Archaeology and religion: two book reviews
Two books recently acquired by SOAS Library have been reviewed online:
Defining the Sacred: Approaches to the Archaeology of Religion in the Near East / edited by Nicola Laneri (Oxford: Oxbow, 2015)
Reviewed by Aren M. Maeir (Bar-Ilan University) in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review
An “excellent” collection of studies “dealing with various cultures, finds, issues and periods, ranging from the early Neolithic period until the Iron Age“. Regions studied include ancient Mesopotamia, the Levant, Turkmenistan and the ancient kingdoms of Israel. The studies look at how societies evolved and of the emergence of notions of ritual and sacred space
Click here to find Defining the sacred on the SOAS Library catalogue
Shrines of the ‘Alids in Medieval Syria: Sunnis, Shi’is and the architecture of coexistence / by Stephanie Mulder (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2014)
Reviewed by Megan Boomer (Jaffe History of Art Building, University of Pennsylvania)) on H-Net
This study combines social and architectural history to explore the evolution of Syrian shrines in the medieval Islamic world. The author’s approach “allows her to nuance and extend prior scholarship on medieval pilgrimage and the sanctification of the Syrian landscape”
Click here to find Shrines of the ‘Alids in Medieval Syria on the SOAS Library catalogue