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Religions of Antiquity
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//ABISOURCE//DTD XHTML plus AWML 2.2//EN" "http://www.abisource.com/2004/xhtml-awml/xhtml-awml.mod"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:awml="http://www.abisource.com/2004/xhtml-awml/"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8" /> <title> Abiword HTML Document </title> </head> <body> <div> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Students must submit both assignment</span><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#ff0000">describing and analysing the web content in each question</span><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">. At the end of the notes</span><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#ff0000">there is a section entitled ‘web content’</span><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">and</span><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';text-decoration:underline">students are expected to look at each link and then write a brief 2 pages (double space) response describing what they see and explain how that compliments or counteracts the descriptions that they have read in the Oxtoby textbook</span><span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#7030a0">.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:24pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Interactive Assignment</span> <a name="_GoBack"> </a> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Religions of Antiquity</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <a href="http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbook.asp"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';text-decoration:underline;color:#0000ff">http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbook.asp</span></a><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';text-decoration:underline;color:#0000ff"></span><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#ff0000">(web content)</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';text-decoration:underline;color:#000000">QUESTION</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#ff0000">Select two ancient origin mythologies and compare and contrast the selected narratives. You may select from the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Persian, Greek, or Roman texts. For example, you might choose the Egyptian origin myth ‘Creation by Atum’ or the ‘Egyptian creation story’ and compare it with the Mesopotamian creation narrative found in the Enuma Elish. Browse through some of the texts and see which ones you find most interesting for the purpose of comparison.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:22pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">(No plagiarism please)</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:24pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">----------------------------------------------------------</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:24pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';text-decoration:underline;background:#ffff00">See below Note to use for the assignemt</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:24pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Religions of Antiquity</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Introduction</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">The term ‘antiquity’ in a Western context refers to a broad period of time ranging from the late fourth millennium BCE to the middle of the first millennium CE. The geographic region covered in this unit is the Near East and Mediterranean as it existed during this time. There are many religious traditions that emerged in this place during this time and there is a great diversity that existed with respect to belief and practice.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">It is important to keep in mind, however, that these traditions often emerged and evolved both independently but also through cultural diffusion and exchange with neighbouring groups. In addition, there are also some general trends that we may spot when comparing these religious traditions to one another including: no founding figure, many deities, fewer canonical texts as compared to other traditions we will study during this course, and common ethical imperatives.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Religious traditions in antiquity also placed a great degree of importance on ritual. There are numerous types of ritual practice in the examples we will explore in this unit but sacrificial offerings were a common feature of religious ritual. In many cases, sacrifice and offerings were thought to placate angry deities or put an individual/group in good favour with a deity. Ritual was the primary mechanism of communication with the divine realm and some traditions even asserted that humans could control or influence the gods through ritual.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Many traditions that emerged during this period also placed a great emphasis on existential questions and philosophical discourse. They explored the nature of humanity and outlined various ideas about the relationship between humanity and the divine. We will see that many of the traditions that we will examine in this unit reached similar conclusions on these issues even though the exact nature of their belief system and practices were perhaps quite different.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Themes</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">In order to draw attention to the complexities and seeming contradictions found within religions of antiquity, this unit highlights the following:</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Key historical developments</span> </p> <span></span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Deities</span><span></span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Understanding the World</span><span></span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Negotiating the World: Ritual, Sacrifice, and Divination</span><span></span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Overcoming the World: Death</span><span></span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">The End of Antiquity</span><span></span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Influence of Christianity</span> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Deities</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Divinity in the ancient world was considered to be an omnipresent entity. The gods were everywhere and could potentially control various aspects of human existence. The Greeks ascribed the belief in a pantheon of 12 gods that lived on Mount Olympus and the Romans followed a very similar system. Often the Greek gods are presented alongside their Roman counter-parts (such as Zeus and Jupiter) but it is important to note that there are differences between them. The Romans were thought to have ‘borrowed’ some of the Greek deities but in some cases they associated them with different traits or characteristics. For example, Ares is the Greek god of war (who is sometimes feared) and Mars is the Roman god of war who is also associated with fertility.