Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

Th e Bacchanalia were festivals to honor the god Bacchus, called Dionysius in Greek. Th e Bacchanalia began around 200 b.c.e. as ...

ization. Th e ceremonial center’s architecture tracked and re- vealed astronomical phenomena: the movements of the sun, moon, pl ...

See also agriculture; architecture; art; astronomy; calendars and clocks; death and burial practices; drama and theater; economi ...

region became arid, forcing people to move and fi nd new sources of food. Th us, over long stretches of time, the dietary habits ...

yams became especially important because they were not overly sensitive to intemperate weather conditions. Th e in- fl uence of ...

of a myth involving a fi sh eating the phallus of the god Osiris aft er his evil brother Seth mutilated him. Although fi sh do n ...

exploits of some soldiers who had enjoyed too much wine, and in the seventh century b.c.e. numerous inhabitants of the city of A ...

far west as Gansu, as far east as Shandong, and as far north as Inner Mongolia. Hunting and gathering, particularly for meat suc ...

in that environment. Seaweeds and shellfi sh were collected, and it is still true today that the tastiest wild vegetables can be ...

Meat was also cooked in an earth oven. A pit was dug and lined with stone, and a fi re was then lit in the pit; at the same time ...

potential health hazards, the most common drink was wine, generally diluted and drunk at every meal, from morning to night, even ...

tein from beans and lentils eaten with bread. Fish from the Mediterranean was commonly eaten, but meat was not popu- lar. Italy’ ...

tongue, blood soup (made by mixing corn fl our with animal blood), and bear meat; these items were oft en consumed as part of re ...

▶ foreigners and barbarians introduction In the ancient world travel for most people was diffi cult. In early hunter-gatherer so ...

and Ethiopia, and in these descriptions he clearly shows that travelers were able to visit these areas with few problems. In- de ...

ple, the texts include both Nubia, where Egyptian military forces were constantly on alert, and Byblos, with which Eg y pt maint ...

in many surviving images, ethnicity does not seem to have been a major cause for trouble except when an uprising took place. Th ...

did their trading almost exclusively with China and not with foreigners. When trade routes by sea were established between In- d ...

tudes toward foreigners and reactions to them through analy- sis of the patterns of display of signs of identity, such as dress ...

Although the treatment of the helots is an extreme ex- ample, being an outsider in a Greek town could have disad- vantages. Peop ...