Official Religion List
A viewset for viewing and editing Official Religions.
GET /api/rt/official-religions/?format=api&page=3
{ "count": 441, "next": "https://seshat-db.com/api/rt/official-religions/?format=api&page=4", "previous": "https://seshat-db.com/api/rt/official-religions/?format=api&page=2", "results": [ { "id": 101, "polity": { "id": 655, "name": "ni_proto_yoruba", "long_name": "Proto-Yoruba", "start_year": 301, "end_year": 649 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 53, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Orisha Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"During the Archaic through the Late Formative periods, the proto-Yoruboid and proto-Yorùbá in different localities had accumulated elaborate mythologies, ritualized ceremonies, and epistemological frameworks that formed the templates for their worldviews. Each local pantheon was a hierarchy of deities, with overlapping relationships in which each deity ruled over one or more spheres of the human condition. However, several of those deities (òrìsà) that were conceptual in nature, rather than ancestral, had regional appeal because they addressed broad human conditions and derived from common origins and deep-time experiences. [...] Their origins had a deep history, and they spread with the waves of proto-Yorùbá expansions throughout the first millennium AD.\"§REF§(Ogundiran 2020: 128-129) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ADQMAKPW\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ADQMAKPW </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 102, "polity": { "id": 688, "name": "ug_nkore_k_1", "long_name": "Nkore", "start_year": 1450, "end_year": 1749 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 46, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Cwezi-Kubandwa Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"There is little doubt that immigrant Babito kings relied heavily on their supposed dynastic relationship to the Cwezi in their quest for ideological legitimacy. Kings made public pilgrimages and gave generous gifts to the shrines of Cwezi deities on behalf of their people. That Cwezi deities all had their own Nilotic mpako (pet) names, which were used by the initiated in their supplications, supports the argument that the incoming Nilotic Babito attempted to domesticate a pre-existing religious system (Beattie 1961a: 13).5 Yet this relationship between kings and Cwezi spirits was ever-evolving, shaped, it seems, by the complexities of alliance building and favour seeking. That the priestly elite maintained some autonomy and influence was best illustrated during royal succession struggles, when shrine heads sometimes accepted the risks involved in partisanship.\" §REF§(Doyle 2007: 563) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9EXDF5UP\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 9EXDF5UP </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 103, "polity": { "id": 663, "name": "ni_oyo_emp_1", "long_name": "Oyo", "start_year": 1300, "end_year": 1535 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 53, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Orisha Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Alafin of Oyo is the title given to the supreme political ruler of the Yoruba […] The Alafin of Oyo, like many African leaders is considered legendary and sacred, and there are many regulations and rituals that go with his position. The Alafin is a divide person who must live apart from ordinary people who in the past were not allowed to see his face or speak to him directly because he was a god.” […] “In many respects, the great body of customs and rituals of the Yoruba reflects their religious beliefs that are contained in a system called Ifa. This system of Ifa is a philosophical corpus related to the myths of origin, ethical ideas, and cosmological understandings […]NoAlafin of Oyo rules without adherence to the traditions of Ifa.” §REF§ (Asante 2009, 34, 35) Asante, Molefi Kete. 2009. ‘Alafin of Oyo’. In Encyclopedia of African Religion. Edited by Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama. Los Angeles: Sage Publishing. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/X83X28SN\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: X83X28SN </b></a>§REF§ “The political structure of the kings, called Alafin, in Yoruba historiography was large. The Yoruba describe their kings as alaseekejiorisa, meaning ‘the one with authority, second only to the orisa’ (spirits); the Alafin lived this dictum by wielding tremendous powers. There were, however, traditional provisions for checks and balances within Yoruba social structures; for example, the king ruled in consonance with a council of male and female chiefs.” §REF§ (Olajubu 2008, 276) Olajubu, Oyeronke. 2008. ‘A Social-Cultural Analysis of Celibacy among the Yoruba: Oyo Alafin’s Servants as a Case Study.’ In Celibacy and Religious Traditions. Edited by Carl Olson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QRP8VAFD\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: QRP8VAFD </b></a>§REF§ “The oral tradition relating the foundation of all the Yoruba kingdoms say that their rulers descended directly or indirectly from one great ancestor, Oduduwa, who once lived at Ile-Ife. They therefore regarded as ‘father’ (i.e. supreme head of the country) the person sitting on the throne of that great ancestor whose title later became Ooni. These traditions also emphasize that Oranyan, the founder of Oyo was the youngest son of Oduduwa. Expressed in constitutional terms, this meant that Oyo occupied a very humble place among the Yoruba family of States.” §REF§ (Akinjogbin 1966, 451) Akinjogbin, I.A. 1966. ‘The Oyo Empire in the 18th Century – A Reassessment’. Journal of Historical Society of Nigeria. Vol 3:3. Pp 449-460. Seshat URL:<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4AECVKW8\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 4AECVKW8 </b></a>§REF§“According to tradition, the first Alafin and founder of Oyo was Oranyan or Oranmiyan, youngest son (or, in some accounts, grandson) of Oduduwa, the legendary hero and father of all the Yoruba. The Alafin’s title describes him as Lord of the Palace (Afin), but his authority is that of King (Oba) of the Oyo, and he is also ‘Lord of the World and of Life’,‘Owner of the Land’; and ‘Companion of the gods.’”§REF§ (Smith 1965, 57) Smith, Robert. 1965. ‘The Alafin in Exile: A Study of the Igboho Period in Oyo History.’ The Journal of African History. Vol. 6:1. Pp 57-77. Seshat URL:<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/I967CWTZ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: I967CWTZ </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 104, "polity": { "id": 623, "name": "zi_toutswe", "long_name": "Toutswe", "start_year": 700, "end_year": 1250 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 59, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mwali Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The Karanga chief serves as both political and religious leader…. His power was believed to derive from the link between the land and his ancestral spirits…, thereby making the chief’s ancestors of vital importance to the entire population…When a chief died, power passed to his male heir. The chief then became an important ancestor who had joined the rank [sic] of spirits offering guardianship and aid to the people…. As is the case among the Karanga today, recognition and propitiation of ancestor spirits at Great Zimbabwe seem to have been a central part of the belief system…. Karanga oral tradition suggests that the Mwari cult began at Great Zimbabwe.” §REF§ (Steadman 2009, 264-266) Sharon R. Steadman, The Archaeology of Religion: Cultures and Their Beliefs in Worldwide Context (London: Routledge, 2009). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N4R4GHNJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: N4R4GHNJ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 105, "polity": { "id": 616, "name": "si_pre_sape", "long_name": "Pre-Sape Sierra Leone", "start_year": 600, "end_year": 1400 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "SSP", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 91, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "unknown", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "No information found in the literature. Indeed, what little literature we have been able to access provides little information on this period, not just with regards to religious matters. Some of the region's modern-day ethnic groups first arrived in the region or already inhabited it in the period under consideration, but it is unclear to us whether any aspect of their traditional beliefs and practices was also present at this time." }, { "id": 106, "polity": { "id": 680, "name": "se_futa_toro_imamate", "long_name": "Imamate of Futa Toro", "start_year": 1776, "end_year": 1860 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 4, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\" In the new regime the chief of state was to be chosen from the toorodbe group. He must be faithful in his practice of Islam and instructed in the law (shariia).\"§REF§(Robinson 1973: 294) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CMRM3RTG\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: CMRM3RTG </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 107, "polity": { "id": 689, "name": "rw_ndorwa_k", "long_name": "Ndorwa", "start_year": 1700, "end_year": 1800 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 46, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Cwezi-Kubandwa Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"There is little doubt that immigrant Babito kings relied heavily on their supposed dynastic relationship to the Cwezi in their quest for ideological legitimacy. Kings made public pilgrimages and gave generous gifts to the shrines of Cwezi deities on behalf of their people. That Cwezi deities all had their own Nilotic mpako (pet) names, which were used by the initiated in their supplications, supports the argument that the incoming Nilotic Babito attempted to domesticate a pre-existing religious system (Beattie 1961a: 13).5 Yet this relationship between kings and Cwezi spirits was ever-evolving, shaped, it seems, by the complexities of alliance building and favour seeking. That the priestly elite maintained some autonomy and influence was best illustrated during royal succession struggles, when shrine heads sometimes accepted the risks involved in partisanship.