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Other ancient civilizations including the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Sumerians all had many more deities than the Greeks and Romans. However, since there were sometimes thousands of gods, there was often a ranking system to express the level of significance or importance of a particular deity. For example, other categories for god-like figures included great gods, secondary or minor gods, or heroes that were only partly divine. Many such figures existed in Greek mythology, such as the well-known Heracles (known by his Roman name Hercules) who was the son of the great god Zeus and the mortal Alcmene.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">The earliest gods were often linked to things found in nature like the sun, moon, sky, and water. The Sumerians depicted ‘god’ as a star while the ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun god called Ra. The gods were thought to have power over nature and these civilizations often linked negative forces of nature such as storms with the divine. The great deities also had the power to influence human activity and could dispense justice whereas secondary figures often acted as messengers for the greater gods, carrying out sometimes unpleasant tasks.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Light was also linked to the divine realm and many ancient religions of antiquity had some concept of divine light or luminescence. The textbook provides several examples from Mesopotamian, Roman, and Egyptian traditions that espouse this connection between light and divinity. This understanding of light demonstrates the potential positive and negative power of the gods because light can be brilliant and shine allowing humans to see but sometimes it can be blinding as well.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">It is important to note that there are many examples of female deities. For example, Isis was a prominent goddess in Egyptian mythology and she possessed great power. She was an idealized representation of a mother and wife (she protects her son Horus and resurrects her murdered husband in some narratives). The Greek goddess Demeter was responsible for the fertility of the earth and associated with agriculture and motherhood (‘meter’ in Greek translates to ‘mother’).</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Exercise #1</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000"> – Conduct a google image search of at least 5 of the gods or goddesses that are mentioned in the textbook. How are the deities you selected represented? Can you find examples of the following forms: paintings, scriptures, figurines, or inscribed images on stone?</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Understanding the World</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Most ancient traditions from antiquity have an understanding of cosmology, or how the world originated and how it works. There was a general understanding that the creation of the world did not just happen from nothing but rather creation signalled a transformation of some type of formless pre-existing state. The Egyptians and the Mesopotamians believed that the world was created from primordial waters where existence was a state of chaos that lacked order. When the waters receded, there remained a mound of earth from which all living things were derived. There are other features of creation narratives such as the role of human behaviour. Some things came into being through sexual intercourse, the spoken word (or commands by a deity), and through labour.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Cosmogony</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000"> - In terms of understanding the structure and organization of the world, many religions from this time period thought that the world existed in a tri-partite structure: heaven, earth, and a netherworld. This organization was controlled by the gods but there was often conflict among them. The gods often fought among themselves and many narratives describe in great detail the nature of this conflict. Within this context, it was also important to understand the relationship between humans and the divine realm, which was complex in many of the cosmological narratives. This relationship was represented in various ways including architecture; buildings and other structures (which were considered in some cases to be the dwelling place of a deity on earth) often represented a model of how human beings viewed the cosmos. For example, the walls of a structure often delineated the boundary between order and chaos.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Anthropogony </span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">– The creation of human beings is an interesting point of comparison among the traditions we are exploring in this unit. There is often an understanding (as we have already noted) that human beings are inherently flawed in some way; however, not all religious traditions placed a great deal of importance on the creation of human beings (ie. the Egyptians). Some Greek narratives connected the creation of humans to the titans, who were a ‘second generation’ of divine beings. They were eventually overthrown by the great gods on Olympus but they are often associated with chaos and disorder and they actively sought to challenge the power and authority of the great gods.