Osiris Must Die – Understanding the Practice of “Menacing the Gods” in Ancient Egyptian Magic
September 2024 | Vol. 12.9 By Franziska Naether Ancient Egyptian magical texts offer a rich repository of spells and incantations designed to manipulate divine forces for diverse p
A Girl’s Helping Hand on the Journey to the Afterlife: Alabaster Ishtar-Aphrodite Figurines from Seleucid-Parthian Babylonia
December 2023 | Vol. 11.12 By Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper Sometime late in the Seleucid or early in the Parthian period (c. 2nd century BCE), a family living in or near Babylon grie
Gender in the Ancient Near East and Egypt
November 2023 | Vol. 11.11 By Stephanie Budin Sex and gender have become central topics of discussion and scholarship in a wide variety of fields, ever since second-wave feminism e
Maritime Viewscapes and the Material Religion of Levantine Seafarers
September 2023 | Vol. 11.9 By Aaron Brody For ancient peoples, travel was profoundly liminal. Voyaging at sea was doubly liminal, leaving the safety of land and existing in a state
“Sin”: The Hidden History
September 2023 | Vol. 11.9 By David Konstan Sin is a religious concept. In civil law, one is accused of committing a crime, not a sin. But sin is often still more narrowly understo
The Egyptian Conceptualization of the Otherworld
August 2023 | Vol. 11.8 By Silvia Zago The belief in life after death is one of the most defining aspects of Egyptian culture, which has fascinated the outside world for millennia.
The Başbük Rock Wall Panel: Serving Empire, Honoring Syro-Anatolian Gods
april 2023 | Vol. 11.4 By Mehmet Önal , Celal Uludağ, Yusuf Koyuncu and Selim Ferruh Adalı Authors’ note: A catastrophic earthquake, the epicentre of which was Türkiye’s so
The Meaning and Symbolism of Swimming-Girl Spoons from Egypt
april 2023 | Vol. 11.4 By Peter Lacovara In ancient Egypt, cosmetics were important for both the living and the dead, as maintaining a youthful and beautiful appearance was deemed
Death Wishes in the Hebrew Bible
December 2022 | Vol. 10.12 By Hanne Løland Levinson Many of us in the depths of despair have wished for death. What about figures in the Hebrew Bible? “Enough! Now, YHWH, take m
Who’s Afraid of the Goddess of Ancient Israel?
june 2022 | Vol. 10.6 By Dvora Lederman Daniely Archaeological and literary-biblical studies have long shown that the worship of a Mother-Goddess was an early integral part of the