A Cultural History of Bathing in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium

A Cultural History of Bathing in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium PDF Author: Michal Zytka
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351134094
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
This book discusses social, religious and medical attitudes towards bathing in Late Antiquity. It examines the place of bathing in late Roman and early Byzantine society as seen in the literary, historical, and documentary sources from the late antique period. The author argues that bathing became one of the most important elements in defining what it meant to be a Roman; indeed, the social and cultural value of bathing in the context of late Roman society more than justified the efforts and expense put into preserving bathing establishments and the associated culture. The book contributes a unique perspective to understanding the changes and transformations undergone by the bathing culture of the day, and illustrates the important role played by this culture in contributing to the transitional character of the late antique period. In his examination of the attitudes of medical professionals and laymen alike, and the focus on its recuperative utility, Zytka provides an innovative and detailed approach to bathing.

A Cultural History of Bathing in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium

A Cultural History of Bathing in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium PDF Author: Michal Zytka
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351134094
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Get Book

Book Description
This book discusses social, religious and medical attitudes towards bathing in Late Antiquity. It examines the place of bathing in late Roman and early Byzantine society as seen in the literary, historical, and documentary sources from the late antique period. The author argues that bathing became one of the most important elements in defining what it meant to be a Roman; indeed, the social and cultural value of bathing in the context of late Roman society more than justified the efforts and expense put into preserving bathing establishments and the associated culture. The book contributes a unique perspective to understanding the changes and transformations undergone by the bathing culture of the day, and illustrates the important role played by this culture in contributing to the transitional character of the late antique period. In his examination of the attitudes of medical professionals and laymen alike, and the focus on its recuperative utility, Zytka provides an innovative and detailed approach to bathing.

A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse

A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse PDF Author: Yaron Z. Eliav
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691243441
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
A provocative account of Jewish encounters with the public baths of ancient Rome Public bathhouses embodied the Roman way of life, from food and fashion to sculpture and sports. The most popular institution of the ancient Mediterranean world, the baths drew people of all backgrounds. They were places suffused with nudity, sex, and magic. A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse reveals how Jews navigated this space with ease and confidence, engaging with Roman bath culture rather than avoiding it. In this landmark interdisciplinary work of cultural history, Yaron Eliav uses the Roman bathhouse as a social laboratory to reexamine how Jews interacted with Graeco-Roman culture. He reconstructs their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about the baths and the activities that took place there, documenting their pleasures as well as their anxieties and concerns. Archaeologists have excavated hundreds of bathhouse facilities across the Mediterranean. Graeco-Roman writers mention the bathhouse frequently, and rabbinic literature contains hundreds of references to the baths. Eliav draws on the archaeological and literary record to offer fresh perspectives on the Jews of antiquity, developing a new model for the ways smaller and often weaker groups interact with large, dominant cultures. A compelling and richly evocative work of scholarship, A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse challenges us to rethink the relationship between Judaism and Graeco-Roman society, shedding new light on how cross-cultural engagement shaped Western civilization.

Innovation in Byzantine Medicine

Innovation in Byzantine Medicine PDF Author: Petros Bouras-Vallianatos
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019259107X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Byzantine medicine remains a little known and misrepresented field not only in the context of debates on medieval medicine, but also among Byzantinists themselves. It is often viewed as 'stagnant' and mainly preserving ancient ideas, and our knowledge of it continues to be based to a great extent on the comments of earlier authorities, which are often repeated uncritically. This volume presents the first comprehensive examination of the medical corpus of, arguably, the most important Late Byzantine physician: John Zacharias Aktouarios (c.1275-c.1330). Its main thesis is that John's medical works show an astonishing degree of openness to knowledge from outside Byzantium combined with a significant degree of originality, in particular, in the fields of uroscopy and human physiology. The analysis of John's edited (On Urines and On Psychic Pneuma) and unedited (Medical Epitome) treatises is supported for the first time by the consultation of a large number of manuscripts, and is also informed by evidence from a wide range of medical sources, including those previously unpublished, and texts from other genres, such as epistolography and merchants' accounts. The contextualization of John's corpus sheds new light on the development of Byzantine medical thought and practice, and enhances our understanding of the Late Byzantine social and intellectual landscape. Through examination of his medical observations in the light of examples from the medieval Latin and Islamic worlds, his theories are also placed within the wider Mediterranean milieu, highlighting the cultural exchange between Byzantium and its neighbours.

Making Spaces through Infrastructure

Making Spaces through Infrastructure PDF Author: Marian Burchardt
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111191850
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Infrastructures are fundamental means through which societies create spaces, but little is known about the precise ways in which this occurs. How have infrastructures animated certain understandings of space? How do infrastructures stabilize, or undermine, the spatial formats in which we live, which shape our everyday practices and which regulate access to services and resources? And, conversely, how do spaces frame the ways infrastructural provision is organized? How do existing spaces shape infrastructural development and the scope and forms of access to vital services such as transport and water? In this volume, historians and sociologists draw on a range of fascinating case studies and provide compelling answers to these questions. Exploring, among others, the provision of irrigation water in nineteenth-century Los Angeles, the invention of airport transit zones, and the infrastructural practices of homeless people in Berlin, the book demonstrates how the making of spaces through infrastructure is deeply political. Intent on revealing uneven geographies of provision and hierarchies of access, the contributors highlight how infrastructures are products of global entanglements.

Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity

Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity PDF Author: Fikret K. Yegül
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN:
Category : Ancient Greek society
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
This text reviews and analyzes the structure, function and design of baths, seeking to integrate their architecture with the wider social and cultural custom of bathing, and examining in particular the changes this custom underwent in Late Antiquity and in Byzantine and Islamic cultures.