\" §REF§(Doyle 2007: 563) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9EXDF5UP\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 9EXDF5UP </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 108, "polity": { "id": 667, "name": "ni_igala_k", "long_name": "Igala", "start_year": 1600, "end_year": 1900 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 90, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Igala religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "The following quote refers to pre-colonial time. “The functions of the king in traditional Igala pre- colonial political system can be categorized into two dimensions (i) He was the head of the royal clan and (ii) the head of a centralized system of territorial administration. He was also linked with the royal ancestors whose cult was one of the central theme of the Igala traditional religion and on the other hand, he was the ultimate custodian of the natural land shrine called Erane which symbolized the moral and spiritual welfare of Igala as a member of the same political community.” §REF§ (Audu 2014: 397) Audu, Jacob, 2014. “Pre-colonial Political Administration in The North Central Nigeria: A Study Of The Igala Political Kingdom”, European Scientific Journal, 10(19), pp. 392-402. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P68G5G75\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: P68G5G75 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 109, "polity": { "id": 664, "name": "ni_proto_yoruboid", "long_name": "Proto-Yoruboid", "start_year": -300, "end_year": 300 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 53, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Orisha Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"During the Archaic through the Late Formative periods, the proto-Yoruboid and proto-Yorùbá in different localities had accumulated elaborate mythologies, ritualized ceremonies, and epistemological frameworks that formed the templates for their worldviews. Each local pantheon was a hierarchy of deities, with overlapping relationships in which each deity ruled over one or more spheres of the human condition. However, several of those deities (òrìsà) that were conceptual in nature, rather than ancestral, had regional appeal because they addressed broad human conditions and derived from common origins and deep-time experiences. [...] Their origins had a deep history, and they spread with the waves of proto-Yorùbá expansions throughout the first millennium AD.\" §REF§(Ogundiran 2020: 128-129) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ADQMAKPW\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ADQMAKPW </b></a>§REF§ \"However, the Creator God was a distant figure in the everyday religious lives of the proto-Yoruboid and other proto-Benue-Kwa groups. The focus of worship was on the territorial deities presiding over the hills, valleys, drainages, and other landscape features as well as on the ancestors—the deceased heads, priests, and priestesses of houses, families, villages, and communities. The ancestors were incorporated into the pantheon and called upon to intercede with the greater and more distant Creator God and the territorial deities during the daily devotions, seasonal festivals, and times of crisis.\" §REF§(Ogundiran 2020: 39) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ADQMAKPW\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ADQMAKPW </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 110, "polity": { "id": 685, "name": "ug_buganda_k_1", "long_name": "Buganda I", "start_year": 1408, "end_year": 1716 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 63, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Buganda Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"[A] singular Bugandan religion was common to all Baganda, with a variety of deities called lubaale to whom temples and priests were devoted. While lubaale were considered former clan members, they could be and were worshipped by all Baganda, since “it was the question of locality, not of kinship, that decided to which of the prophets an inquirer should go.” Indeed, according to Mair this is one of several “peculiarities” that “distinguish it from the religious ceremonies of Bantu Africa” along with the lack of any regular obligatory ceremonies.\"§REF§(Green 2010) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/248264BS\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 248264BS </b></a>§REF§ “A few miles just south west is Buddo where, since the middle of the eighteenth century, the rites of the king’s installation have been performed. Further to the west, near the end of a long swampy finger of the Lake, the shrine of the war-god Kibuuka at Mbaale, ‘the Rock’, was a major focus of patriotic sentiment.” […] “However, there is reason to think that the most ancient nucleus of the realm was further away from the Lake; in the lands lying almost encircled by the two branches of the upper Mayanja river, which have their sources close together just north of Kampala. This was Busiro, ‘the land of tombs.’ This modern county of that name extends southward to the Lake shore, including Buddo and the seat of British and later governments at Entebbe, but the name properly belongs only to the northern area, containing all the shrines in which the decorated jawbones of the early kings were preserved.” §REF§ (Wrigley 1996: 59; 79) Wrigley, Christopher. 1996. Kingship and State: The Buganda Dynasty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQX3NDP9\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: XQX3NDP9 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 111, "polity": { "id": 666, "name": "ni_sokoto_cal", "long_name": "Sokoto Caliphate", "start_year": 1804, "end_year": 1904 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 4, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Islam first appeared between the 11th and 14th centuries, while Christianity arrived in the 19th century. Initially, Islam attracted only the elite desirous of power and trade. The emergence of the Sokoto Caliphate in the 19th century spurred the spread of Islam from royalty to the common people.” §REF§Falola, Toyin, and Ann Genova. Historical Dictionary of Nigeria. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2009: xxxiii. <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SJAIVKDW\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: SJAIVKDW </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 112, "polity": { "id": 625, "name": "zi_torwa_rozvi", "long_name": "Torwa-Rozvi", "start_year": 1494, "end_year": 1850 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 59, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mwali Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The Karanga chief serves as both political and religious leader…. His power was believed to derive from the link between the land and his ancestral spirits…, thereby making the chief’s ancestors of vital importance to the entire population…When a chief died, power passed to his male heir. The chief then became an important ancestor who had joined the rank [sic] of spirits offering guardianship and aid to the people…. As is the case among the Karanga today, recognition and propitiation of ancestor spirits at Great Zimbabwe seem to have been a central part of the belief system…. Karanga oral tradition suggests that the Mwari cult began at Great Zimbabwe.” §REF§ (Steadman 2009, 264-266) Sharon R. Steadman, The Archaeology of Religion: Cultures and Their Beliefs in Worldwide Context (London: Routledge, 2009). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N4R4GHNJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: N4R4GHNJ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 113, "polity": { "id": 648, "name": "so_majeerteen_sultanate", "long_name": "Majeerteen Sultanate", "start_year": 1750, "end_year": 1926 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The Majerteen Sultan professed Sunni Islam and adherence to the Shafi’i branch of Sunni Islamic law. They sponsored madrasas, built mosques, encouraged prayer and pilgrimage, and undertook many of the other obligations of Muslim rulers.” §REF§ (Smith 2021, 43) Smith, Nicholas W.S. 2021. Colonial Chaos in the Southern Red Sea: A History of Violence from 1830 to the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/K6HVJ7X4\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: K6HVJ7X4 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 114, "polity": { "id": 37, "name": "kh_funan_1", "long_name": "Funan I", "start_year": 225, "end_year": 540 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 91, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "unknown", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "" }, { "id": 115, "polity": { "id": 38, "name": "kh_funan_2", "long_name": "Funan II", "start_year": 540, "end_year": 640 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 6, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Vaisnavist Hinduism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "The following quotes suggest political elites' practices of Hinduism in Funan during the fifth to the seventh century. “Vaişnava worship was practiced in Funan at the highest political level, as witnessed by contemporary inscriptions dated to the fifth to seventh century.20 These inscriptions confirm the role played by kings and their relatives in the foundation and inauguration of shrines dedicated to Visnu, which were \"the city's ornament,” and the making of images of Hari (Vişnu) \"out of devotion (bhaktyā), [which are something] that removes the suffering of devotees (bhakta).” Such references to Bhagavat (Vişnu) and Bhägavatädevotees in court epigraphy are ubiquitous and corroborate the close links between kingship, state power, and Vaişnava observance. [...] Within this well-established sectarian context, Vaişnava devotion appears to have enjoyed the preponderance of royal Funanese patronage.” §REF§ Manguin, P. Y. (2014). Early coastal states of Southeast Asia: Funan and Śrīvijaya. p.113. Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 111. