Abstract
Recent emphasis on the concept of the body has so far failed to impact radically on old archaeologies of spirituality. This chapter suggests that such new work will remain marginalized unless we problematize three central features of the Judaeo-Christian religious heritage: monotheism, anthropomorphism and transcendence. These concepts shaped traditional archaeological models of religion, and continue explicitly or implicitly to inform contemporary formulations of the divine. It can be argued that monotheism tends towards abstraction and notions of centralized authority; personification towards narratives of anthropomorphism; and transcendence towards a devaluation of the physical world. I will explore how those themes can develop, suggest that we may be unaware how much they have influenced archaeologists in their study of prehistoric religions, and trace how they seem to have been reflected specifically in the study of early Minoan religion.
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Notes
- 1.
See Fragmenta ex Conciliis Bracarensibus, Collectio conciliorum Hispaniae. My two examples, from the Portuguese town of Braga, date from 1603 and 598 AD respectively. Similar ecclesiastical directives were issued in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
- 2.
Fisherman on west coast of Scotland interviewed on Video Nation ‘Nine Lives’ shown on BBC-2, 26.1.2000.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like warmly to thank the editors for their invitation to contribute to this volume; and, for kind permission to reproduce picture material, Keith Branigan and Diamantis Panagiotopoulos.
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Goodison, L. (2012). “Nature”, the Minoans and Embodied Spiritualities. In: Rountree, K., Morris, C., Peatfield, A. (eds) Archaeology of Spiritualities. One World Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3354-5_10
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