Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources

By Julia Asher-Greve and Joan Goodnick Westenholz

Goddesses in Context examines from different perspectives some ofthe most challenging themes in Mesopotamian religion such as genderswitch of deities and changes of the status, roles and functions ofgoddesses. Julia M. Asher-Greve and Goodnick Westenholz incorporaterecent scholarship from various disciplines into their analysis oftextual and visual sources, representations in diverse media, theological strategies, typologies, and the place of image in religionand cult over a span of three millennia.
Different types ofsyncretism (fusion, fission, mutation) resulted in transformation andhomogenization of goddesses' roles and functions. The processes ofsyncretism (a useful heuristic tool for studying the evolution ofreligions and the attendant political and social changes) and genderswitch were facilitated by the fluidity of personality due to multipleor similar divine roles and functions.
Few goddesses kepttheir identity throughout the millennia. Individuality is rare in theiconography of goddesses while visual emphasis is on repetition ofgeneric divine figures (hieros typos) in order to retainrecognizability of divinity, where femininity is of secondarysignificance.
This richly illustrated book demonstrates thatgoddesses were never marginalized or extrinsic and that their continuouspresence in texts, cult images, rituals, and worship throughoutMesopotamian history is testimony to their powerful numinous impact.
This richly illustrated book is the first in-depth analysis ofgoddesses and the changes they underwent from the earliest visual andtextual evidence around 3000 BCE to the end of ancient Mesopotamiancivilization in the Seleucid period. Goddesses in Context is acompelling contribution to Mesopotamian religion and history as well asto history, art history, history of religion and gender studies.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3727817380
• ISBN13: 9783727817380
• Release Date: December 2013
• Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
• Length: 460 Pages