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Archaeology of Religion, Ideas and Aspirations
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Archaeology of Religion, Ideas and Aspirations

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2024) | Viewed by 11202

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. David Freidel

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63105, USA
Interests: classic maya; postclassic; Guatemala; historical archaeology; Brazil; archaeologists

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Archaeology as a field and laboratory science promotes interpretations grounded in material evidence and the testing of ideas with such evidence: it is a Western belief system. It is therefore challenging, and intriguing, when archaeologists strive to discern and articulate the beliefs of past peoples, particularly Prehistoric peoples, regarding the immanent and transcendent powers of the cosmos, broadly, behaviors that register religion. The relevant material evidence regularly entails symbols and intentional patterns that can be argued to be symbolic—often defined as manifestations of ritual. That such evidence of past behavior is pervasive in time and space is widely acknowledged in archaeology. How to interpret it is a matter of diverse approaches, in part because archaeologists today debate the utility of key comparatist vocabulary (e.g., shamanism, priesthood, universal religion, traditional religion, indigenous religion), and in part because they debate the necessity of, or even the possibility of, perceiving and conceiving of patterns in evidence from the epistemological perspective of the people who made the record of the past. As an archaeologist who has aspired to convey how the ancient Maya people thought about religion and built their world inspired by those beliefs, I am optimistic that the challenges can be met within the parameters of skeptical evaluation of argumentation in the context of material evidence. The papers in this section come from many experienced specialists with long acquaintance with their domains of inquiry. The call is for them to report from the edges of their understanding, to explain to people interested in religion, in plain terms and minimal reliance on definitions, generally what they think might be possible to say with some confidence about religion in the past.

