Household and Family Religion in Antiquity

Abstract

This is the second volume in The Ancient World: Comparative Histories series in which the comparative approach is applied to the ancient world.Deriving from a conference held at Brown University in 2005, the book consists of fifteen chapters by different specialists on ancient religious practices in the Eastern and Central Mediterranean.Focusing upon domestic religion in second millennium West Asia (Mesopotamia, Emar, Nuzi, Ugarit), the first millennium Levant (Israel), pharaonic Egypt, classical Greece, and Rome, the book investigates day-to-day religious practices within the household, family, and domicile in contrast to state-sponsored civic temples.The chapters cover aspects such as the household's patron deities, numina associated with the house itself, ancestor cult, lifecycle rituals, and the locations where these activities occurred.Comparison between the regionally and chronologically distinct examples highlights common themes between cultures.The book's editors introduce the subject, defining household and family religion as cultic activity performed by people who are biologically or maritally related, sometimes in conjunction with dependents such as slaves, who live in the same house or are otherwise under the authority of the head of the family.Stanley K. Stowers, in Chapter 2 "Theorizing the Religion of Ancient Households and Families," problematizes the categories of "family" and "household," comparing the nuclear family promoted by evolutionary psychologists with anthropological and ancient examples that differ greatly from that model.He suggests that in defining "household and family religion" place and residency ought to be weighted heavily, family should not be defined separately from household, and different ideologies of the family be taken into consideration.In defining "religion" Stowers recommends that definitions be polytheistic rather than monotheistic in order to avoid essentialism.He reminds us that religion in antiquity was organized differently compared to Western modernity: rather than being an autonomous category, ancient religions were embedded within in society and culture and were not separate from the economy or politics.The ancient house was not a place of leisure after work, but a center of work and production, hence domestic religious activities were entangled with economic practices, the most important religious focus being the productivity and wealth-generating capacity of the land.Ancient household and family religion was concerned with local place in contrast to public state cult exemplified by the temple.Humble domestic religion can be difficult to identify archaeologically; household cult equipment often consisting of ordinary domestic vessels in contrast to temple paraphernalia which is more obvious, even spectacular.Likewise, temple architecture was extraordinary in contrast to the house which was ordinary.In Chapter 3, "Family Religion in Second Millennium West Asia," Karel van der Toorn utilizes the evidence of cuneiform texts to explain how Mesopotamian family religion focussed upon devotion to both the family god and the ancestors.He then

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