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BKV4P3BA\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: BKV4P3BA </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 116, "polity": { "id": 43, "name": "kh_khmer_k", "long_name": "Khmer Kingdom", "start_year": 1432, "end_year": 1594 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 37, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Theraväda Buddhism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The chronicles describe the reign of Dhammaraja (1486-1504) as a Buddhist golden age. He committed many pious acts, including a three-year suspension of taxes, and the country was at peace. He knew the Tripitaka by heart, and around 1496CE he arranged the transfer of Buddha relics from Preah Thong’s stūpa at Angkor to a new home in the village of Khvav Brag Dhatu new Phnom Santuk, Kompong Thom. He subsequently spent three months there as a monk and made a number of large donations to the sangha, including a gift of twenty-one male and twenty-one female slaves to look after the stupa and its associated structures. […] The chronicles are clear that Ang Chan was a pious Theravadin.” §REF§ (Harris 2008: 32-33) Harris, Ian. Cambodian Buddhism: History and Practice. Hong Kong: University of Hawai'I Press, 2008. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5S9J7EKX\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5S9J7EKX </b></a> §REF§ “Here are the most salient traits of the Post-Classic: [...] Theravada Buddhism as the state religion, with Pali rather than Sanskrit as its language.” §REF§ (Coe 2003: 195) Coe, M. (2003). Angkor and the Khmer civilization. New York: Thames & Hudson. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/3EM83PR6\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 3EM83PR6 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 117, "polity": { "id": 39, "name": "kh_chenla", "long_name": "Chenla", "start_year": 550, "end_year": 825 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 5, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Saivist Hinduism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "The following quotes suggest the official status of Saivist Hinduism in Chenla. “but by the time that Bhavavarman II came to power around 639, the veneration of Siva had begun to eclipse both Buddhism and all other Brahmanical cults. [...] Actually, there is some evidence that devotion to Visnu and Harihara did continue, although the inscriptions of the next king, Jayavarman I (r. c. 655–681), point to an increased emphasis on the linga.” §REF§ Harris, I. (2008). Origins to the Fall of Angkor. p.8-10. In Cambodian Buddhism: History and Practice. Honolulu. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5S9J7EKX\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5S9J7EKX </b></a> §REF§ “Hinduism appears to have been the primary state religion; temples at Angkor Borei feature Hindu motifs and worship, and rulers presented themselves as devotees of Hindu deities. [...] the major state deities appear to have been Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, and Rama (Snellgrove 2004).” §REF§ Steadman, S. R. (2016). Chapter 14: From Hunter-Gatherer to Empire. p.234-235. Archaeology of religion: cultures and their beliefs in worldwide context. Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VIRUTCPJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: VIRUTCPJ </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 118, "polity": { "id": 45, "name": "th_rattanakosin", "long_name": "Rattanakosin", "start_year": 1782, "end_year": 1873 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 37, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Theraväda Buddhism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The new Bangkok monarchy was celebrated as defenders of Buddhism against the destructive (though Buddhist) Burmese.” §REF§ (Baker and Phongpaichit 2014: 31) Baker, C. J., Phongpaichit, P., Baker, C. (2014). A History of Thailand. Costa Rica: Cambridge University Press. Seshat ULR: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9NZXSU7Z\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 9NZXSU7Z </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 119, "polity": { "id": 40, "name": "kh_angkor_1", "long_name": "Early Angkor", "start_year": 802, "end_year": 1100 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 5, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Saivist Hinduism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "The following quotes suggest the close link between the god Siva and Angkor royal families. “Although it is no longer tenable to say that the cult of the devaraja was in some way a ritual process by which a king became a god, or a god-king, the evidence of ritual and ideological connections between almost all Cambodian kings and the god Siva is extensive, even if the devaraja cult as such may not have been as important as the authors of the Sdok Kak Thom inscription and many subsequent scholars would like us to believe. The cult, in other words, was a royal cult, rather than the definitive one.” §REF§ Chandler, D. (2018). KINGSHIP AND SOCIETY AT ANGKORA. p.51. A history of Cambodia (Fourth ed.). London. <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/AXUKZQ4M\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: AXUKZQ4M </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 120, "polity": { "id": 42, "name": "kh_angkor_3", "long_name": "Late Angkor", "start_year": 1220, "end_year": 1432 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 37, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Theraväda Buddhism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "The following quotes suggest that Theraväda Buddhism and Shaivism were both royally recognized and linked to the ideology of rule in late Angkor, though the importance of Shaivism declined gradually. “However, it was not until the late Angkor period that the Khmer kings began associating themselves and their reigns with Theravāda Buddhism. During this period there was a shift to Sinhalese forms of Theraväda Buddhism throughout the region, and inscriptions note that Buddhist monks from Burma, the Tai and Mon areas, and Cambodia went to Ceylon to study. In fact, there is a tradition that a son of Jayavarman VII was one of the monks who went to study Sinhalese Buddhism (Keyes 1977a). And Lao chronicles indicate that Theravāda Buddhism was first brought to Laos by a king who had acquired it while exiled to Angkor in the mid-fourteenth century (Reynolds and Clifford 1987). [...] Nevertheless, some form of Theraväda Buddhism has been royally recognized and linked to the ideology of rule since the late Angkor period [...] By the time the capital at Angkor fell in the fifteenth century, Theraväda Buddhism had overcome Cambodia's Brahmanist and Mahäyänist traditions.” §REF§ Marston, J. and E. Guthrie. (2004). Introduction. In Marston, J. and E. Guthrie (eds.) History, Buddhism, and new religious movements in Cambodia. p.8-10. p.15. University of Hawaii Press. <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/EAF7AKUC\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: EAF7AKUC </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 121, "polity": { "id": 42, "name": "kh_angkor_3", "long_name": "Late Angkor", "start_year": 1220, "end_year": 1432 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 92, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Shaivism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "The following quotes suggest that Theraväda Buddhism and Shaivism were both royally recognized and linked to the ideology of rule in late Angkor, though the importance of Shaivism declined gradually. “However, it was not until the late Angkor period that the Khmer kings began associating themselves and their reigns with Theravāda Buddhism. During this period there was a shift to Sinhalese forms of Theraväda Buddhism throughout the region, and inscriptions note that Buddhist monks from Burma, the Tai and Mon areas, and Cambodia went to Ceylon to study. In fact, there is a tradition that a son of Jayavarman VII was one of the monks who went to study Sinhalese Buddhism (Keyes 1977a). And Lao chronicles indicate that Theravāda Buddhism was first brought to Laos by a king who had acquired it while exiled to Angkor in the mid-fourteenth century (Reynolds and Clifford 1987). [...] Nevertheless, some form of Theraväda Buddhism has been royally recognized and linked to the ideology of rule since the late Angkor period [...] By the time the capital at Angkor fell in the fifteenth century, Theraväda Buddhism had overcome Cambodia's Brahmanist and Mahäyänist traditions.” §REF§ Marston, J. and E. Guthrie. (2004). Introduction. In Marston, J. and E. Guthrie (eds.) History, Buddhism, and new religious movements in Cambodia. p.8-10. p.15. University of Hawaii Press. <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/EAF7AKUC\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: EAF7AKUC </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 122, "polity": { "id": 44, "name": "th_ayutthaya", "long_name": "Ayutthaya", "start_year": 1593, "end_year": 1767 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 37, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Theraväda Buddhism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "““At first, the kings sought to restore and expand the royal patronage of Buddhism. From the early fifteenth century onwards, almost every king had undertaken construction of a major temple at the start of a reign, plus other religious benefactions. In the age of warfare, this activity diminished. From the Phitsanulok takeover in 1569 to Naresuan’s death in 1605, the chronicles record no major religious building, repair, or ceremony except perhaps a stupa or massive Buddha image made around 1600 to commemorate victory over Burma.” §REF§ (Baker and Phongpaichit 2019 : 465) Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit. 2009. A History of Thailand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/FVDASFPF\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: FVDASFPF </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 123, "polity": { "id": 372, "name": "ye_tahirid_dyn", "long_name": "Yemen - Tahirid Dynasty", "start_year": 1454, "end_year": 1517 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 4, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Restoration of the Great Mosque in the Hadramfcity of Tarim took place during the reign of Sultan Amir al-Malik al-Zafir.'