Pseudo-Manetho, Apotelesmatica

Pseudo-Manetho, Apotelesmatica PDF Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019269474X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1160

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Book Description
The corpus of astrological material ascribed to the Egyptian priest Manetho consists of six books of poetry. This book serves as the companion to the one published by OUP in 2020, which was the first commentary in any language on the earliest three books of Manetho's poetry (two, three, and six as they appear in the manuscript). This volume supplies the remainder (books four, one, and five). Manetho was credited with a series of didactic poems which list outcomes for planetary set-ups in a birth chart. The books covered in this volume are not as easily dated as those in the first volume, but the most recent is probably no later than the fourth century and they are still Egyptian. As in the first volume, their descriptions of the kinds of person who are born under happy and unhappy configurations of stars speak to the lived realities, aspirations, and fears of the astrologer's clientele. Unlike in the first volume, however, the individual books treated here have different authors, and there is more emphasis on profiling individual poets in terms of style, metre, and mannerisms. As in the first volume, there is a Greek text with English translation and an apparatus with parallel material to enable comparison with related works. But this volume pays more attention to the transmission of traditional material from one author to another, and to the special approach required of an editor of material which, being in practical use, circulated in unstable and minutely-varying textual forms.

Public Baths and Bathing Habits in Late Antiquity

Public Baths and Bathing Habits in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Sadi Maréchal
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900441942X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book examines the survival, transformation and eventual decline of Roman public baths and bathing habits in Italy, North Africa and Palestine during Late Antiquity.

New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 3

New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 3 PDF Author: Tony Burke
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467466840
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 751

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Book Description
An expansive compilation of New Testament apocrypha in English translation, featuring fascinating but heretofore unpublished texts. New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 3, continues to unearth the vast diversity of Christian Scripture outside of the traditional canon. This new collection encompasses a broad range of languages—Greek, Church Slavic, Old English, Coptic, and more—and spans centuries, from the formation of the canonical New Testament to the high Middle Ages. The selections here represent some of the least studied apocryphal texts, many of which have not previously received an English translation or a critical edition. Notable newly edited and translated selections include The Martyrdom of Zechariah, The Decapitation of John the Forerunner, The Birth of John, The Revelation about the Lord’s Prayer, and The Dialogue of Mary and Christ on the Departure of the Soul. Each text is accompanied by a robust introduction, bibliography, and notes. Scholars of apocrypha, Scripture, and hagiography from a breadth of disciplines will find this an indispensable reference for their research and teaching. Contributors: Carson Bay, Mark Glen Bilby, Rick Brannan, Christian H. Bull, Slavomir Čéplö, Alexander D’Alisera, J. Gregory Given, Nathan J. Hardy, Brandon W. Hawk, Stephen C. E. Hopkins, Alexander Kocar, Brent Landau, Jacob A. Lollar, Christine Luckritz Marquis, Ivan Miroshnikov, Tobias Nicklas, Samuel Osborn, Stephen Pelle, Bradley Rice, Julia A. Snyder, Janet E. Spittler, James Toma, Péter Tóth, Sarah Veale, J. Edward Walters, Charles D. Wright, Lorne R. Zelyck

Bathing in the Roman World

Bathing in the Roman World PDF Author: Fikret Yegül
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521840323
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In Bathing in the Roman World, Fikret Yegul examines the social and cultural aspects of one of the key Roman institutions. Guiding the reader through the customs, rituals, and activities associated with public bathing, Yegul traces the origins and development of baths and bathing customs and analyzes the sophisticated technology and architecture of bath complexes, which were among the most imposing of all Roman building types. He also examines the reception of bathing throughout the classical world and the transformation of bathing culture across three continents in Byzantine and Christian societies. The volume concludes with an epilogue on bathing and cleanliness in post-classical Europe, revealing the changes and continuities in culture that have made public bathing a viable phenomenon even in the modern era. Richly illustrated and written in an accessible manner, this book is geared to undergraduates for use in courses on Roman architecture, archaeology, civilization, and social and cultural history.

Economic Circularity in the Roman and Early Medieval Worlds

Economic Circularity in the Roman and Early Medieval Worlds PDF Author: Jonathan Wood
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789259975
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Economic circularity is the ability of a society to reduce waste by recycling, reusing, and repairing raw materials and finished products. This concept has gained momentum in academia, in part due to contemporary environmental concerns. Although the blurry conceptual boundaries of this term are open to a wide array of interpretations, the scholarly community generally perceives circular economy as a convenient umbrella definition that encompasses a vast array of regenerative and preservative processes. Despite the recent surge of interest, economic circularity has not been fully addressed as a macrophenomenon by historical and archaeological studies. The limitations of data and the relatively new formulation of targeted research questions mean that several processes and agents involved in ancient circular economies are still invisible to the eye of modern scholarship. Examples include forms of curation, maintenance, and repair, which must have had an influence on the economic systems of premodern societies but are rarely accounted for. Moreover, the people behind these processes, such as collectors and scavengers, are rarely investigated and poorly understood. Even better-studied mechanisms, like reuse and recycling, are not explored to their full potential within the broader picture of ancient urban economies. This volume stems from a conference held at Moesgaard Museum supported by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Centre for Urban Networks Evolutions (UrbNet) at Aarhus University. To enhance our understanding of circular economic processes, the contributions in this volume aim to expand the framework of the discussion by exploring circular economy over the longue durée and by integrating an interdisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, the volume wants to give prominence to classes of material, processes, agents, and methodologies generally overlooked or ignored in modern scholarship.