Prof. Dr. David Freidel
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 19142 KiB  
Article
Animal Matter in Indigenous Place-Thought: A Case from the Moon Pyramid, Teotihuacan
by Nawa Sugiyama
Religions 2024, 15(7), 817; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15070817 - 5 Jul 2024
Viewed by 647
Abstract
This article interrogates an archaeological application of the Indigenous concept of place-thought, defined by Vanessa Watts as an “understanding of the world via a physical embodiment” through studying corporeal animal forms. This latter encompasses the osteological traces of animal matter (sacrificed animals and [...] Read more.
This article interrogates an archaeological application of the Indigenous concept of place-thought, defined by Vanessa Watts as an “understanding of the world via a physical embodiment” through studying corporeal animal forms. This latter encompasses the osteological traces of animal matter (sacrificed animals and prepared body parts) that, because of their material vitalities, provide an opportune site of engagement to retrieve ancient interpersonal relationships. Over 100 corporeal animal forms from Burials 2 and 6 are interpreted as agentive persons who brought into being the Moon Pyramid as an altepetl (water mountain) of Teotihuacan. The altepetl is a seminal place-thought in Mesoamerica intimately tied with sovereignty. The author argues that potentate apex predators (eagles, wolves, jaguars, pumas, and rattlesnakes) became part of Teotihuaccan’s community through their captive management and were buried alive to sustain the altepetl as master guardians. A zooarchaeological and isotopic investigation of corporeal animal forms provided lurid details of human–predator interactions, including differential access to the animals, esoteric knowledge about their personhood, and even deceit of that information. She concludes that providing a contextually and historically contingent, data-driven, and inter-personally centered reconstruction of ancient place-thought, though admittedly partial and from a specific perspective, should be attainable given the enhanced methods in archaeology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Archaeology of Religion, Ideas and Aspirations)
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20 pages, 6195 KiB  
Article
Shaman Pots, Sympathetic Magic, and Spinning Souls among the Medio Period Casas Grandes: Altered States of Consciousness in Other-than-Human Persons
by Christine S. VanPool
Religions 2024, 15(3), 286; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030286 - 26 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1956
Abstract
Medio Period (AD 1200 to 1450) Casas Grandes shamans used tobacco and possibly other entheogens to initiate trance states that allowed their spirits to travel across the cosmos. These trance experiences involved a sense of vertigo and soul flight that is cross-culturally common [...] Read more.
Medio Period (AD 1200 to 1450) Casas Grandes shamans used tobacco and possibly other entheogens to initiate trance states that allowed their spirits to travel across the cosmos. These trance experiences involved a sense of vertigo and soul flight that is cross-culturally common and occurs with tobacco-based nicotine intoxication. The Medio Period shamans also relied on and interacted with other-than-human persons during their travels, including macaw- and serpent-linked deities, as well as animated objects designed to participate in their shamanic journeys. The animated objects included Playas Red and Chihuahuan Polychrome pottery effigies of humans, macaws, and snakes with shamanic themes that represented the spirit world. I propose these pots were animate “pot-people” created for shamanic rituals. They were created with unusual designs including painted images and incised patterns that emphasized the spinning/vertigo that was central to the shamans’ soul flight experience. In some cases, the pots were literally spun, as evidenced by the distinctive wear patterns on their bases. The shamanic designs on the pots that reflected the upper and lower worlds, the depiction of spinning in the pottery decorations, and the literal spinning of some pots reflected the sympathetic and mimetic magic that linked them to the spirit world. They were imbued with the liminal nature of the creatures they depicted, and the symbolic and occasional literal emphasis on spinning would allow them to enter into a shamanic trance in a manner similar to their human counterparts. They, thus, were designed to enter into ASC in a manner that paralleled their human counterparts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Archaeology of Religion, Ideas and Aspirations)
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25 pages, 24770 KiB  
Article
Water, Ideology, and Kingship at the Ancient Burmese Capital of Bagan, Myanmar: An Iconographic Analysis of the Nat Yekan Sacred Water Tank
by Gyles Iannone, Raiza S. Rivera, Saw Tun Lin and Nyein Chan Soe
Religions 2024, 15(2), 166; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020166 - 30 Jan 2024
Viewed by 2278
Abstract
Bagan, the imperial capital of the Burmese Empire (11th–14th centuries CE), was situated in what is now known as Myanmar’s “dry zone”, Southeast Asia’s most arid region. This setting necessitated the development of a subtle, yet extensive rain-fed water management system that channeled [...] Read more.
Bagan, the imperial capital of the Burmese Empire (11th–14th centuries CE), was situated in what is now known as Myanmar’s “dry zone”, Southeast Asia’s most arid region. This setting necessitated the development of a subtle, yet extensive rain-fed water management system that channeled water from the Tuyin mountain range in the southeast to the walled and moated royal city in the northwest. Nat Yekan tank, a rock-cut reservoir located on the western edge of the summit of the Thetso–Taung portion of the Tuyin range, played significant utilitarian and spiritual roles in collecting, sacralizing, and then channeling waters down into the vast Mya Kan reservoir, which, in turn, fed the water management system that redistributed this valuable resource across the Bagan plain. The iconographic elements carved into the stone walls of the Nat Yekan tank attest to its spiritual importance and tie it to an ideological program of kingly legitimacy grounded in guarantees of fertility and prosperity for all. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Archaeology of Religion, Ideas and Aspirations)
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19 pages, 6692 KiB  
Article
First Old WomanMan and the Mesoamerican Diphrastic Kenning of Engendering
by David Freidel
Religions 2024, 15(2), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020153 - 25 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1244
Abstract
The royalty of the Classic Maya of Mesoamerica, and later sages of the Maya, used a powerful diphrastic kenning chab akab’, glossed as “generation-darkness” to convey a range of objectives, conjuring foremost among them. Known principally from hieroglyphic written expressions, but also depicted [...] Read more.
The royalty of the Classic Maya of Mesoamerica, and later sages of the Maya, used a powerful diphrastic kenning chab akab’, glossed as “generation-darkness” to convey a range of objectives, conjuring foremost among them. Known principally from hieroglyphic written expressions, but also depicted in the form of sacrificial instruments and offerings, Eleanor Harrison-Buck, following Timothy Knowlton, proposed that the kenning references sexual intercourse. This essay proposes that a black steatite carved figure stylistically dating to the Middle Preclassic period (900–350 CE) depicts this incantation as an old woman giving birth to her maleness in the form of a circumcised penis. A second Middle Preclassic figure of a dancing child, found as an heirloom in a Classic tomb, is compared to show the link between Preclassic and Classic meaning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Archaeology of Religion, Ideas and Aspirations)
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26 pages, 13173 KiB  
Article
Ontological Beliefs and Hunter–Gatherer Ritual Landscapes: Native Californian Examples
by David S. Whitley
Religions 2024, 15(1), 123; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15010123 - 17 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1807
Abstract
Landscapes are socially produced and reproduced spaces. This is easily recognizable for large-scale urban groups with built environments that dominate living places. But it also pertains to all types of societies and cultures, even small-scale hunter–gatherers, once the ontological beliefs structuring landscape perception [...] Read more.
Landscapes are socially produced and reproduced spaces. This is easily recognizable for large-scale urban groups with built environments that dominate living places. But it also pertains to all types of societies and cultures, even small-scale hunter–gatherers, once the ontological beliefs structuring landscape perception and use are acknowledged. The foragers of south–central and southern California and the Great Basin illustrate this fact. They maintained a widely shared ontological perspective supported by a fundamental cognitive postulate. This is that supernatural power, the principle causative agent in the universe, was differentially distributed among individuals and places. The distribution of power, revealed by certain geomorphological features and natural events, structured their perceptions of landscape. These perceptions were expressed in ritual and symbolism, including petroglyphs and pictographs as durable manifestations of ceremonies on the landscape. The ontological relationship between power and landscape explains a longstanding question in hunter–gatherer archaeology: Why were rock writing sites created at specific locations? It also explains another equally significant but rarely considered and related problem: Why do some localities have massive quantities of rock writings that dwarf most other sites? The landscape symbolism of and the placement of sites by Native Californian and Great Basin tribes is explained by reference to their shared ontological beliefs, illustrating how they structured their ritual practices and archaeological record. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Archaeology of Religion, Ideas and Aspirations)
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14 pages, 3472 KiB  
Article
A Goddess with Bird’s Claws: An Exploration of the Image of Magu
by Qiongke Geng and Yongfeng Huang
Religions 2023, 14(7), 944; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070944 - 23 Jul 2023
Viewed by 2468
Abstract
In China, Magu is a household name for a female Daoist immortal. As a symbol of longevity, people believe that she can prolong their lives and bring them good luck. This paper takes the fact that Magu has hands that look like birds’ [...] Read more.
In China, Magu is a household name for a female Daoist immortal. As a symbol of longevity, people believe that she can prolong their lives and bring them good luck. This paper takes the fact that Magu has hands that look like birds’ feet as a clue to sort out the evolution of the image of Magu. In this article, it is argued that the prototype for the image of the Daoist immortal, Magu, is the bird goddess of the Neolithic goddess and that Magu’s hands, which look like bird claws, are a symbol of the goddess’s divine power. After entering the patriarchal society, the figure of Magu was eroticized and her hands, which represented divine power, became a tool for men to scratch their backs. Daoism, however, inherited the matriarchal society’s worship of women and retained the image of Magu with her hands that resembled the feet of a bird. When Daoism incorporated Magu into its system of deities, the image of Magu was remodeled to conform to the teachings of Daoism, thus making Magu a beautiful, kind-hearted immortal with high moral sentiments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Archaeology of Religion, Ideas and Aspirations)
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