^ The circumstances of this occured as follows. In 902/1496, Shaykh Abdallah b.'Abd al-Rahman BalhajjBa Fadl wrote to Sultan 'Amir telling him that the mosque was too small for the congregation. The sultan then sent money for its extension with Muhammad Ba Sakutah who organised the reconstruction and extension. In 917/ 1511 the Tahirids provided the funds for a hammam and the sultan granted a large waqf for the upkeep of the mosque.” ” §REF§ Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 199-200, Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/AFVGTE4Y\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: AFVGTE4Y </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 124, "polity": { "id": 540, "name": "ye_saba_k", "long_name": "Kingdom of Saba and Dhu Raydan", "start_year": -110, "end_year": 149 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 93, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "South Arabian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The inscriptions from South Arabia list an extensive number of deities and allude to numerous religious rites. The distribution of the names of the gods suggest that each kingdom had a pantheon made up of three to five deities, who were worshipped jointly during collective rituals, and it seems that the pantheon’s deities had complementary functions. For example, the deities that constituted Saba’s pantheon are typically presented in this order: ‘Athtar, Hawbas, Almaqah, dhat Himyam, and dhat Ba’dan. In all of the known South Arabian pantheons, the major deity is always a god: Almaqah at Saba, Amm at Qataban, Sayin in Hadramawt, and ‘Athtar at Ma’in and Himyar. […] “Saba’s culture was represented through a language, Saba’ic, a pantheon, a calendar, and a dating system, all specific to this kingdom.” […] “In each kingdom, every commune had its own temple consecrated to a regional characterization of the main god: in the kingdom of Saba, for example, the common temple was consecrated to Almaqah Thahwan, ‘master of Awam’; the commune of Sirwah, by contrast, venerated Almaqah under the name Almaqah, ‘master of the ibexes,’ and that of Tan’im under the name of Almaq, ‘master of Shawhat.’ These characterizations can be compared to the diverse forms of the Virgin Mary’s cult or to that of Jesus observed amongst Christians, Mary of the Seven Sorrows, Our Lady of Safe Keeping, or the Sacred Heart.” §REF§ (Robin 2015, 95-98) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. ‘Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.’ In Arabs and Empires before Islam. Edited by Greg Fisher. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/MJEBSKNT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: MJEBSKNT </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 125, "polity": { "id": 368, "name": "ye_rasulid_dyn", "long_name": "Rasulid Dynasty", "start_year": 1229, "end_year": 1453 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The Rasulids continued the Ayyubid policy of promoting the cause of Sunni Islam in the territories under their domination. As a result, the traditions of Sunni Islam became firmly established in their kingdom at a time when Shia Islam was being promoted in the mountainous interior of North Yemen by their rivals, the Zaydi Imams. Since the Rasulids were followers of Imam Shafi’i, the Shafi’ite brand of Sunni Islam became state religion.” §REF§ (Ali 1996, 90) Ali, Abdul. 1996. Islamic Dynasties of the Arab East: State and Civilization during the Later Medieval Times. New Delhi: MD Publications. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZDSVSSJ3\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZDSVSSJ3 </b></a> §REF§ “In these towns and others, the Rasulids constructed a large number of secular and religious monuments. As staunch Shafi’is, they favoured the construction of madrasas, which attracted many Sunni scholars from all over the Islamic world. These scholars, as well as other officials, were often offered posts in the Rasulid administration, such as Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi, who arrived in Yemen in 1394 and was appointed as chief judge (Qadi-al-qudat) by Sultan al-Ashraf Isma’il, who gave him his daughter in marriage.” §REF§ (Sadek 2006, 669) Sadek, Noha. 2006. ‘Rasulids.’ In Medieval Islamic Civilization. Edited by Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/FBHIJNQM\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: FBHIJNQM </b></a> §REF§ “Under their successors, the Turkish dynasty of the Rasulids of Aden (1229-1454), this support developed into a full fledged ‘oceanic polity’ to control the maritime expanse and conquer targeted ports between the Red Sea and the Indian peninsula in the late thirteenth century. Its oceanic policy had an empathically self-conscious religious dimension, involving as it did giving subsidies to Muslim clergy and bestowing robes of honor on Muslim merchants […] in return for having the names of its rulers recited in the Friday prayers at these ports.” §REF§ (Wink 2020, 219) Wink, Andre. 2020. The Making of the Indo-Islamic World: C. 700 – 1800 CE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/RARBJG5V\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: RARBJG5V </b></a> §REF§ NB Ma Huan made a trip to Aden under the control of the Rasulid Dynasty in 1432/33. “The country is rich, and the people numerous. The King of the country and the people of the country all profess the Muslim religion.” §REF§ (Ma [1432/33] 1970, 154) Ma, Huan. [1432/33] 1970. Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan: The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores (1433). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XMZIPNGF\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: XMZIPNGF </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 126, "polity": { "id": 359, "name": "ye_ziyad_dyn", "long_name": "Yemen Ziyadid Dynasty", "start_year": 822, "end_year": 1037 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "Note that the Abbasid caliphate was Sunni and thus they would have established another Sunni dynasty in Yemen to secure power over the Shia groups. “Previously, the land that became Ziyadid territory was controlled by the Abbasid Caliphate. In fact, the Abbasids themselves actually created the Ziyadid dynasty as a means of limiting the power of Shi’i Muslims in the region, only to eventually have the Ziyadids declare their independence.” §REF§ (Lasky 2020, 2) Lasky, Jack. 2020. ‘Ziyadid Dynasty.’ In Salem Press Encyclopedia. Online Library Reference. LookLex Encyclopaedia, 2020, i-cias.com/e.o/ziyadid‗d.htm. Accessed 30 Sept. 2020. §REF§" }, { "id": 127, "polity": { "id": 353, "name": "ye_himyar_1", "long_name": "Himyar I", "start_year": 270, "end_year": 340 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 93, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "South Arabian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Up until about the fourth century AD almost all the inhabitants of Arabia were polytheists.” §REF§(Hoyland 2001: 139) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/EVJ5HMM7\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: EVJ5HMM7 </b></a>§REF§ “In ancient times south Arabians would make over themselves and their immediate family to deities; since many such dedicants were of high status, this probably did not mean any sort of sacred slavery, but rather full allegiance to the cult community.” §REF§(Hoyland 2001: 163) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/EVJ5HMM7\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: EVJ5HMM7 </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 128, "polity": { "id": 539, "name": "ye_qatabanian_commonwealth", "long_name": "Qatabanian Commonwealth", "start_year": -450, "end_year": -111 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 93, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "South Arabian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“In Qataban, when the king ‘requested’ a regulation dealing with water supplies, the promulgation of it was made in the name of the god Anbay. The shared cult of ‘Amm of Labakh enabled cooperation between a group of Qatabanian landlords and their tenants in far-off Dathinah.” §REF§ (Hoyland 2001, 141) Hoyland, Robert G. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/W94UAFFP\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: W94UAFFP </b></a> §REF§ NB the following quote suggests that the rulers also had a religious function and title. “A rock inscription in the Qatabanic language from the third or second century B.C., commemorating the construction of a pathway between the Upper Lands of the region of al-Bayda […] and the plain of Lawdar (1000 m below). The author, a mukarrib of Qataban, bears an extremely long and complex list of titles, in which are listed the component parts of his kingdom, then the religious offices he held and duties carried out (and whose nature is not always well understood).” §REF§ (Robin 2015, 101) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. ‘Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.’ In Arabs and Empires before Islam. Edited by Greg Fisher. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/MJEBSKNT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: MJEBSKNT </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 129, "polity": { "id": 538, "name": "ye_sabaean_commonwealth", "long_name": "Sabaean Commonwealth", "start_year": -800, "end_year": -451 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 93, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "South Arabian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Up until about the fourth century AD almost all the inhabitants of Arabia were polytheists.” §REF§(Hoyland 2001: 139) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/EVJ5HMM7\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: EVJ5HMM7 </b></a>§REF§ “In ancient times south Arabians would make over themselves and their immediate family to deities; since many such dedicants were of high status, this probably did not mean any sort of sacred slavery, but rather full allegiance to the cult community.” §REF§(Hoyland 2001: 163) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/EVJ5HMM7\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: EVJ5HMM7 </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 130, "polity": { "id": 365, "name": "ye_warlords", "long_name": "Yemen - Era of Warlords", "start_year": 1038, "end_year": 1174 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 9, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Shia Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"The Sulayhids ruled in Yemen as adherents of Ismailism and as nominal vassals of the Fatimids.\"§REF§(Bosworth 2014) Clifford Edmund Bosworth. 2014. The New Islamic Dynasties. