Household and Family Religion in Antiquity

The first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian antiquity.

• Advances our understanding of household and familial religion, as opposed to state-sponsored or civic temple cults
• Reconstructs domestic and family religious practices in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia
• Explores many household rituals, such as providing for ancestral spirits, and petitioning of a household's patron deities or of spirits associated with the house itself
• Examines lifecycle rituals – from pregnancy and birth to maturity, old age, death, and beyond
• Looks at religious practices relating to the household both within the home itself and other spaces, such as at extramural tombs and local sanctuaries

Keywords: traditional scholarship, national, religion, antiquity, study, rituals, temple, significant, contexts, beyond, statesponsored, daytoday, civic, dimensions, first, family religion, book, religious, contextual, perspectives, approach