A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World

A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive overview of a wide range of topics and archaeological materials relating to the practices, expressions, and interactions of religion in antiquity. Chapters are primarily focused on “lived religion”—religious experience rather than belief—in the Greco-Roman world, and take their point of departure in concepts, aspect, and empirical material relating to central themes within the archaeology of religion.
Featuring 35 contributions from leading specialists, researchers, and theorists in a variety of relevant fields, chapters are structured around themes that include archaeology of ritual, embodiment, experiences, creating spaces of experiences, designing and appropriating sacred space, sharing public space, expressiveness, and agents and transformations.
Collectively, chapters serve to shape our understanding of the role of objects in cultural practices of constructing religion and encountering and appropriating such a religion as objectified representations of the sacred. Combining the best current scholarship with a wide-ranging geographical scope and chronological span, A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World offers illuminating insights into everyday religious life and ritual practice during antiquity.