Linguistic studies in Egyptology, Assyriology and Biblical Studies harbour a persistent trope in which the inhabitants of the Ancient Near East and Egypt are believed to have visualised the past as in front of them and the future as behind them. Analyses of the spatial conceptualisation of time in language have revealed that the opposite is true…[Read more]

An ancient Sumerian proverb may be read as “good fortune [is embedded in] organisation and wisdom.” The present centennial survey is solely about organizing the last one hundred years of scholarship for a Sumerian afterlife myth named “Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld.” The initial discovery of artifacts with snippets of the myth can be dated…[Read more]

An ancient Sumerian proverb may be read as “good fortune [is embedded in] organisation and wisdom.” The present centennial survey is solely about organizing the last one hundred years of scholarship for a Sumerian afterlife myth named “Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld.” The initial discovery of artifacts with snippets of the myth can be dated…[Read more]

Contemporary engaged Buddhist scholars typically claim either that Buddhism always endorsed social activism, or that its non-endorsement of such activism represented an unwitting lack of progress. This article examines several classical South Asian Buddhist texts that explicitly reject social and political activism. These texts argue for this…[Read more]

The story of Lough Derg in Ireland’s County Donegal is arranged around clusters of sectarian narratives in juxtaposition, synthesis and conflict. The Sanctuary of Saint Patrick sits on Station Island, a small rocky islet set within the waters of the lake. The site became well known in the early Middle Ages as the place of Saint Patrick’s del…[Read more]

The practice of a king appointing his daughter as the High Priestess and consort of an important male deity arose independently in the Ancient Near East and Egypt. In Mesopotamia, the prime example of such an appointee was the EN-priestess of Nanna (EPN) at Ur; in Egypt, its most important embodiment was the God’s Wife of Amun (GWA) at Thebes. B…[Read more]

The practice of a king appointing his daughter as the High Priestess and consort of an important male deity arose independently in the Ancient Near East and Egypt. In Mesopotamia, the prime example of such an appointee was the EN-priestess of Nanna (EPN) at Ur; in Egypt, its most important embodiment was the God’s Wife of Amun (GWA) at Thebes. B…[Read more]

In 1st Dynasty Egypt (ca. 3000 BCE), mudbrick architecture may have been influenced by existing Mesopotamian practices such as the complex niching of monumental façades. From the 1st to 3rd Dynasties, the niches of some mudbrick mastabas at Saqqara were painted with brightly-coloured geometric designs in a clear imitation of woven reed matting.…[Read more]

In 1st Dynasty Egypt (ca. 3000 BCE), mudbrick architecture may have been influenced by existing Mesopotamian practices such as the complex niching of monumental façades. From the 1st to 3rd Dynasties, the niches of some mudbrick mastabas at Saqqara were painted with brightly-coloured geometric designs in a clear imitation of woven reed matting.…[Read more]

Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης, Θεολογική Σχολή, Τομέας Ηθικής και Κοινωνιολογίας, Καθηγήτρια Νίκη Παπαγεωργίου της Κοινωνιολογίας της Θρησκείας
Μάθημα:
Θρησκείες και Κοινωνίες της Μέσης Ανατολής
στην Εισαγωγική Κατεύθυνση Μουσουλμανικών Σπουδών
Καλημέρα σας,
Δράττομαι της ευκαιρίας να ευχαριστήσω την Καθηγήτρια κυρία Νίκη Παπαγεωρ…[Read more]

2019 _ Εβραίοι Έλληνες: Διδάσκοντας για τους γνωστούς – αγνώστους. Σχόλια & addenda στα κείμενα των Φακέλων του Μαθήματος των Θρησκευτικών για τον Ιουδαϊσμό & α. Ιουδαίοι στο Ισραήλ – β. Ο Μεσσίας στον Ιουδαϊσμό Παρασκευή, 10 Μαΐου 2019 Καθηγητής Παναγιώτης Παχής & Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια Αγγελική Ζιάκα Θεολογική Σχολή ΑΠΘ Πωλ Ισαάκ Χάγου…[Read more]

Review of Greek Alchemy from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity. Edited by EFTHYMIOS NICOLAIDIS. Pp. 198, illus., index. Brepols: Turnhout. 2018. £72. ISBN: 978-2-503-58191-0.

The article discusses the presence of a generative principle called Mōt in a short cosmogony found in the Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos (c. 100 CE). The Phoenician History’s Mōt has been usually understood as the euhemeristic interpretation of a Semitic god of death, which is well documented in late Bronze Age documents from Ugarit. I a…[Read more]

This paper was originally prepared for a meeting of the Methodology Seminar of the Distant Worlds Graduate School (LMU, Munich) and was meant as an introduction to the use of the category of magic in the study of ancient Greek and Roman religions offered to a group of scholars coming from different disciplines.

The study of ancient magic is…[Read more]

This article treats late ancient rabbinic texts (ca. 1st-early 3rd cents. CE), reading them as biology, and following their ideas about the limits and possibilities of reproductive and species variation. I read sources from the tractates of Niddah, Kil’ayim, and Bekhorot, in the Mishnah and Toseta, as expressions of a science of generation, or a b…[Read more]

In spite of renewed scholarly interest in the religion of Judeans living on the island of Elephantine during the Persian period, only one recent study has addressed the religious significance of the fired clay female figurines discovered there. The present article seeks to place these objects back on the research agenda. After summarizing the…[Read more]

This thesis follows my earlier work on Aurignacian rock art by drawing a clear line between cave painting in the south of France and the holiest Hebrew script Ktav Ivrit or STA”M. This is an in depth study detailing relationships between Language, Mysticism and Kabbalah, as well as Religious Dogma that answers the question, “Why do all religions…[Read more]

This thesis follows my earlier work on Aurignacian rock art by drawing a clear line between cave painting in the south of France and the holiest Hebrew script Ktav Ivrit or STA”M. This is an in depth study detailing relationships between Language, Mysticism and Kabbalah, as well as Religious Dogma that answers the question, “Why do all religions…[Read more]

This is a series of brief paradigms that suggest ways of manipulating abstraction, such as Art Language Religion and Politics, for use with a Carlos Ginzburg Evidentiary Paradigm, or other multivariate analysis. The tables in this appendix accompany the Index of Deities and Demons and How the Aleph-Bet Got Its Shape.