Life, Science and Fiction

Religion on the Ground An Interdisciplinary Conference sponsored by the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions Erfurt, Germany, August 22-23, 2015 A pre-congress event in advance of the 2015 meeting of the IAHR A major development in the study of ancient religion over the past few decades has been the growing emphasis on the social, material, and experiential realities of non-elites. This development has affected both the sorts of questions scholars are asking, and the sorts of data on which they draw to formulate their answers. Rather than focusing on the philosophical or theological concerns of elite texts, scholars have sought to bring a wider body of evidence to bear on understanding and interpreting the lived experience of religion. The Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions seeks papers for a conference to be held in Erfurt, Germany, August 22-23rd 2015, on the topic, “Religion on the Ground.” In keeping with the society’s broad interests i...

The oldest poem in the world, "The Love Song of Shu-Sin", was written c.2000 BCE and comes form ancient Sumer. It is actually a part of a sacred rite, performed each year and known as the "sacred marriage", in which the king would symbolically marry the goddess Inanna, mate with her, and ensure fertility and prosperity for the coming year. Samuel Noah Kramer (famous Sumerologist) came across it while translating ancient texts. He writes: "Once a year, according to Sumerian belief, it was the sacred duty of the ruler to marry a priestess and votary of Inanna, the goddess of love and procreation, in order to ensure fertility to the soil and fecundity to the womb. The time-honored ceremony was celebrated on New Year's day and was preceeded by feasts and banquets accompanied by music, song, and dance. The poem inscribed on the little clay tablet was in all probability recited by the chosen bride of King Shu-Sin in the course of one of these Ne...