Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

crisis and to ask their ancestors to speak with gods to help ensure weather appropriate to each of the seasons, for good harvest ...

new religion. By then Daoism had fragmented into diff erent sects. Zhang Daoling created the Way of the Heavenly Mas- ters, whic ...

Celts, had taken another direction in their religion. Th e Celts believed there were gods and goddesses everywhere. Bodies of wa ...

Magicians had a strong hold on many Celts. Even long aft er being absorbed into the Roman Empire, Celtic peasants practiced the ...

Th ey exchanged hostages, with one of the hostages being the earth goddess herself, who went to live with the war god. If she wa ...

dead with goods such as food suggests that they believed in an aft erlife in which the dead would need or want the goods. Th ey ...

Larger governmental structures and the economy failed. Sev- eral waves of barbarians raided at will throughout the area. Every m ...

Th e private religion of the family continued as earlier at household shrines. Cemeteries became centers of family reli- gion al ...

religious fi gures whom the city found subversive or threaten- ing. Many of the practices denounced as magic and therefore forei ...

Th e 12 Olympian gods were honored as a distinct group in Greek religion and fi gure prominently in Greek litera- ture. Th e ori ...

ROME BY MICHAEL J. O’NEAL Th e complex religious beliefs of the ancient Romans are dif- fi cult to describe for at least three r ...

of the state, or the people, and of the army during times of peace). Th ese gods were called the Capitoline Triad because t hey ...

the deity is a loving one who cares for the welfare of the people he created. Th e ancient Romans saw their relationship with th ...

Th e priests in the College of Fetiales had a single job: to ensure that when Rome declared war, it did so properly. Th e proced ...

not develop systems of writing, so they left no religious texts or mythic epics. In Mesoamerica several ancient civilizations em ...

American shamans as a hallucinogen. Comparing these pipes to similar objects produced by recent Native North American groups sug ...

of these images where an engraving of a toad appears on its head. Th e venom of the toad species Bufo marinus has hallu- cinogen ...

Late Formative monuments. He can be understood as both the shamanic alter ego of Itzamna and as the false sun, the monster Vucub ...

adopted by local peoples as a kind of “franchise,” with lo- cal versions of the original shrine built and staff ed by priests fr ...

Th e holy house, the house of the gods, in the holy place had not yet been made; No reed had sprung up, no tree had been cre ...