Category موضوعي
Ritual and changes in belief
Worship, ritual and religious change, including Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions.
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Original photograph
Site
Karahantepe
An excavation area in the Taş Tepeler project in southeastern Anatolia, where a faced T-shaped pillar was announced in 2025.
The Karahantepe excavation on 22 August 2024. Ropes and work supports are modern. The T-shaped pillar in this frame is not the faced pillar announced in 2025, and the photograph is not a reconstruction of the Neolithic site
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Original photograph
City
Şanlıurfa
A modern city in southeastern Turkey, near Göbekli Tepe, whose museum displays Urfa Man.
A modern view of Şanlıurfa from Urfa Castle, 5 July 2006, including a mosque and minarets of the later city. It shows the contemporary city, not Göbekli Tepe or the Neolithic period
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Original photograph
Study
Jericho’s Plastered Skulls: Faces of the Dead and the Limits of Ancestor Interpretation
From bone and plaster to imaging and facial reconstruction: evidence for mortuary treatment and hypotheses about memory, kinship and worship.
Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction
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Original photograph
Entity
Plastered skulls
Human skulls with material added to model a face, sometimes with shell eyes; postmortem treatment distinct from modification during life.
Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction
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Original photograph
Site
Jericho / Tell es-Sultan
Archaeological mound near present-day Jericho in Palestine’s Jordan Valley, preserving early Neolithic settlement and Bronze Age layers.
Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction
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Original photograph
Study
Weighing the Heart in Egypt: Justice, Ritual and the Afterlife
Reading judgment before Osiris through Maat, the heart and the Book of the Dead: ethics, texts and ritual without assuming a single timeless scene.
Funerary papyrus fragment depicting judgment before Osiris, Egypt, ca. 230–150 BCE; Metropolitan Museum 66.99.142. The scale contains a small figure of Maat
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Original photograph
Ancient text
Egyptian Book of the Dead
Modern designation for funerary texts and images aiding the deceased in the next world; spells and their arrangement vary between manuscripts.
Funerary papyrus fragment depicting judgment before Osiris, Egypt, ca. 230–150 BCE; Metropolitan Museum 66.99.142. The scale contains a small figure of Maat
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Original photograph
Entity
Maat
Ancient Egyptian right order, truth and rectitude, also divinely personified; represented in heart-weighing by a feather or a goddess’s figure.
Funerary papyrus fragment depicting judgment before Osiris, Egypt, ca. 230–150 BCE; Metropolitan Museum 66.99.142. The scale contains a small figure of Maat
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Original photograph
Entity
Osiris
Egyptian deity associated with the dead and continued life, presiding over judgment in funerary papyri such as 66.99.142.
Funerary papyrus fragment depicting judgment before Osiris, Egypt, ca. 230–150 BCE; Metropolitan Museum 66.99.142. The scale contains a small figure of Maat
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Original photograph
Study
Inanna and Ishtar’s Descent: What Changes between the Narratives?
Seven gates, rescue, substitution and interrupted life: distinguishing the Sumerian and Akkadian narratives and the limits of comparison.
K.162, Akkadian copy of Ishtar’s Descent from Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh, seventh century BCE, British Museum. Not a tablet of the Sumerian Inanna composition
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Original photograph
Entity
Ninshubur
Inanna’s attendant in the Sumerian descent, following her instructions and seeking help during her absence.
K.162, Akkadian copy of Ishtar’s Descent from Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh, seventh century BCE, British Museum. Not a tablet of the Sumerian Inanna composition
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Original photograph
Entity
Ereshkigal
Ruler of the underworld in Mesopotamian traditions, exercising authority over death’s realm in the descent narratives.
K.162, Akkadian copy of Ishtar’s Descent from Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh, seventh century BCE, British Museum. Not a tablet of the Sumerian Inanna composition
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Original photograph
Study
Yahweh’s Temple at Elephantine: Worship beyond Jerusalem
What does the petition of 407 BCE reveal about Yaho’s temple, its priests and their links with Judah and Samaria?
Modern view of Elephantine Island and the Nile near Aswan; geographical context, not the remains of Yaho’s temple
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Original photograph
Artifact
Elephantine temple-rebuilding petition
Aramaic petition of 407 BCE from Jedaniah and fellow priests to Bagohi, requesting the rebuilding of Yaho’s destroyed temple.
Modern view of Elephantine Island and the Nile near Aswan; geographical context, not the remains of Yaho’s temple
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Original photograph
Site
Elephantine / Yeb
Island near Aswan at the Nile’s first cataract; Persian-period Aramaic papyri document a Jewish community and Yaho’s temple.
Modern view of Elephantine Island and the Nile near Aswan; geographical context, not the remains of Yaho’s temple
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Illustration
Study
From the Embodied God of Ancient Texts to Philosophical Transcendence
From Genesis and Exodus to Philo, Maimonides, Augustine, Aquinas, Avicenna and kalām: changing rules for reading body and emotion, with distinct doctrines of incorporeality, immutability and simplicity and diverse schools.
Three distinct axes, not one historical transition or a doctrine shared by every school
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Illustration
Person
Al-Ghazālī
Eleventh- and twelfth-century Muslim thinker distinguishing treatments of attributes by audience.