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh.§REF§" }, { "id": 131, "polity": { "id": 80, "name": "pe_wari_emp", "long_name": "Wari Empire", "start_year": 650, "end_year": 999 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 96, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Wari religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"I agree that Wari elites practiced Wari religion in Wari colonies, but wouldn’t say that other leaders did—they certainly didn’t at the local Cusco center of Ak’awillay (see Bélisle’s work). Also, there is something missing here between “high Wari religious ideology/iconography” seen in unprovenanced artifacts, versus the distribution of D-shaped temples and their trophy skull practices. The D-shaped buildings suggest a lower-class practice at heartland sites like Conchopata, and are present in some Wari colonies, but not in the planned orthogonal compounds, where ritual practices are less discernible based on the architecture and excavations. No D-shaped structures have been found near Cusco.\" (R. Alan Covey, pers. comm. to R. Ainsworth, June 2023)<br> “In sum, a ceremonial function for niched halls is indicated. These structures have a broad geographic distribution throughout the Wari domain, and their interpretation as ritual/ceremonial buildings is consistent with the pattern of distribution of Wari ceremonial art as noted by Menzel (1964). That there are a large number of these structures within both Viracochapampa and Pikillacta indicates the central position of religion within the Wari social structure. Further the fact that they are found within larger, presumably administrative complexes, rather than as stand-alone ceremonial centers, is reflective of the subordination of religion for state purposes. This seems to echo the Middle Horizon secularization trend noted by Menzel (1964) and Schaedel (1966).” §REF§ (McEwan 2005, 158) McEwan, Gordon F. 2005. 'Conclusion: The Functions of Pikillacta‘. In Pikillacta: The Wari Empire in Cuzco. Edited by Gordon F. McEwan. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/47H7R496\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 47H7R496 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 132, "polity": { "id": 83, "name": "pe_inca_emp", "long_name": "Inca Empire", "start_year": 1375, "end_year": 1532 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 97, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Inca religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Inca religion can be defined in two ways. First, it embraced the beliefs and ritual practices of the inhabitants of the Cuzco valley, composed of the “Incas-by-blood,” descendants of the mythical founding ancestor, Manco Capac, and the Incas by privilege, who were not direct descendants of noble Inca lineages. Second, it was the religious doctrine of the empire, which saw many adjustments as it merged and incorporated the beliefs of the scores of ethnic and linguistic groups under the imperial yoke. This doctrine was made manifest and spread through feasts and rituals that legitimated the rule of the Sapa Inca (the sole, unique Inca), and his representatives.” §REF§ (Urton & Von Hagen 2015, 312) Urton, Gary and Adriana Von Hagen. 2015. Encyclopedia of the Inca. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/42M5JCGR\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 42M5JCGR </b></a>§REF§ \"I agree with this, but would add that the cult of the Sun was a central part of Inca religion, too, which was established in some highland imperial centers across the central provinces. In Cusco, the local shrine system and reverence of ancestral mummies and icons was the dynastic religion, which was not exported outside the capital region.\" (R. Alan Covey, pers. comm. to R. Ainsworth, June 2023)" }, { "id": 133, "polity": { "id": 59, "name": "gr_crete_nl", "long_name": "Neolithic Crete", "start_year": -7000, "end_year": -3000 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 98, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Neolithic Cretan Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "" }, { "id": 134, "polity": { "id": 81, "name": "pe_cuzco_5", "long_name": "Cuzco - Late Intermediate I", "start_year": 1000, "end_year": 1250 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 99, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "pre-Inca religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Claims to leadership, though based on genealogy and ability, also gained legitimacy from religious sanction in the royal narratives. Most early kings were imbued with magical qualities granted by the Sun or Creator God. Their deeds exhibited precocious military valor or supernatural assistance, combined with visions of the future. Mayta Qhapaq’s life, for instance, was so filled with wondrous feats that the Spaniards used Hercules and Merlin as reference points for their European audiences. He was reputedly born with his teeth intact after only a three-month pregnancy, could walk at birth, and had reached the stature of an 8-year-old at just one year (Sarmiento 2007: 81–4). When an Inca ruler took the throne, he also assumed a new, sometimes supernaturally inspired, name. As noted above, Titu Kusi Wallpa received the name “He Who Cries Bloody Tears” (Yawar Waqaq) for weeping blood, an act that was famously repeated by the “Tired Stone” above Cuzco (chapter 7). We cannot fix when particular narratives became royal doctrine, but the invention of elite dogma was an ongoing process that most likely had some roots in the Killke era.” §REF§ (D’Altroy 2015, 87) D'Altroy Terence N. 2015. The Incas. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/AA5PS4Q4\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: AA5PS4Q4 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 135, "polity": { "id": 82, "name": "pe_cuzco_6", "long_name": "Cuzco - Late Intermediate II", "start_year": 1250, "end_year": 1400 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 97, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Inca religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"Probably the most important spread and networking of Inca religion in the later LIP (1200-1400 CE) involved royal marriage alliances with other groups, and early conquests, so that the Incas began to establish royal ancestor cults and some overarching religious practice that transcended the local landscape-based practices that they and other groups performed. It’s hard bridge between the chronicle legends and the limited archaeological data on ritual practices and religious architecture.\" (R. Alan Covey, pers. comm. to R. Ainsworth, June 2023) <br> “The chronicles describe how, as the Incas began to consolidate their control over the Cusco Basin and beyond, they transformed their religious system, embellishing the elite ancestor cult, organizing the worship of the sun as a state religion, and establishing relationships with important shrines throughout the Andean region. The development of a royal ancestor cult may have been linked to the organization of a royal estate system, but at least one author suggests that the creation of images (idolos) developed along with the custom of burying the dead with their possessions, which then became a system of split inheritance. During the period of state formation, the veneration of the sun was promoted as the official state cult. Several different Inca rulers are credited with the institution of the sun cult and construction of the Qorikancha (Golden Enclosure), the principal temple in Cusco, including Capac Yupanqui, the fifth Inca ruler. While the sources making this identification are not the most reliable chronicles for many kinds of information, it is interesting to note this agreement among multiple sources.” §REF§ (Covey 2006, 118) Covey, R. Alan. 2006. How the Incas Built Their Heartland: State Formation and the Innovation of Imperial Strategies in the Sacred Valley, Peru. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/R4EBPQ5U\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: R4EBPQ5U </b></a> §REF§ “Claims to leadership, though based on genealogy and ability, also gained legitimacy from religious sanction in the royal narratives. Most early kings were imbued with magical qualities granted by the Sun or Creator God. Their deeds exhibited precocious military valor or supernatural assistance, combined with visions of the future. Mayta Qhapaq’s life, for instance, was so filled with wondrous feats that the Spaniards used Hercules and Merlin as reference points for their European audiences. He was reputedly born with his teeth intact after only a three-month pregnancy, could walk at birth, and had reached the stature of an 8-year-old at just one year (Sarmiento 2007: 81–4). When an Inca ruler took the throne, he also assumed a new, sometimes supernaturally inspired, name. As noted above, Titu Kusi Wallpa received the name “He Who Cries Bloody Tears” (Yawar Waqaq) for weeping blood, an act that was famously repeated by the “Tired Stone” above Cuzco (chapter 7). We cannot fix when particular narratives became royal doctrine, but the invention of elite dogma was an ongoing process that most likely had some roots in the Killke era.” §REF§ (D’Altroy 2015, 87) D'Altroy Terence N. 2015. The Incas. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/AA5PS4Q4\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: AA5PS4Q4 </b></a> §REF§ “Several authors suggest that the first Inca territorial expansion from the Cuzco Valley, conducted during the reign of the fifth Inca, Capac Yupanqui, involved the military conquest of the Cuyo (Sarmiento de Gamboa 1906: 48 [1572: Ch. 18]; Cabello de Valboa 1951: 290 [1586: Book 3, Ch. 13]; Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua 1993: 209 [f. 14]). According to Cobo (1979:122 [1653: Bk. 12, Ch. 8]), Capac Yupanqui placed Tarco Huaman, a brother and political rival, as governor over the new province. This conquest is linked in the various sources to long-distance exchange (the Inca invaded after the Cuyo ruler refused to send exotic birds from the jungle lowlands to Cuzco) and to religion (the Inca visited the principal shrine of the Cuyo and asserted the superiority of the Inca solar cult over the local deity).” §REF§ (Bauer & Covey 2004, 83) Bauer, Brian S. and Covey, R. Alan. 2004. ‘The Development of the Inca State (AD 1000–1400)’. In Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca. Austin: University of Texas Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/X7FVZAUZ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: X7FVZAUZ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 136, "polity": { "id": 72, "name": "tr_east_roman_emp", "long_name": "East Roman Empire", "start_year": 395, "end_year": 631 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 20, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Roman Catholic Christianity", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“As is well known, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (311-37) began one of the most important transformations in the history of the Mediterranean basin by bringing Christianity under his protection. This, and the declaration of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 391 in the time of Theodosios, resulted in the spread of Christianity, backed as it was by political force. This transformation was speeded up by the establishment of the city of Constantinople and, immediately after the death of Theodosios in 395, resulted in the separation of the empire into two. Now Anatolia was officially a Christian region under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire.” §REF§ (Ocak 2010, 355) Ocak, Ahmet Yasar. 