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Anthropology </span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">– There are some common human flaws that we can locate within many of these narratives. These include dissatisfaction, arrogance, greed, and elevating the self over the divine. When the relationship between humanity and divinity is corrupted, human beings are to blame for overestimating their intelligence and power. Many narratives include references to people that thought they could manipulate the gods (see the Greek, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian examples in your textbook), which often led to negative consequences for the human. One of the most famous examples is found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where the young Icarus is warned not to fly too high because the sun will scorch his wings. Of course he fails to heed the warning of his father and the sun melts the wax on his wings and he falls to his death in the sea. This narrative is meant to convey idea that human intelligence or arrogance does not outweigh the power of the gods.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Perpetuation of Mythology & Challenges to Mythology-</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Most people in antiquity during this period would be familiar with these mythological narratives and this happened through a variety of mechanisms. The general public would often participate in festivals or attend the re-enactment of mythological narratives at the theatre. But mythology was also prevalent in the domestic sphere. For example, many people had images or other items (such as statues or figurines) in their home as sign of their belief or dedication to a certain deity. Physical implements were not the only form of religious expression as spells and incantations were also employed as a means of supplication or protection.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">By the 6</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';vertical-align:super;color:#000000">th</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000"> C BCE, however, some intellectuals began to challenge the validity of these narratives, particularly in the Greek context. Philosophers formulated a variety of arguments and refuted various aspects of the divine including: their existence, their proposed anthropomorphic features, the multiplicity of deities, or the nature of the divine with respect to the concepts of good and evil. Often the consequences of these formulations were real – Ovid, for example, was exiled after writing Metamorphoses because his articulation of the divine challenged the authority and divine nature of the Roman emperor.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:0.000000pt"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Negotiating the World</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">The world was a dangerous place in antiquity – many people faced continual war, famine, and disease and only the very few lived a life of privilege. Many ancient mythologies, however, operated under the premise that if a person was devoted to the divine (as demonstrated through pious acts), the divine would ‘pay them back’ or reward them with various things including children, good crops, good health, and financial success. A person could demonstrate their piety through clothing and feeding deities, giving them gifts, and obeying their wishes. This exchange generally happened through ritual. This happened through prayer, worship, and offerings. Food played a key role in these offerings and it was believed that the gods consumed the food through mysteries means in order to nourish themselves. Interestingly, many of these rituals were performed in private places and were not generally public events. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Sacrifice was one of the most important aspects of ritual practice in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. This ritual can be understood as a transformative act where a regular object into a sacred object that is offered as a gift to the divine. Sacrificial objects included food and beverages but certain items had to undergo a specific preparation. For example, in the case of animal sacrifice, a trained priest had to slaughter the animal according to particular specifications and this type of practice was often carried out in the public domain (sometimes at festivals).</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">The priests that led rituals such as animal sacrifice were usually appointed for certain periods of time and were generally private citizens. They were often described as exemplars in the community and were continually concerned with remaining in a state of purity. Most priests were expected to dress a certain way and participate in ritual bathing practices in order to retain that state of purity. However, this preoccupation with physical purity also extended to moral purity as well. Priests were expected to follow various moral codes, which often included prohibitions on murder, robbery, and adultery. Women could also act as priests, particularly within the cultic groups dedicated to various goddesses. A priestess in antiquity was viewed as a powerful and important religious authority. The clearest example of this are the Vestal Virgins in Rome, who held their position for 30 years. They ensured that the sacred fire was never extinguished, they guarded the Roman storehouse, and the prepared all of the sacred objects used in public sacrifices.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Divination & Prophecy</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">The concept and practice of prophecy was very common in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean and there were two types of oracles: professional or amateur. People tried to predict the future and figure out the intentions of the gods through various means, including divination. This type of information was thought to be encoded in weather patterns, animals, and dreams. The job of the oracle was to interpret these clues and translate the message contained within the clue. It was thought that the gods communicated through these means to impart secret knowledge to humanity through the interpreter or oracle. However, in some cases, priests complained that people would ask trivial questions (ie. if one person loves another or if a person should get married) when the oracle should be reserved for more important matters. But the gods did not always reciprocate the way that people expected and sometimes it was difficult to explain a situation where a person’s piety was not rewarded. This gave rise to wisdom literature, which explored the possibility that humanity cannot always grasp the intentions or actions of the gods/goddesses.