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
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Illustration
Entity
Bi-lā kayf
Affirming attribute language without specifying modality or creaturely likeness.
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
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Illustration
Entity
Kalām
Islamic traditions of doctrinal reasoning with diverse approaches to attributes and transcendence.
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
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Illustration
Person
Thomas Aquinas
Thirteenth-century theologian linking incorporeality, simplicity and immutability through philosophical premises.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
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Illustration
Person
Augustine
Fourth- and fifth-century Christian author describing his changing grasp of nonspatial divine presence.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
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Illustration
Person
Origen
Second- and third-century Christian exegete; the surviving First Principles argues for an incorporeal God.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
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Illustration
Person
Tertullian
Latin Christian author of the late second and early third centuries with a distinctive body–spirit vocabulary.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
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Illustration
Entity
Christian incarnation
The Word becoming flesh; distinct from every divine body or sensible manifestation.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
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Illustration
Entity
Negative theology
Speaking of God through negating limitations while resisting comprehension of essence.
Different methods may coexist; they cannot all be reduced to one metaphor or delegation
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Illustration
Entity
Divine anthropomorphism
Human bodily or emotional descriptions of God; not alone proof of corporeal essence.
Analyzing a phrase differs from reconstructing divine corporeality; words provide different kinds of evidence
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Illustration
Entity
Divine simplicity
Metaphysical noncomposition, not simply belief in one God.
Three distinct axes, not one historical transition or a doctrine shared by every school
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Illustration
Entity
Divine incorporeality
Denial of a material divine body; distinct from image prohibition and simplicity.
Three distinct axes, not one historical transition or a doctrine shared by every school
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Original photograph
Study
When Israel’s God Encountered Greek Philosophy
From Greek Torah and Philo to Christian reception, Arabic philosophy and Maimonides: changing language of perfection, creation and logos, with distinct schools and graded transmission evidence.
Gold coin of Ptolemy II, Alexandria, ca. 261–246 BCE; the illustrated obverse bears Arsinoe II’s head. Context for Hellenistic Egypt, not a portrait of Philo or proof of a Torah translation commission. [24]
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Illustration
Person
Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Philosopher in the Arabic Islamic tradition, distinguishing possible from necessary existence in itself.
Modern diagram of ontological dependence, not a temporal sequence or portrait. The argument does not make all Islamic schools agree
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Illustration
Entity
Neoplatonism
Modern label for later Platonic traditions associated with Plotinus, centuries after Philo.
Modern simplification of some Plotinian dependencies, not a spatial map or Christian Trinity. This third-century CE school postdates Philo
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Illustration
Person
Moses Maimonides
Medieval Jewish thinker; wrote the Guide in Judeo-Arabic and examined incorporeality and attributes.
Modern diagram of passages read in the Guide; neither a portrait of Maimonides nor a summary of the entire book
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Illustration
Entity
Divine immutability
Inquiry into divine change, distinguished from fidelity and impassibility.
Modern conceptual distinction; connecting the levels requires argument, and terminology alone does not deny love or providence
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Illustration
Entity
Allegorical exegesis
Reading narrative elements for further meanings; not inherently abolition of literal practice.
Modern diagram of Philo’s approach, not a rule for every Jewish reader. Migration of Abraham rejects neglecting laws because of symbolic interpretation. [11][12]
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Illustration
Person
Philo of Alexandria
Jewish exegete writing Greek in the early Roman period and using philosophical tools to read the law.
Modern explanatory chronology; succession does not establish direct borrowing between authors. Philo predates Plotinian Neoplatonism. [10][20][21][22][19]
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Illustration
Entity
Unmoved mover
Aristotelian principle explaining eternal motion without its own transition from potentiality to actuality.
Modern comparison of explanatory principles, not three names for the same god. Plato’s ordering does not establish creation from nothing; Aristotle’s mover is not automatically the biblical God. [6][7][13]
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Illustration
Person
Aristotle
Greek philosopher whose concepts of actuality, soul and motion were reinterpreted in later religious traditions.
Modern comparison of explanatory principles, not three names for the same god. Plato’s ordering does not establish creation from nothing; Aristotle’s mover is not automatically the biblical God. [6][7][13]
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Illustration
Entity
Demiurge
Maker or organizer of the world in the Timaeus; not automatically a creator from nothing.
Modern comparison of explanatory principles, not three names for the same god. Plato’s ordering does not establish creation from nothing; Aristotle’s mover is not automatically the biblical God. [6][7][13]
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Illustration
Person
Plato
Greek philosopher; the Timaeus’s maker differs from later religious conceptions of God.
Modern comparison of explanatory principles, not three names for the same god. Plato’s ordering does not establish creation from nothing; Aristotle’s mover is not automatically the biblical God. [6][7][13]
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Original photograph
Study
Allah in the Quran
Traces Allah before the Quran, then examines divinity, al-Raḥmān, angels, intercession and prophets in its discourse, separating linguistic kinship from doctrinal identity.
Quran manuscript folio, Met 1979.201, late eighth–early ninth century, Central Islamic Lands; ink, colours and gold on parchment. Later codex transmission, not a seventh-century copy or an image of the verses cited here. [28]
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