2010. ‘Social, Cultural and Intellectual Life 1071-1453’. In Cambridge History of Turkey Vol. 1: Byzantium to Turkey 1071-1453. Edited by Kate Fleet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/US5KKCXU\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: US5KKCXU </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 137, "polity": { "id": 175, "name": "tr_ottoman_emp_2", "long_name": "Ottoman Empire II", "start_year": 1517, "end_year": 1683 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Indeed, it is widely accepted among historians that during the first half of the sixteenth century the Ottoman state refashioned its identity as the defender of Sharia against ‘infidels’ and ‘heretics.’ Accordingly, enforcement of Sunni orthodoxy became an official policy. Most historians have further argued that the Ottoman regime created an official religion in the sixteenth century that is often called ‘Ottoman Sunnism.’ §REF§ (Yildirim 2019, 22) Yildirim, Riza. 2019. ‘The Rise of the ‘Religion and State’ Order: Re-Confesionalisation of State and Society in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire’. In Ottoman Sunnism: New Perspectives. Edited by Vefa Erginbas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VXFV877R\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: VXFV877R </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 138, "polity": { "id": 176, "name": "tr_ottoman_emp_3", "long_name": "Ottoman Empire III", "start_year": 1683, "end_year": 1839 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Ottoman madrasas no doubt propagated certain elements of Sunni and Hanafi Islam, with the support of some of the Sufi orders; however, many other orders spread antinomian or Alid ideas, therefore, a coherent vision of Islam as Ottoman subjects themselves experience is difficult to discern and resembles more a colourful diversity. Intermittent heresy trials in the sixteenth century, as well as the periodic state-sponsored efforts to suppress these groups from the sixteenth century onwards, clearly demonstrates this breach between ‘desired’ and ‘actual’ Sunnism.” §REF§ (Erginbas 2019, 2-3) Erginbas, Vefa. 2019 ‘Introduction’. In Ottoman Sunnism: New Perspectives. Edited by Vefa Erginbas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T62EZPE8\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: T62EZPE8 </b></a> §REF§ “Traditional scholarship maintained that the Ottomans’ closer alignment with Sunni orthodoxy was the result of the Ottoman conquest of the Arab Muslim territories of Syria and Egypt from the Malmuks in 922-923/1516-1517. In this view, the Ottoman’s move away from a ‘metadox’ to an ‘orthodox’ mindset in the early tenth/sixteenth century was understood as the outcome of the ‘core lands’ exerting their influence on the ‘periphery’ and exporting what was imagined as a ‘mature’ and ‘stable’ Sunni Islam […] Instead, in recent years scholars have focused more on the rise of the Safavid Empire as a catalyst for the process that led to the Sunni-Shi’i polarization in the post-Mongol Turco-Iranian world and the fashioning of a Sunni orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire [...]“The promotion of a particular Sunni school of law into a state school of law amounted to circumscribing the plurality of Islamic law in an unprecedented way, while the existence of state-affiliated, learned imperial hierarch created conditions conductive for a group of social actors to impose their opinion of what constitutes correct belief and practice of Islam.” §REF§ (Tijana 2021, 6-13) Tijana, Krstic. 2021. ‘Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire c. 1450-1750. In Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire c. 1450-1750. Edited by Krstic Tijana and Derin Terzioglu. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5HD5P4KE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5HD5P4KE </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 139, "polity": { "id": 173, "name": "tr_ottoman_emirate", "long_name": "Ottoman Emirate", "start_year": 1299, "end_year": 1402 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“During the period of their establishment, the Ottomans took over and continued this tolerant Sunni policy. As is well known, the first Ottoman rulers adopted a tolerant stance towards the Kalenderis, Hayders, Vefais, the Bektasis and other Sufi circles which did not fit well with Sunnism, granting them many vakifs and benefiting greatly from their support, particularly in the conquest of the Balkans. This tolerant policy of the early rulers continued until the beginnings of the Safavi Shi’i propaganda in Anatolia at the beginning of the sixteenth century.” §REF§ (Ocak 2010, 384) Ocak, Ahmet Yasar. 2010. ‘Social, Cultural and Intellectual Life 1071-1453’. In Cambridge History of Turkey Vol. 1: Byzantium to Turkey 1071-1453. Edited by Kate Fleet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/US5KKCXU\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: US5KKCXU </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 140, "polity": { "id": 165, "name": "tr_neo_hittite_k", "long_name": "Neo-Hittite Kingdoms", "start_year": -1180, "end_year": -900 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 113, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Hittite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“To us the [Early Neo-Hittite] period seems to be one of recovery from two mean and insignificant centuries, a time when the Late Hittite kings began again to build palaces, temples, and monumental gateways, and to adorn them with sculptured orthostats in a manner rememberd from the Hittite Empire. At the same time they revived a tradition of literacy stemming from the same period. Subjects depicted in the reliefs were part religious – processions of gods and their worshippers and mythological scenes, and part secular – scenes of warfare and hunting. The rulers presented themselves in a very stereotyped and distinctive fashion, implying artistic contacts and common customs. Commemorative stelae and statues in the round are found in some quantity, and the figures, whether human or divine, are often supported on podia flanked by paired lions.” §REF§ (Hawkins 1982, 381-387) Hawkins, J.D. 1982. ‘The Neo-Hittite States in Syria and Anatolia.’ In The Cambridge Ancient History: The Prehistory of the Balkans, Middle East, and the Aegean World. Vol. III. Edited by John Boardman et.al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WIKBRIF9\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: WIKBRIF9 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 141, "polity": { "id": 174, "name": "tr_ottoman_emp_1", "long_name": "Ottoman Empire I", "start_year": 1402, "end_year": 1517 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Between the mid-fifteenth and the late sixteenth centuries, we encounter even more dramatic changes. Now the Sultan unambiguously appeared as the champion of Sunni Islam, while the ulema came to form a highly centralised and bureaucratised organisation.” §REF§ (Veinstein 2013, 322) Veinstein, Gilles. 2013. ‘Religious Institutions, Policies and Lives’ In The Cambridge History of Turkey Vol. 2: The Ottoman Empire as a World Power, 1453-1603. Edited by Suraiya N. Faroqhi and Kate Fleet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NGWQMJZI\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: NGWQMJZI </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 142, "polity": { "id": 177, "name": "tr_ottoman_emp_4", "long_name": "Ottoman Empire IV", "start_year": 1839, "end_year": 1922 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Although it is understandable that the Sunni Ottoman caliphate should be wary of Qur’ans produced by Shi’i hands, the same interdict applied to Qur’ans emanating from Sunni Kazan, and even the seat of high Islam, the al-Azhar medrese in Egypt: ‘The importation of Qur’ans…coming from Egypt is likewise forbidden according to long established practice.’” §REF§ (Deringil 2011, 53) Deringil, Selim. 2011. The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876-1909. London: I.B. Tauris. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CC7SHACJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: CC7SHACJ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 143, "polity": { "id": 169, "name": "tr_lysimachus_k", "long_name": "Lysimachus Kingdom", "start_year": -323, "end_year": -281 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 126, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Hellenistic Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "Sources emphasise an attitude of religious tolerance/accommodation as a deliberate governing policy for Lysimachus, building on an approach already in place across the Macedonian Empire and the Persian Empire. However, detailed records or analysis of how this was implemented or received seem are limited in the sources consulted. “In the wake of Alexander the Great, Asia Minor underwent an unprecedented wave of urbanism as the Greek city, or polis, became the common denominator in a globalizing world. […] Several of these [pre-existing local cult] gods were adopted as protective deities that stood symbol for the rising city. In return, their sanctuaries were monumentalized and made the venues of great civic festivals – a symbiosis clearly took place between both entities as they merged into one. […] They were used to forge the identity of the developing polis, accommodating local communities while redirecting the new civic focus. Gods that were local or regional began to appear on civic coinage, received grand festivals and processions, and their once rustic shrines took on the shape of urban space. As the rising polis took its identity from these gods, so the gaze of the gods was shifted towards the new community, and their sanctuaries reorganized to meet its aspirations.” §REF§ (Williamson, 2021, 2) Williamson, C. G. (2021). Urban Rituals in Sacred Landscapes in Hellenistic Asia Minor. Brill. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/G337ZI6A\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: G337ZI6A </b></a> §REF§ “During the Hellenistic period, Hellenes began to equate the gods of foreign lands with their own native deities in a process often referred to by scholars as interpretatio or “translation”. A Hellene could, without any apparent theological dilemma, worship any foreign god that most closely resembled his own native deity. […] In the past these equations were seen as evidence of the impact of Hellenism in foreign lands. However, recent scholars have pointed out that these equations are found only in Greek sources, not Near Eastern ones, making them unlikely representations of Hellenization. Of course, this does not mean that they do not represent an effort to spread Hellenic culture, only that they do not represent the successful result of such an effort. Others have seen these translations as evidence for “syncretism” or “hybridity”, that is, the fusion of Aegean and Near Eastern religions. However, neither “syncretism” or “hybridity” offers a particularly useful model for understanding the process of interpretatio, and not just because of their tainted colonial histories. Neither model helps us to ascertain the processes that underlie these equations, and so neither is able to provide anything but a characterization of a phenomenon.” §REF§(Noegel, 2007,32 ) Noegel, S.B. 2007: Greek Religion and the Ancient Near East. In: D. Ogden (ed.): A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden MA, 21–37. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WGAEUJT7\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: WGAEUJT7 </b></a> §REF§ “Macedonian monarchs patronized Greek religious centers and in most of the hundreds of cities under their control received divine honors, with cults, priests, statues, and often elaborate festivals in their names. Through these cults the individual cities could express their gratitude for the favors large and small that these new kings, almost greater than human to their contemporaries, bestowed. These new cults did not displace, but apparently were added to or linked to existing cults and festivals.” §REF§(Mikalson 2007, 218) Jon Mikalson ‘Greece’ in Sarah Iles Johnston. (2007). Ancient Religions. Belknap Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HPNMW9FZ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: HPNMW9FZ </b></a> §REF§ “From the time of Alexander the Great, the gods of the once independent cities and states had lost political influence in foreign affairs. […] This loss of function of the cult of a traditional deity as a state cult demanded religious and liturgical reform—a frequent phenomenon in the early Hellenistic period.” §REF§ (Koester, 1995, 159-60) Helmut Koester. (1995). History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age. Second edition. De Gruyter. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/86TFTD7M\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 86TFTD7M </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 144, "polity": { "id": 168, "name": "tr_lydia_k", "long_name": "Kingdom of Lydia", "start_year": -670, "end_year": -546 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 127, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Phrygian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "Interpretations of Lydian religious activity in this period are often based on later Greek written accounts, notably Herodotus’ 5thC BC Histories. Most sources acknowledge the issues this raises around bias and accuracy, but that in combination with the archaeological record a fusion of Phrygian and Greek traditions can be assumed, and that the Phrygian ‘Mata/Mother’ goddess continued to have a central role in Lydian controlled territories. “Just as Lydian rulership, which brought the word “tyranny” into the Greek language, was accepted by its subjects as the perfect embodiment of worldly power, so too was the deity who symbolized the divine legitimation of Lydian sovereignty, the goddess who was both divine mother and consort of the Lydian ruler. To the Lydians, she was Kybebe, to the Phrygians Matar Kubeleya, or Kybele (and hence later Cybele to the Romans); to the Greeks she was most commonly known as the Mother of the Gods” §REF§(Munn, 2006, 4) Munn, Mark H. (2006). The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia : A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion. University of California Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/GFD6B87B\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: GFD6B87B </b></a> §REF§ “The representation of the goddess on or near city walls indicates an official cult, for it is unlikely that such monuments would have been made without the consent of the governing authority of the city. Similarly, the construction of the large rock facades of Midas City [7-6th C BC] and monuments of the Phrygian highlands such as Arslankaya must have demanded large financial resources, indicating the patronage of important figures in Phrygian society.”§REF§(Roller, 1999, 111) Roller, Lynn E. (1999). In Search of God the Mother : The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. University of California Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5TT58SDG\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5TT58SDG </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 145, "polity": { "id": 171, "name": "tr_rum_sultanate", "long_name": "Rum Sultanate", "start_year": 1077, "end_year": 1307 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“They compare Kilic Arslan’s victory at Myriokephalon with Alp Arslan’s victory at Manzikert and regard them as decisive victories of the Muslim Turkish sultans over the Christian Byzantine emperors and hence as part of the ‘Holy War’ between Islam and Christendom.” […] “The first of the inscriptions can be found on the pulpit (minbar) commissioned by Mas’ud but set up by Kilic Arslan. In includes dedicatory inscriptions to both rulers. This carved wooden minbar is the earliest known Rum Seljuq work of art and according to the foundation inscription on it was finished in 550/1155. It was most probably constructed for the mosque of Mas’ud and was placed later in the Ala-al Din Kay Kubad mosque which was built in the same place but some sixty-four years later in 616/1219.” […] “These titles are the same as those employed by the Great Seljuq Sultans, however, the territories claimed to be under Rum Seljuq rule are different and the addition of jihad titles in new. The main rivals for the Great Seljuq sultans were two Shi’i dynasties, the Buyids and Fatimids, and thus a central claim in Great Seljuq ideology was that they were the supreme rulers and defenders of Sunni Islam. This was expressed especially through the title bestowed on them by the Sunni Abbasid Caliph expressing the claim that they were kings of the east and west, malik al maseriq wa al-maghrib. Thus, without an explicit reference to the Great Seljuqs, a dynastic connection with the Great Seljuq house is implied to emphasize the noble lineage of the Rum Seljuqs.” §REF§ (Mecit 2010, 92-97, 100) Mecit, Songul. 2010. ‘Rum Selijuks (473-641/1081-1243): Ideology, Mentality and Self-Image’. PhD Thesis. University of Edinburgh. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/M357G69B\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: M357G69B </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 146, "polity": { "id": 166, "name": "tr_phrygian_k", "long_name": "Phrygian Kingdom", "start_year": -900, "end_year": -695 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 127, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Phrygian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“In the Early Phrygian period, the main deity can be suggested to have been the Male Superior god, possibly a kind of Father and Weather god […] At a later stage, probably around 700 BC or somewhat earlier, the Male Superior god was superseded by the Mother Goddess as the main deity of the ‘state’, a development witnessed by a change in the archaeological record; […] Midas played an active role in promoting her cult and possibly making her the main deity of the state” §REF§ (Berndt-Ersöz, 2006, 209-10) Berndt-Ersöz, S (2006), Phrygian Rock-Cut Shrines, Brill: Leiden Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7BSTB7FH\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7BSTB7FH </b></a> §REF§ “The representation of the goddess on or near city walls indicates an official cult, for it is unlikely that such monuments would have been made without the consent of the governing authority of the city. Similarly, the construction of the large rock facades of Midas City and monuments of the Phrygian highlands such as Arslankaya must have demanded large financial resources, indicating the patronage of important figures in Phrygian society.”§REF§(Roller, 1999, 111) Roller, Lynn E. (1999). In Search of God the Mother : The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. University of California Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5TT58SDG\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5TT58SDG </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 147, "polity": { "id": 163, "name": "tr_konya_lba", "long_name": "Konya Plain - Late Bronze Age II", "start_year": -1500, "end_year": -1400 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 113, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Hittite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Reverence for forebears in Hittite society normally focused on the gods and the kings, with close association with the Underworld, presided over especially by the goddess Lelwani. The center of attention in the Underworld was the sacred cultic ditch, references to which indicate a feature varying between a deep hole resembling a well and a shallows, narrow incision with a cuplike depression, such as occurs widely carved into rock-cut shrines. The cultic ditch was the abode of gods and dead kings alike.” […] “The development of the ancestor cult among the Hittites, most evident in the royal family, had its roots in several ethnic backgrounds, initially Hattian from the central lands in and around the Halys basin and then also Palaic, from Paphlagonia adjoining the Black Sea, Luwain from the Taurus region, and eventually Hurrian from Kizzuwadna. Thus it reflected the heterogenous character of the religion of the Hittite state, in due course codified as the official pantheon, the ‘thousand gods.’” §REF§ (Burney 2018, 32-33) Burney, Charles. 