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Ethical Imperatives</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Most ancient traditions also included some type of legal or ethical code. Responsibility, compassion, and justice were common themes. There are various examples given in the textbook but one of the most interesting ones comes from ancient Mesopotamia. The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal code inscribed on a stone stele that dates to approximately the 18</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';vertical-align:super;color:#000000">th</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000"> C. BCE. There are some moral imperatives (i.e. “an eye for an eye”) but there are also provisions for various types of contracts including pay rates for certain occupations. Other legal components include parameters for liability in construction and rules pertaining to inheritance laws. This example also demonstrates the interconnectedness of religion, governance, and the social sphere in the ancient world.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Overcoming the World</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">There were differing views in the ancient world on the nature of death and what it meant for humanity. The Mesopotamians thought death signalled an ending or cessation of the physical body while the Egyptians viewed death as a transition to another world. Some Greek philosophers argued that death was a mode of transcendence to separate the soul or mind from the physical body. However, most traditions ascribed to some notion of an afterlife but the significance and nature of that afterlife varied greatly.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">The Egyptians and Mesopotamians both believed that this world was the most important and they sought to enjoy the pleasures life had to offer. In fact, the Egyptians attempted to mirror this life in their conception of the afterlife insofar as they filled the tombs of their rulers with implements they might need in the afterlife such as furniture, food, and jewels. It was also important to facilitate this transition with proper burial rites and this is illustrated in ancient Egyptian texts that include hymns and prayers that were supposed to help the dead join that divine realm.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:18pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">End of Antiquity</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">The religious traditions that we have explored in this unit did not simply disappear overnight. The decline of various traditions happened over a period of centuries and the reasons for this phenomenon are complex. There are political, economic, and social factors that all played a role but the emergence of Christianity as a political power by the 4</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';vertical-align:super;color:#000000">th</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000"> century CE resulted in a more rapid disappearance. Your textbook outlines some of the pivotal historical events such as the Emperor Theodosius’ ban on sacrifice in 391 CE or the destruction of Rome in 410 CE. Yet, scholars remain divided on a definitive moment or event that resulted in the final disappearance of these traditions. However, emerging social and religious norms, legal precedents, and the canonization of Christian texts all contributed to this final result. Therefore, most of what we can piece together of these ancient traditions comes from archaeological and textual evidence. It is also important to note that the monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have much in common with these ancient religious traditions and there are numerous aspects of cultural and religious continuity that we can see in our study.</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:24pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Terms to Know</span> </p> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" style="width:100%;border:1pt;border-collapse:collapse;empty-cells:show;table-layout:fixed;border-style:solid"> <tr> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Anthropomorphism</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Ishtar</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Plutarch</span> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Apotropaic</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Isis</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Pyramid Texts</span> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Asclepius</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Necropolis</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Stela</span> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Cult</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Netherworld</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Tiamat</span> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Enuma Elish</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Osiris</span> </p> </td> <td rowspan="" colspan="" style="padding: 0.00pt;border:inherit solid inherit"> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Zeus</span> </p> </td> </tr> </table> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:24pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Interactive Assignment</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Religions of Antiquity</span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <a href="http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbook.asp"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';text-decoration:underline;color:#0000ff">http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/asbook.asp</span></a> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:5.000000pt;margin-top:5.000000pt"> <span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000">Select two ancient origin mythologies and compare and contrast the selected narratives. You may select from the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Persian, Greek, or Roman texts. For example, you might choose the Egyptian origin myth ‘Creation by Atum’ or the ‘Egyptian creation story’ and compare it with the Mesopotamian creation narrative found in the Enuma Elish. Browse through some of the texts and see which ones you find most interesting for the purpose of comparison.</span> </p> <p> </p> </div> </body></html> ">
