Altars Restored Fincham, Kenneth; Tyacke, Nicholas
11/2007
eBook
Altars are powerful symbols, fraught with meaning, but during the early modern period they became a religious battleground. Attacked by reformers in the mid-16th century because of their allegedly ...idolatrous associations with the Catholic sacrifice of the mass, a hundred years later they served to divide Protestants due to their reintroduction by Archbishop Laud and his associates as part of a counter-reforming programme. Moreover, having subsequently been removed by the victorious puritans, they gradually came back after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. This book explores these developments over a 150 year period, and recaptures the experience of the ordinary parishioner in this crucial period of religious change. Far from being the passive recipients of changes imposed from above, the laity is revealed as actively engaged from the early days of the Reformation, as zealous iconoclasts or their Catholic opponents — a division later translated into competing protestant views. This book integrates the worlds of theological debate, church politics and government, and parish practice and belief, which are often studied in isolation from one another. It draws on hitherto largely untapped sources, notably the surviving artefactual evidence comprising communion tables and rails, fonts, images in stained glass, paintings and plates, and examines the riches of local parish records — especially churchwardens' accounts.
Within the repertoire of the stone monuments erected in the Punic sanctuaries known as “Tophets”, the so-called “stepped altars” represent an absolute unicum since they were found only at Tharros ...(Sardinia). From a morphological point of view, their affiliation to the category of “thrones” at the time proposed by Sabatino Moscati can be considered an established fact. Still, their role within the ritual of the Tophet of Tharros remains unclear. This paper discusses the function of these stone monuments through a review of their archaeological context and an in-depth iconographic examination.
In this book, Claudia Moser offers a new understanding of Roman religion in the Republican era through an exploration of sacrifice, its principal ritual. Examining the long-term imprint of ...sacrificial practices on the material world, she focuses on monumental altars as the site for the act of sacrifice. Piecing together the fragments of the complex kaleidoscope of Roman religious practices, she shows how they fit together in ways that shed new light on the characteristic diversity of Roman religion. This study reorients the study of sacrificial practice in three principal ways: first, by establishing the primacy of sacred architecture, rather than individual action, in determining religious authority; second, by viewing religious activities as haptic, structured experiences in the material world rather than as expressions of doctrinal, belief-based mentalities; and third, by considering Roman sacrifice as a local, site-specific ritual rather than as a single, monolithic practice.
This article challenges the increasingly popular view that Pausanias's description of Athens in the 2nd centurya.d.contains a reference to the Agora of the city in the Archaic period. Consideration ...of Pausanias's methods and his attitude toward the agoras of other Greek cities described in his work suggests that the “agora” mentioned in his description of Athens is most likely the so-called Roman Agora, paid for by Julius Caesar and Augustus. The discussion also casts light on the function and meaning of the agora in Greek cities of the Roman period, and on the ways in which Pausanias should be used as a historical source.
En el presente trabajo presentamos un altar votivo inédito hallado al sur de la provincia de Salamanca, en la región de la Sierra de Francia, y también proponemos cambios de lectura en dos ...inscripciones votivas procedentes de las localidades extremeñas de Salvatierra de los Barros (Badajoz) y Santa Ana (Cáceres), además de la revisión de otro altar de procedencia desconocida, que está conservado en la actualidad en el Museo de Badajoz. En la primera de estas inscripciones ya publicadas proponemos cambios en el teónimo citado en la pieza; en la segunda desciframos los nombres de los oferentes y en la última proponemos cambios menos importantes, pero necesarios para obtener la lectura precisa del monumento.
The purpose of this article is to study the adaptations and representations from which four immigrant families, from different regions in India and settled in Tijuana (Mexico), recreate their ...religious practice. After belonging to a context where Hinduism is predominant, their religious practice becomes a minority when they migrate to Mexico. This situation identifies the negotiations between materiality and its relationship with spirituality on the part of believers themselves, since, without the intervention of a religious authority and in the absence of traditional temples in the place of arrival, families recreate the rituals at home. Following the methodological orientation of lived religion, we began by analyzing the materiality present in their household altars allowing us to study the processes of adaptation (changes and permanences) that take place when they move their daily lives from India to Mexico, specifically to the border between Tijuana and San Diego. We were also able to explore the emotions and meanings that individuals associate with the local elements, with which they continue their religious practice in a foreign country. As a result, the recreations through household altars reveal the elements that each individual values for his or her own religious practice. This article thus reflects on the practice of Hinduism in Tijuana, from a perspective centered on the believers themselves, in a context of religious autonomy as a consequence of migration.
Two limestone monoliths, interpreted as altars, were found in the Judahite shrine at Tel Arad. Unidentified dark material preserved on their upper surfaces was submitted for organic residue analysis ...at two unrelated laboratories that used similar established extraction methods. On the smaller altar, residues of cannabinoids such as Δ
9
-teterahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN) were detected, along with an assortment of terpenes and terpenoids, suggesting that cannabis inflorescences had been burnt on it. Organic residues attributed to animal dung were also found, suggesting that the cannabis resin had been mixed with dung to enable mild heating. The larger altar contained an assemblage of indicative triterpenes such as boswellic acid and norursatriene, which derives from frankincense. The additional presence of animal fat-in related compounds such as testosterone, androstene and cholesterol-suggests that resin was mixed with it to facilitate evaporation. These well-preserved residues shed new light on the use of 8th century Arad altars and on incense offerings in Judah during the Iron Age.
PDF
