Crafting for the Gods: Cult, Production, and Technological Identities

Zusatztext

Cult and craft production are two central and deeply intertwined dimensions of ancient societies. Although often examined in isolation, their interaction offers crucial insight into how communities articulated social identities and constructed cultural meaning. Approaching cult and craft in tandem reveals the ways ritual practices and technological knowledge shaped one another, illuminating how objects were produced, circulated, and appropriated meaning within their broader social worlds. Studying this relationship, however, poses significant challenges. Both ritual activity and craft practice can be archaeologically elusive, leaving their intersections understudied or relegated to passing comment. The contributors to this volume address these gaps by examining cult and craft production as mutually influential spheres across the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, Egypt, and beyond during the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE. By integrating archaeological and textual scholarship with theoretical perspectives, they reconsider how ritual and production were embedded within wider economic, social, and ideological systems. Moving beyond the restrictive paradigm of "sacred economies," the contributors highlight the deeply integrated nature of the production of goods and ritual practice, connections often obscured by time and disciplinary boundaries.

Autorenportrait

Vanessa Workman (Herausgegeben von) Born 1988; studied Archaeology (Bar-Ilan University, PhD candidate) and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (Tel Aviv University, 2016 MA); lecturer at the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials and the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Pennsylvania. Laura Gonnermann (Herausgegeben von) Born 1989; studied Theology and German Literature and Linguistics in Kiel (Germany) and Basel (Switzerland); research assistant and PhD student at Leipzig University at the chair of 'History and History of Religion of Israel and its Environment'; member of the Tell el-Badawiya/Hannathon Excavation Project. Shira Albaz (Herausgegeben von) Born 1987; 2020 PhD; Postdoc at Haifa University; Teaching Fellow at Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies, Bar-Ilan University; Manager at The Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project, Bar-Ilan University; Member of The Minerva Center for the Relations between Israel and Aram in Biblical Times.

Weitere Details