Account of the Fables and Rites of the Incas

Only a few decades after the Spanish conquest of Peru, the third Bishop of Cuzco, Sebastian de Lartaun, called for a report on the religious practices of the Incas. The report was prepared by Cristobal de Molina, a priest of the Hospital for the Natives ...

What is la hispanidad?

a conversation

Natives of the Iberian Peninsula and the twenty countries of Latin America, as well as their kinsfolk who've immigrated to the United States and around the world, share a common quality or identity characterized as la hispanidad. Or do they? In this lively, provocative ...

Theater of the people

spectators and society in Ancient Athens

Greek drama has been subject to ongoing textual and historical interpretation, but surprisingly little scholarship has examined the people who composed the theatre audiences in Athens. Typically, scholars have presupposed an audience of Athenian male citizens viewing dramas created exclusively for themselvesoa model that reduces ...

Witches, whores and sorcerers

the concept of evil in Early Iran

Early Iranians believed evil had to have a source outside of God, which led to the concept of an entity as powerful and utterly evil as God is potent and good. These two forces, good and evil, which have always vied for superiority, needed helpers ...

Tell me the story of how I conquered you

elsewheres and athnosuicide in the Colonial Mesoamerican Wolrd

Folio 46R from Codex Telleriano-Remensis was created in the sixteenth century under the supervision of Spanish missionaries in central Mexico. As an artifact of seismic cultural and political shifts, the manuscript painting is a singular document of indigenous response to Spanish conquest. Examining the ways ...

Murder was not a crime

homicide and power in the Roman Republic

Embarking on a unique study of Roman criminal law, Judy Gaughan has developed a novel understanding of the nature of social and political power dynamics in republican government. Revealing the significant relationship between political power and attitudes toward homicide in the Roman republic, Murder Was ...

Spanish Texas

1519-1821

Modern Texas, like Mexico, traces its beginning to sixteenth-century encounters between Europeans and Indians who contested control over a vast land. Unlike Mexico, however, Texas eventually received the stamp of Anglo-American culture, so that Spanish contributions to present-day Texas tend to be obscured or even ...

Murder was not a crime

homicide and power in the roman republic

Embarking on a unique study of Roman criminal law, Judy Gaughan has developed a novel understanding of the nature of social and political power dynamics in republican government. Revealing the significant relationship between political power and attitudes toward homicide in the Roman republic, Murder Was ...

Where heaven and earth meet

Jerusalem´s sacred esplanade

One of the most extraordinary spaces on earth, Jerusalem's Esplanade has been regarded as sacred for about three millennia. For Judaism, it is the holiest space, where the Solomonic and Herodian Temples once stood and where, in the messianic age, the Temple is to ...

In the palace of Nezahualcoyotl

painting manuscripts, writing the pre-hispanic past in aerly colonial period

Around 1542, descendants of the Aztec rulers of Mexico created accounts of the pre-Hispanic history of the city of Tetzcoco, Mexico, one of the imperial capitals of the Aztec Empire. Painted in iconic script ('picture writing'), 'The Codex Xolotl', 'The Quinatzin Map', and 'The Tlohtzin ...

Architecture of Monoan Crete

constructing identity the Aegean Bronze Age

Ever since Sir Arthur Evans first excavated at the site of the Palace at Knossos in the early twentieth century, scholars and visitors have been drawn to the architecture of Bronze Age Crete. Much of the attraction comes from the geographical and historical uniqueness of ...

Mystic cults in Magna Graecia

Eds. Giovanni Casadio, Patricia A. Johnston. In Vergil's Aeneid, the poet implies that those who have been initiated into mystery cults enjoy a blessed situation both in life and after death. This collection of essays brings new insight to the study of mystic cults ...

Princess, priestess, poet

the sumerian temple hymns of Enheduanna

Living in 2300 BCE, Sumerian high priestess Enheduanna became the first author of historical record by signing her name to a collection of hymns written for forty-two temples throughout the southern half of ancient Mesopotamia, the civilization now known as Sumer. Each of her hymns ...

The spectacular city, Mexico, and colonial hispanic literary culture

The Spectacular City, Mexico, and Colonial Hispanic Literary Culture tracks the three spectacular forces of New World literary cultureocities, festivals and wonderofrom the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, from the Old World to the New and from Mexico to Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. It treats ...

Kinship myth in Ancient Greece

In ancient Greece, interstate relations, such as in the formation of alliances, calls for assistance, exchanges of citizenshi, and territorial conquest, were often grounded in mythical kinship. In these cases, the common ancestor was most often a legendary figure from whom both communities claimed descent ...

Death and the classic Maya kings

Like their regal counterparts in societies around the globe, ancient Maya rulers departed this world with elaborate burial ceremonies and lavish grave goods, which often included ceramics, red pigments, earflares, stingray spines, jades, pearls, obsidian blades, and mosaics. Archaeological investigation of these burials, as well ...

North Africa

a history from antiquity to the present

North Africa has been a vital crossroads throughout history, serving as a connection between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Paradoxically, however, the region's historical significance has been chronically under- estimated. In a book that may lead scholars to re-imagine the concept of Western civilization, incorporating ...

Mystic cults in Magna Graecia

Edited by Giovanni Casadio and Patricia A. Johnston. In Vergil's Aeneid, the poet implies that those who have been initiated into mystery cults enjoy a blessed situation both in life and after death. This collection of essays brings new insight to the study of ...

Of summits and sacrifice

an ethnohistoric study of Inka religious practices

In perhaps as few as one hundred years, the Inka Empire became the largest state ever formed by a native people anywhere in the Americas, dominating the western coast of South America by the early sixteenth century. Because the Inkas had no system of writing ...

Lord eight wind of Suchixtlan and the heroes of Ancient Oaxaca

reading history in the codex Zouche-Nuttall

In the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican world, histories and collections of ritual knowledge were often presented in the form of painted and folded books now known as codices, and the knowledge itself was encoded into pictographs. Eight codices have survived from the Mixtec peoples of ancient Oaxaca ...