2018. Historical Dictionary of the Hittites. London: Rowman and Littlefield. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/Q43QX75C\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: Q43QX75C </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 148, "polity": { "id": 364, "name": "ir_seljuk_sultanate", "long_name": "Seljuk Sultanate", "start_year": 1037, "end_year": 1157 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 8, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sunni Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The Seljuks are traditionally characterised by their avid support for Sunnism. This formed a key part of Seljuk propaganda, end even today continues to influence scholarly and popular perceptions of the dynasty. While older scholarship suggested that the Seljuks spearheaded a ‘Sunni revival’ after the domination of the Shi’ite Buyids, more recently this had been replaced with a view of the eleventh and twelfth centuries as witnessing a process of ‘recentring’ of Sunnism – which, its is argued, the ‘ulama’ sought to make increasingly homogenous, not least through institutions like the madrasa. At the same time, Sunnism was polarised by bitter disputes between adherents of the three law schools (madhhabs) of the Islamic east: the Hanbalis, Hanafis and Shafi’is. These madhhabs lent their name not just to factional disputes among the katibs, but to bitter rivalries that split communities in virtually every town in the Seljuk domains, frequently erupting into fitna (civil disorder). Although Ismailism was widely perceived by Sunnis in the Seljuk lands as a nuisance and a threat (Twelver Shi’ism rather less so). Shi’ites of either variety represented a minority in most areas of the Seljuk realm (parts of Arab Iraq, the northern Jibal between Sawa and Qumm, and Aleppo being the major exceptions with significant or majority Twelver populations). The greatest challenge to public order was posed rather by these factional disputes within Sunnism.” […] “Seljuk Sunnism is often linked to a rabid prejudice against Shi’ism in both its Twelver and Sevener forms. This motif runs through the primary sources as much as the secondary literature. For instance, when Alp Arslan’s armies stood outside the predominantly Shi’ite city of Aleppo, the local Mirdasid ruler Mahmud b. Nasr warned the Aleppans that: ‘The Egyptian’s state [i.e., the Fatimids] has gone and this is a new state and a well-run polity, which we fear because they consider shedding your blood licit on account of your religion [li-agl madhhabikum]. The best course is to say the [‘Abbasid-Seljuk] khutba…’” §REF§ (Peacock 2015, 249-250, 258) Peacock, A.C.S. 2015. The Great Seljuk Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/37ZDZWAR\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 37ZDZWAR </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 149, "polity": { "id": 506, "name": "gr_macedonian_emp", "long_name": "Macedonian Empire", "start_year": -330, "end_year": -312 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 126, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Hellenistic Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "Sources emphasise an attitude of religious tolerance/accommodation as a deliberate governing policy in the Macedonian Empire, building on an approach already in place across the Persian Empire. However, detailed records or analysis of how this was implemented or received is limited in the sources consulted. “In the wake of Alexander the Great, Asia Minor underwent an unprecedented wave of urbanism as the Greek city, or polis, became the common denominator in a globalizing world. […] Several of these [pre-existing local cult] gods were adopted as protective deities that stood symbol for the rising city. In return, their sanctuaries were monumentalized and made the venues of great civic festivals – a symbiosis clearly took place between both entities as they merged into one. […] They were used to forge the identity of the developing polis, accommodating local communities while redirecting the new civic focus. Gods that were local or regional began to appear on civic coinage, received grand festivals and processions, and their once rustic shrines took on the shape of urban space. As the rising polis took its identity from these gods, so the gaze of the gods was shifted towards the new community, and their sanctuaries reorganized to meet its aspirations.” §REF§ (Williamson, 2021, 2) Williamson, C. G. (2021). Urban Rituals in Sacred Landscapes in Hellenistic Asia Minor. Brill. §REF§ “During the Hellenistic period, Hellenes began to equate the gods of foreign lands with their own native deities in a process often referred to by scholars as interpretatio or “translation”. A Hellene could, without any apparent theological dilemma, worship any foreign god that most closely resembled his own native deity. […] In the past these equations were seen as evidence of the impact of Hellenism in foreign lands. However, recent scholars have pointed out that these equations are found only in Greek sources, not Near Eastern ones, making them unlikely representations of Hellenization. Of course, this does not mean that they do not represent an effort to spread Hellenic culture, only that they do not represent the successful result of such an effort. Others have seen these translations as evidence for “syncretism” or “hybridity”, that is, the fusion of Aegean and Near Eastern religions. However, neither “syncretism” or “hybridity” offers a particularly useful model for understanding the process of interpretatio, and not just because of their tainted colonial histories. Neither model helps us to ascertain the processes that underlie these equations, and so neither is able to provide anything but a characterization of a phenomenon.” §REF§(Noegel, 2007,32 ) Noegel, S.B. 2007: Greek Religion and the Ancient Near East. In: D. Ogden (ed.): A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden MA, 21–37. §REF§ “Macedonian monarchs patronized Greek religious centers and in most of the hundreds of cities under their control received divine honors, with cults, priests, statues, and often elaborate festivals in their names. Through these cults the individual cities could express their gratitude for the favors large and small that these new kings, almost greater than human to their contemporaries, bestowed. These new cults did not displace, but apparently were added to or linked to existing cults and festivals.” §REF§(Johnston, 2007, 218) Jon Mikalson ‘Greece’ in Sarah Iles Johnston. (2007). Ancient Religions. Belknap Press. §REF§ “From the time of Alexander the Great, the gods of the once independent cities and states had lost political influence in foreign affairs. […] This loss of function of the cult of a traditional deity as a state cult demanded religious and liturgical reform—a frequent phenomenon in the early Hellenistic period.” §REF§ (Koester, 1995, 159-60) Helmut Koester. (1995). History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age. Second edition. De Gruyter. §REF§ “In contrast to Egypt and Babylon, in the Achaemenid Empire Alexander found no ready tradition of divine kingship that he could exploit, and his attempts to use Persian royal traditions often appear to have backfired. Far from a king who seamlessly incorporated himself into the Achaemenid model, Alexander experimented with aspects of Persian royal practice that suited him and invented or ignored the rest.” §REF§(Canepa, 2018, 5) Matthew P. Canepa. (2018). The Iranian Expanse: Transforming Royal Identity Through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 BCE–642 CE. University of California Press. §REF§" }, { "id": 150, "polity": { "id": 75, "name": "tr_byzantine_emp_2", "long_name": "Byzantine Empire II", "start_year": 867, "end_year": 1072 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 102, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Eastern Orthodox Christianity", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"‘We desire that all peoples whom Our grace rules shall live by the very religion that the divine Peter, the apostle, gave to the Romans… we order all those who follow this law to assume the name of Catholic Christians, and considering others as demented and insane, we command that they shall bear the disgrace of heresy, and that their places of assembly not acquire the name of churches.\r\nCODEX THEODOSIANUS\r\n\r\n\"This law, issued on Feb. 27, 380 by the emperors Gratian and Theodosius I, represented the culmination of the process of Christianization begun under Constantine I at the beginning of the fourth century. General surveys of the Later Roman Empire or Late Antiquity often designate this constitution as the point when ‘Orthodox’ Christianity was made the official religion of the empire, following a brief rapprochement with paganism under Julian (r. 361-363). As such, it marked not only a dramatic shift from the religious syncretism which the Roman state had hitherto practiced, but was also to serve as a touchstone of Byzantine law. Henceforth, only Christians following the rite of the imperial church (those whom I will describe in what follows for the sake of convenience as ‘Orthodox’) could enjoy the rights of full Roman citizens. By contrast, over the following centuries various curtailments were introduced with regard to marriage, inheritance, officeholding and testamentary capacity for non-Orthodox or ‘heretical’ Christians, pagans, and Jews.\"§REF§(Chitwood 2020, 166) Chitwood, Z. 2020. Muslims and Non-Orthodox Christians in Byzantine Law until ca. 1100. In E. Cavanaugh (ed) Empire and Legal Thought: Ideas and Institutions from Antiquity to Modernity pp. 167-188. Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8S7ZVM8H/library §REF§" } ] }