A farewell to foricae: changing attitudes to public latrines in the late antique Near East and Asia Minor

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 177-192
Author(s):  
Louise Blanke
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Changing Attitudes

From Acolyte toṢaḥābī?: Christian Monks as Symbols of Early Confessional Fluidity in the Conversion Story of Salmān al-Fārisī

2019 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Bradley Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractThis paper will examine the narrative of Salmān al-Fārisī/”the Persian” and his conversion to Islam, as recounted in the eighth-centurySīraof Ibn Isḥāq, as a lens into the laudatory interpretation of Christian monasticism by early Muslims. This account of Salmān al-Fārisī (d. 656 CE), an originalCompanion(ṣaḥābī) of the Prophet Muḥammad, vividly describes his rejection of his Zoroastrian heritage, his initial embrace of Christianity, and his departure from his homeland of Isfahan in search of a deeper understanding of the Christian faith. This quest leads the young Persian on a great arc across the Near East into Iraq, Asia Minor, and Syria, during which he studies under various Christian monks and serves as their acolyte. Upon each master’s death, Salmān is directed toward another mystical authority, on a passage that parallels the “monastic sojourns” of late antique Christian literature. At the conclusion of the narrative a monk sends Salmān to seek out a “new Prophet who has arisen among the Arabs.” The monks, therefore, appear to be interpreted as “proto-Muslims,” as links in a chain leading to enlightenment, regardless of their confessional distinction. This narrative could then suggest that pietistic concerns, shared between these communities, superseded specific doctrinal boundaries in the highly fluid and malleable religious culture of the late antique and early Islamic Near East.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND LATE ANTIQUE SOCIAL STRUCTURES

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-56
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Sodini
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Near East ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Rural Environments ◽  
The Social

The archaeological remains of late antique sites can be interpreted in terms of what they can tell us about ancient social structures. This is more straightforward when examining the social structures of the upper classes, who possessed the attributes that allow them to be recognised as such. These attributes occur on a Mediterranean-wide basis and include lavishly decorated residences (in both urban and rural environments), monumental funerary structures within churches, splendid garments, precious table wares and implements, and the insignia of rank in the form of jewellery such as gold brooches, fibulae, or belt buckles. The middle class is also traceable in the cities (mostly in the form of craftsmen) and in the countryside, where small landowners and peasants could share similar lifestyles, marked in some regions (such as the Near East and Asia Minor) by conspicuous levels of wealth. However, the lives of these middle classes could change abruptly, casting them into poverty and consequently making them difficult to trace archaeologically. Nonetheless, judicious interpretation of the material remains in tandem with the evidence of documentary and epigraphic sources allows us to make some suggestions as to the social structures of Late Antiquity.

Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ophir Münz-Manor
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Biblical Poetry ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Cultural Dialogue ◽  
The One

The article presents a contemporary view of the study of piyyut, demonstrating that Jewish poetry of late antiquity (in Hebrew and Aramaic) was closely related to Christian liturgical poetry (both Syriac and Greek) and Samaritan liturgy. These relations were expressed primarily by common poetic and prosodic characteristics, derived on the one hand from ancient Semitic poetry (mainly biblical poetry), and on the other from innovations of the period. The significant connections of content between the different genres of poetry reveal the importance of comparative study. Thus the poetry composed in late antiquity provides additional evidence for the lively cultural dialogue that took place at that time.

scholarly journals Fluid Boundaries: Christian Sacred Space and Islamic Relics in an Early Ḥadīth

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Adam C. Bursi
Keyword(s):  
Sacred Space ◽  
Near East ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Ritual Practices

Abstract This article examines a ḥadīth text that illustrates the complicated interactions between Christian and Islamic sacred spaces in the early period of Islamic rule in the Near East. In this narrative, the Prophet Muḥammad gives a group of Arabs instructions for how to convert a church into a mosque, telling them to use his ablution water for cleansing and repurposing the Christian space for Muslim worship. Contextualizing this narrative in terms of early Muslim-Christian relations, as well as late antique Christian religious texts and practices, my analysis compares this story with Christian traditions regarding the collection and usage of contact relics from holy persons and places. I argue that this story offers an example of early Islamic texts’ engagement with, and adaptation of, Christian literary themes and ritual practices in order to validate early Islamic religious claims.

