Western students of art have real177ized that many instances exist which may not be classified easily in either category. Peter Fingesten, a student of the arts, has suggested that the term sacred art might beat be reserved for icons, paintings, reliquaries, and all implements of ritual and worship. Art objects in this category are produced according to hieratic code and symbolism. On the other hand, there …