Loose Bonds and Porous Boundaries among Mobile People as Religious Agents in the Greco-Roman Arabian Desert
What happens when people of different provenance, profession, and individual interests are en route and share the same (sacred) places for short moments in time? How inclusive or exclusive are their activities and behaviour? What elements of their identities do they emphasise to show an affiliation...
| Published in: | Religion in the Roman empire |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Mohr Siebeck
[2017]
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| In: |
Religion in the Roman empire
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Arabische Wüste
/ Antiquity
/ Mobility
/ Cultic site
/ Group identity
/ History 100 BC-200
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion BE Greco-Roman religions KBL Near East and North Africa TB Antiquity |
| Further subjects: | B
MULTI-SCRIPT EPIGRAPHY
B WADI RAMM B ALLĀT B Graffiti B EASTERN DESERT OF EGYPT B PANEION B ROAD-SIDE SANCTUARIES B WADI HAMMĀMĀT B ARABIAN DESERT B (RELIGIOUS) IDENTITIES B MOBILE GROUPS |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | What happens when people of different provenance, profession, and individual interests are en route and share the same (sacred) places for short moments in time? How inclusive or exclusive are their activities and behaviour? What elements of their identities do they emphasise to show an affiliation or distinction? The paper reviews some Late Hellenistic and Roman places along the routes of the Arabian Desert (Wadi Ramm, el-Kanayis and Wadi Hammāmāt) where passers-by left inscriptions, imagery and structures in order to communicate with both fellow men coming to these places before or after them, and with the gods. Departing from the distinction of 'styles', 'bonds' and 'boundaries' (Eliasoph and Lichterman 2003) in groupformation, it explores whether and how merchants, indigenous people, soldiers, or workmen established groups through religious activity. By closely looking at location, preferred script, content, reference to former texts or images, and larger spatial embedding (intra-site and inter-site relations) the various strategies, adapted to situation and purpose of the practice, become manifest, and show a differentiation of groups in terms of spatial setting, while an on-going intermingling attests to openended communication. |
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| ISSN: | 2199-4471 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion in the Roman empire
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1628/219944617X14860387744186 |