Autorentext
Nicola Laneri is professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Catania, Director of the School of Religious Studies, and has been Fulbright Research Scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. He has directed archaeological work at sites in Turkey, Azarbaijan, Iran, and Iraq.

Klappentext

This book traces the transformation of the belief systems that shaped life in ancient Near Eastern communities, from prehistoric times until the advent of religious monotheism in the Levant during the first millennium BCE. It offers new insights into the symbolic value embodied in the religious materiality produced in the ancient Near East.

Inhalt

I. In the Name of the Spirits: Humans and Natural Environments: 1. Materializing the human body: the cult of ancestors among Ancient Near Eastern societies; 2. Sacred nature: deer, water, and the supernatural in Anatolia during Bronze Age; II. For the Glory of the Gods: Architecture, Icons, and Material Symbols for Encountering the Divine: 3. Constructing cosmotheism: temples, writing, and the creation of divine Pantheons in Ancient Mesopotamia; 4. Imagining the divine: consecrating and venerating cultic images in the Ancient Near East; III. A New Era: Toward the Emergence of Monotheism: 5. One God in one temple: religious aniconism and the rise of monotheism in the Southern Levant during the First Millenium BCE.