An important aspect of religious practice is the interaction between the worldly and the divine, between the living and the dead. Thousands of years ago ritual objects, such as amulets, statues, or carved objects representing the gods, were tangible representations of the connection between the earthly and the sacred. Other objects carrying images of important myths and stories were useful in ceremonies marking major events, such as birth or death. They may also have acted as more permanent signs of the divine, in shrines or temples. In both cases, ritual objects represented the sacred in everyday life.
Iranian Plateau Ancient humans deposited symbolic objects with the dead to ease the journey to the world beyond and to provide necessities in the afterlife. Excavated graves in the Jiroft region of south-central Iran contain thousands of symbolic objects as well as utilitarian vessels. Most numerous are cylindrical vessels made of soft green stone (locally available steatite or chlorite) carved with elaborate designs that carried symbolic meaning. Also carved from the green stone and featuring similar designs are furniture inlays and rectangular slabs with handles.
While many of the designs show a repeating grid pattern or curls or scorpions, some represent gods in human form wearing bull horns on their heads as a sign of divinity. A common motif portrays a bird of prey grasping a snake in its talons; a leopard confronts the snake. Both the body of the bird and the snake have holes for holding multihued stones, making the overall pattern colorful and lively. The confrontation of the snake and the leopard represents the struggle between forces of nature. Neither wins; rather, they are always in equilibrium.
Vessels from Jiroft have come to light in the Persian Gulf and in Mesopotamia. Some historians argue that they were objects of trade, just like semiprecious lapis lazuli and carnelian were. However, the centrality of these
Jiroft Vase. Persians looked to the distant past for universal imagery. Bull icons appear on a chlorite vase from near Jiroft, where such items were crafted in about 2500 BCE.
Vessels to the home society’s funerary customs suggests that they were personal effects carried by traders and craftsmen who traveled to the large cities of the distant river valleys. There is no evidence that the objects were exchanged in trade.
China The Liangzhu people of ancient China crafted ritual objects from several varieties of jade that they mined in the Yangzi delta. The Liangzhu decorated many of these pieces with animal masks or bird designs. Especially important were circular jade objects called hi discs (found in tomb sites) and square cong tubes. The cong jades, used in divination practices, were round in their hollow interior. The rounded portion represented heaven and the square portion the earth; the jade tubes thus signified interaction between heaven and earth, the dead and the living. Both heaven and earth were penetrated by a central axis running through the jade’s shaft, which symbolized the sacred mountains dividing the land of the living from the place of the dead.
Jade was the most important precious substance in East Asia. Associated with qualities of goodness, purity, luck, and virtue, it was carved into ceremonial knives, blade handles, religious objects, and elaborate jewelry. Because jade is extremely hard, its intricate carving required much time and great skill. Smaller objects, such as blades and amulets, could also serve a ceremonial purpose. Jade objects used in burials might sit in the mouths and on the eyes of the deceased, or jade ornaments, jewelry, and ritual objects might accompany them. Men and women had different ornaments, including necklaces and headdresses, swords and seals.
Egypt In ancient Egypt, precious stones and metals shaped into jewelry and ritual objects were important, especially in burying the dead. Archaeologists often find amulets and funerary jewelry placed in specific positions on the bodies of mummies. The system of preparing a body for mummification was so specialized that it required special jewelry distinct from what ordinary people wore during their lives. Scholars think that funerary amulets served to protect mummies from suffering in the afterlife. The Egyptian Book of the Dead contains
Egyptian Funeral Amulet. This winged scarab is a symbol of rebirth and would have been placed in the wrapping of the mummy along with other amulets to assure the successful passage of the deceased into the afterlife.
The Egyptians understood the dung-beetle that pushes a ball of dung as Khepri, the divine protector of the daily solar cycle.
Drawings, paintings, and spells explaining how to use certain amulets.
Nearly every mummy that archaeologists have discovered has had one such amulet, made of stone, glass, or wood in the shape of a pillar with cross bars at its top, perhaps mimicking the form of a tree (see Carol Andrews, Egyptian Mummies). Other types of amulets resemble parts of the body, particularly an arm or a foot, indicating that the person had suffered in that body part or that a limb was missing, and the amulet could serve as its substitute. In either case, embalmers apparently desired to make the deceased person as whole as possible for the journey into the afterlife. Amulets of this sort often complemented the features of the person whom they accompanied.
Whether they expressed religious or social status in this world or fended off evil spirits in the next, ritual objects were key in the practice of religion. Amulets and ritual jewelry personalized the divine, representing a connection to heaven that could belong to an individual. In this way, ritual objects stressed the interconnectedness of worldly and spiritual life.
Stonehenge. This spectacular site, located in the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire in southwestern England, is one of several such megalithic structures found in the region. Constructed by many generations of builders, the arrangement of the large stone uprights enabled people to determine precise times in the year through the position of the sun. Events such as the spring and autumn equinoxes were connected with agricultural and religious activities.
Material culture based on agriculture, the herding of cattle for meat and milk, the use of the plough, and the use of wheeled vehicles and metal tools and weapons, mainly of copper. The most characteristic objects associated with this shared culture are the Corded Ware pots—so-called from the cords used to impress lines on their surfaces (see Map 2-7). The fact that this new economy was found from Ukraine in the east to the Low Countries in the west is evidence of the much improved communications that linked and united previous disparate and widely separated regions.
Increasing communication, exchange, and mobility among the European communities led to increasing wealth but also sparked organized warfare over frontier lands and valuable resources. In an ironic twist, the integration of local communities led to greater friction and produced regional social stratification. The first sign of an emerging warrior culture was the appearance of drinking cups. (See Primary Source: The Male Warrior Burials of Varna and Nett Down.) The violent men who now protected their communities received ceremonial burials complete with their own drinking cups and weapons. Archaeologists have found these warrior burials in a swath of European lands extending from present-day France and Switzerland to present-day central Russia. Because the agricultural communities now were producing surpluses that they could store, residents had to defend their land and resources from encroaching neighbors.
World History