scholarly journals Contributo a problemi e aspetti formali dell'arte tardoantica

1970 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 131-162
Author(s):  
Eugenio Russo
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The West ◽  
Objective Understanding ◽  
The Subject

Contribution dealing with problems and formal aspects of Late Antique art: 1)The problems. Chronological limits of Late Antique art (the end of the 4th century). The disappearance of figurative artworks in the East. The different methods of production depending on the subjects (sarcophagus of the Musei Capitolini, sarcophagus of the Museo Pio Clementino). The contribution of J. Strzygowski (tomb of the Three Brothers at Palmyra). Studies dealing with the art of Rome: a dualistic (patrician-plebeian) or pluralistic vision of the subject. 2) The transformation of the objective understanding of shape. Introduction of the running drill (Sebasteion of Aphrodisias, Temple of Hadrian in the Campus Martius). Popular current in the West (stelai of the Museum of Worms, of the Museum of Hippo; reliefs of Ghirza, etc.) and in the East (stelai of the Museum of Bursa): their fundamental difference (schematism and abstraction). 3) Frontal pose and parataxis. 4) Popular currents in Asia Minor.

An archaeology of late antique pilgrim flasks

2004 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Past ◽  
Material Evidence

AbstractPilgrimage happens when a place becomes the focus of veneration because of its association with a person or event. Pilgrim cults from the past can sometimes be identified by grouping certain types of material evidence, although interpretation of a cult's historical meaning is only possible once the material has been fully assessed. This study considers what sorts of information can be drawn from the archaeological context of a group of clay ampullae; miniature flasks originating from Asia Minor in late antiquity.

The Beneficent Sky God: Cultural History in the Qur’an

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. McCants
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Prime Mover ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Arts And Sciences

This chapter considers the Qur'an's interpretation of the origins of civilization. When the Arabs conquered the Near East, they shared with their subjects (mainly Jews and Christians) the notion that civilization had arisen as a consequence of Adam's fall. But in contrast to the Hebrew Bible, the Qur'an portrays the rise of civilization positively and makes God its prime mover, much like the gods of ancient Near Eastern myths. There are at least two reasons for this difference. First, Muhammad draws on noncanonical biblical scripture and storytelling that link God, angels, and chosen human interlocutors to the development of beneficial arts and sciences. Second, Muhammad draws on some version of these texts (perhaps oral) to prove his argument that God is the source of all civilization, an argument influenced by late-antique thought on divine providence. He makes this argument to justify either proselytizing among or conquest of non-Muslims, who have forgotten the source of civilization and thus deserve to lose it.

Christianisation and Local Names in Asia Minor: Fall and Rise in Late Antiquity

2019 ◽  
pp. 258-276
Author(s):  
Sylvain Destephen
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
The Rich

This article analyses processes in detail based on the evidence now provided by the relevant volumes of Prosopographie chr�tienne du Bas-Empire, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and the rich cemetery at Korykos. It is argued that the onomastic patrimony of late antique Asia Minor underwent a twofold process of transformation and simplification but did not vanish. The complete hegemony that the Romans achieved in Asia Minor in the 1st century BC induced a Latinisation of the region that was only superficial. This development had two contrasting effects. Firstly, Hellenistic and Roman influences reduced ethnic and cultural diversity in Asia Minor to the point where indigenous languages were more or less extinct when Christianity arose. Secondly, Hellenisation and Romanisation allowed a general enrichment of the onomastic patrimony in Asia Minor. The study of names therefore provides a balanced response since Asia Minor possesses a rich, varied onomastic patrimony. It also relates to how the conversion of the Roman Empire in general, and of Asia Minor in particular, brought about an overall transformation of the names people bore, even though modifications occurred more rapidly within ecclesiastical and monastic milieus than among ordinary laymen.

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