Official Religion List
A viewset for viewing and editing Official Religions.
GET /api/rt/official-religions/?format=api&page=7
{ "count": 441, "next": "https://seshat-db.com/api/rt/official-religions/?format=api&page=8", "previous": "https://seshat-db.com/api/rt/official-religions/?format=api&page=6", "results": [ { "id": 303, "polity": { "id": 309, "name": "fr_carolingian_emp_1", "long_name": "Carolingian Empire I", "start_year": 752, "end_year": 840 }, "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": "“Well before the end of the eighth century,where we left Charlemagne demanding comprehensive oaths of loyalty from his elite male subjects, and indeed before the anointing of 753–4, kingship itself was conceived as an office with religious responsibilities. Christianity was part of the very identity of elite Franks, who increasingly came to see themselves as a people chosen by God, and thus to define themselves in distinction to the non and imperfectly Christian peoples that surrounded them. These ideologies played a part in the Franks’ justifications to each other and to themselves of their conquests. As victorious Carolingian armies withdrew they were often – as we have seen – replaced by missionaries, charged with winning the hearts and souls of the conquered, and with establishing their obedience to the Frankish Church (and, therefore, empire).” §REF§ Costambeys, M., Innes, M., & MacLean, S. (2011). The Carolingian World Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pg 80 §REF§" }, { "id": 304, "polity": { "id": 480, "name": "iq_isin_dynasty2", "long_name": "Second Dynasty of Isin", "start_year": -1153, "end_year": -1027 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Religion may be seen as a salient feature of Babylonian culture, which could not exist independently of the culture: being a Babylonian meant believing in the Babylonian gods. So the so-called political centre of the country, the palace, was always a centre of religion, too. The king acted for his land and his people before the gods, and the immortals bestowed well-being and fertility to the king as representative of his country.” §REF§ (Sallaberger, 2007, 269) Sallaberger, Walther. 2007. ‘The Palace and The Temple in Babylonia’, in The Babylonian World, ed. Gwendolyn Leick, Routledge (pp.265-275). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/UXSXSGHC\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: UXSXSGHC </b></a> §REF§ “Ancient Near Eastern societies did not make a distinction between religious and secular power. Their cultural discourse sacralized kingship and the sociopolitical hierarchy, which was thought to have been established by the gods. Myth imagined the king to be made of the flesh of the gods, equipped not only with surpassing wisdom and knowledge but also physical perfection and extraordinary strength. He was considered to partake in the divine scheme and bridge the division between mortals and immortals.” §REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 44). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§ “Donations made to the Moon-god at Ur helped to keep the loyalty of the Sealand people under Nebuchadnezzar’s control; and there he made a special dedication of his daughter as a priestess. In Nippur, he dedicated a throne to Enlil and a powerful governor kept control over the country’s ancient centre of religion and culture.” §REF§ (Dalley, 2021, 164) Dalley, Stephanie. (2021) The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC – AD AD 116, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U4HSRAKT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: U4HSRAKT </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 305, "polity": { "id": 482, "name": "iq_dynasty_e", "long_name": "Dynasty of E", "start_year": -979, "end_year": -732 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Several kings of Babylon at this time recorded their piety to the god Nabu by including him in their royal name. In a remarkable rise through the hierarchy of gods, Nabu became a major focus of worship in Babylonia, Assyria, and Elam […] He became an equal of Marduk. ‘Place your trust in Nabu, do not place your trust in any other god’, wrote the Assyrian governor of Kalhu (modern Nimrud), who erected a great temple to the god in the centre of his city in the reign of Adad-nirari III [810–783].”§REF§ (Dalley, 2021, 176) Dalley, Stephanie. (2021) The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC – AD 116, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U4HSRAKT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: U4HSRAKT </b></a>§REF§ “During the Assyrian king’s control over Babylon [Adad-nirari, reigned 810–783], Marduk was invoked in Assyria alongside Assyrian gods, not as a captive god stripped of power, but as an equal of the great Assyrian deities.” §REF§ (Dalley, 2021, 182) Dalley, Stephanie. (2021) The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC – AD 116, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U4HSRAKT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: U4HSRAKT </b></a>§REF§ “As a Chaldean from Bīt Yakin, Eriba-Marduk [reigned c. 769–760] was especially interested in promoting the southern city of Uruk, where he restored temples and was responsible for introducing a statue of its goddess into Babylon.” §REF§ (Dalley, 2021, 183) Dalley, Stephanie. (2021) The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC – AD 116, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U4HSRAKT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: U4HSRAKT </b></a>§REF§ “Religion may be seen as a salient feature of Babylonian culture, which could not exist independently of the culture: being a Babylonian meant believing in the Babylonian gods. So the so-called political centre of the country, the palace, was always a centre of religion, too. The king acted for his land and his people before the gods, and the immortals bestowed well-being and fertility to the king as representative of his country.” §REF§ (Sallaberger, 2007, 269) Sallaberger, Walther. 2007. ‘The Palace and The Temple in Babylonia’, in The Babylonian World, ed. Gwendolyn Leick, Routledge (pp.265-275). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/UXSXSGHC\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: UXSXSGHC </b></a> §REF§ “Ancient Near Eastern societies did not make a distinction between religious and secular power. Their cultural discourse sacralized kingship and the sociopolitical hierarchy, which was thought to have been established by the gods. Myth imagined the king to be made of the flesh of the gods, equipped not only with surpassing wisdom and knowledge but also physical perfection and extraordinary strength. He was considered to partake in the divine scheme and bridge the division between mortals and immortals.” §REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 44). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 306, "polity": { "id": 481, "name": "iq_bazi_dyn", "long_name": "Bazi Dynasty", "start_year": -1005, "end_year": -986 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "The interconnection between religion and political power continued during the Bazi Dynasty, however as Mario Liverani notes in the latter quotes, this period is associated with unstable regal authority, which seems to have resulted in greater autonomy for regional temples. “Religion may be seen as a salient feature of Babylonian culture, which could not exist independently of the culture: being a Babylonian meant believing in the Babylonian gods. So the so-called political centre of the country, the palace, was always a centre of religion, too. The king acted for his land and his people before the gods, and the immortals bestowed well-being and fertility to the king as representative of his country.” §REF§ (Sallaberger, 2007, 269) Sallaberger, Walther. 2007. ‘The Palace and The Temple in Babylonia’, in The Babylonian World, ed. Gwendolyn Leick, Routledge (pp.265-275). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/UXSXSGHC\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: UXSXSGHC </b></a> §REF§ “This short-lived dynasty seems to represent a brief revival of Kassite power with kings who traced their origin to Bazi, the name of a deified hero with connections north of Mari, in the region of Hanigalbat.” §REF§ (Dalley, 2021, 168) Dalley, Stephanie. (2021) The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC – AD 116, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U4HSRAKT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: U4HSRAKT </b></a>§REF§ The scholar Mario Liverani notes the ‘scanty evidence’ for this period, attributing it in part to a decline in confidence in the centrality, authority and continuity of kingship. “The lack of evidence is not due to the archaeological excavations. The lack of archival and administrative texts, which were already decreasing during the Second Dynasty of Isin, is a clear reflection of the administrative chaos of the time. […] the society of the time had lost its former confidence in the centrality and continuity of kingship. The latter used to be the guiding force and the ultimate authority in the land, due to its exclusive connection with the divine. Kingship now became an ambiguous institution, combining positive and negative aspects, in a fluctuation that was difficult to understand. The only possible solution was to hope in a better future, which could arrive all of a sudden and without any particular reason, just like the misfortunes afflicting the land.” §REF§(Liverani, 2013, 469-70) Liverani, Mario. The Ancient near East : History, Society and Economy, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7DRZQS5Q\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7DRZQS5Q </b></a> §REF§ “The political and administrative crisis had forced each city to look after itself. Rather than governors appointed by the kingdom, temples acted as the real centres of local resources and activities. Indeed, temples could rely on their millenary tradition, administrative structure, prestige, and ability to motivate the population. They therefore required and obtained from the kings (probably the weakest ones) a certain degree of autonomy and various exemptions from tributes and obligations (defined with the terms kidinnu in Kassite and zakûtu in Akkadian). They also had a certain degree of self-government for the administration of justice and of the cities’ internal affairs.” §REF§(Liverani, 2013, 471) Liverani, Mario. The Ancient near East : History, Society and Economy, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7DRZQS5Q\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7DRZQS5Q </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 307, "polity": { "id": 477, "name": "iq_ur_dyn_3", "long_name": "Ur - Dynasty III", "start_year": -2112, "end_year": -2004 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"Nanna/Sin likely had a very/more important role in this period given that Ur now is the capital. Although clearly local gods continue in their importance.\" (pers. comm. Altaweel 2024).\r\n\r\n“The new ruler [Ur-Nammu] projected a view of himself as a religious man, upholding and respecting the old traditions and, at the same time, leaving nobody in doubt that his power and the new order were absolute, without alternative. […] Throughout the empire, architecture and spatial design symbolized the worldview of Ur-Nammu, who developed a visible master plan – a type of religious architecture as a sign and symbol of the new order – that applied everywhere. Standardization characterized the new signature of power – the ziggurat – which was placed beside and combined with local architectural monuments and may have served to create a common identity amongst disparate local cultures within the empire.” §REF§ (Heinz, 2012, 708-9). Heinz, Marlies (2012). The Ur III, Old Babylonian, and Kassite Empires. In Potts, D. T. (Ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, pp.706-721). John Wiley & Sons. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HIN8NS88\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: HIN8NS88 </b></a> §REF§ “Ancient Near Eastern societies did not make a distinction between religious and secular power. Their cultural discourse sacralized kingship and the sociopolitical hierarchy, which was thought to have been established by the gods. Myth imagined the king to be made of the flesh of the gods, equipped not only with surpassing wisdom and knowledge but also physical perfection and extraordinary strength. He was considered to partake in the divine scheme and bridge the division between mortals and immortals.”§REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 44). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 308, "polity": { "id": 475, "name": "iq_early_dynastic", "long_name": "Early Dynastic", "start_year": -2900, "end_year": -2500 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "Sources consulted highlight the challenges of interpreting the archaeological evidence of religious activity from the early dynastic period, although significant temple sites have been excavated and are thought to have occupied a key position in new patterns of governance. “In the truly revolutionary transition from largely kinship organized society of the pre-Uruk to the state societies of the fourth and even more clearly the third millennia, leaders needed a public rationale for their political and economic authority. Association with the gods provided one such rationale. […] The placement of contemporary temples at high and low places on the mound at Uqaor and Uruk-Warka may, according to Oates, indicate that the ancients recognised differences between state religion and older folk religion at the same centre. […] Certainly, the very presence of specialised temple districts on hillsides at the LC5 Syrian “colony” sites of Habuba Kabira/Qannas (Stommenger, 1980) and Jebel Aruda (van Driel, 2002) indicates the importance of religion as part of the whole social and ideological fabric of ancient societies.” §REF§(Rothman, 2004, 102, 104). Rothman, M. S. (2004). Studying the Development of Complex Society: Mesopotamia in the Late Fifth and Fourth Millennia BC. Journal of Archaeological Research, 12(1), 75–119. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VV3ICSVM\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: VV3ICSVM </b></a> §REF§ “As the Mesopotamian concept of the divine was patterned after a sociomorphic understanding of the world, gods were part of a social network, independent of their form or appearance, whether anthropomorphic, theriomorphic, or hybrid. The gods’ actions were deigned by their functions and by roles that were based on Mesopotamian social organization. Religion thus reinforced the structure of Mesopotamian society.” §REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 37). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§ “Even when subordinated to an alien ruler, the Sumerian city-state remained the domain of its city-god and the appointed “énsi” [ruler] was such because of that god’s will and choice.” §REF§ (Marchesi & Marchetti, 2011, 112). Gianni Marchesi, Nicolò Marchetti (2011). Royal Statuary of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia. Eisenbrauns. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HU6778CR\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: HU6778CR </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 309, "polity": { "id": 478, "name": "iq_isin_larsa", "long_name": "Isin-Larsa", "start_year": -2004, "end_year": -1763 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "Regarding this variable, expert Mark Altaweel stated: \"Official religion was the city-state based religions of chief gods and wider pantheon.\" (pers.comm. 2024).\r\nThe First Isin Dynasty is associated with a de-centralisation of power, with city-sates and their city-temples regaining greater independence. “Although [Ishbi-Erra at Isin] tried to continue the imperial traditions of Ur, more and more city-states gained their political independence and he progressively lost control of the empire and its resources.” §REF§ (Heinz, 2012, 712). Heinz, Marlies (2012). The Ur III, Old Babylonian, and Kassite Empires. In Potts, D. T. (Ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, pp.706-721). John Wiley & Sons. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HIN8NS88\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: HIN8NS88 </b></a> §REF§ “By this period [First Dynasty of Isin], cities were centred on the palace. However, temples continued to maintain their size and role as de-centralised administrative centres. Similarly, kings continued to pride themselves for the restoration and expansion of the most prestigious city-temples. Being by now free from their subordination to the kings of Ur, the temples and sacred areas of the principal Mesopotamian cities began to play an increasingly important role in the formation of a state’s identity.” §REF§ (Liverani, 2013, 187) Liverani, Mario. The Ancient near East: History, Society and Economy, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7DRZQS5Q\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7DRZQS5Q </b></a> §REF§ “Ancient Near Eastern societies did not make a distinction between religious and secular power. Their cultural discourse sacralized kingship and the sociopolitical hierarchy, which was thought to have been established by the gods. Myth imagined the king to be made of the flesh of the gods, equipped not only with surpassing wisdom and knowledge but also physical perfection and extraordinary strength. He was considered to partake in the divine scheme and bridge the division between mortals and immortals.”§REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 44). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 310, "polity": { "id": 479, "name": "iq_babylonia_1", "long_name": "Amorite Babylonia", "start_year": -2000, "end_year": -1600 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Hammurabi’s reign [c.1792-50 BCE] was a period of significant religious reforms. Firstly, the unification of the region effectively removed the pre-eminence of the local cities’ pantheons. In fact, the Amorites preferred different types of deities, in particular those of an astral nature, such as Shamash, Ishtar and Adad. This preference eventually pushed the more chthonic Sumerian deities into a secondary role. The cities of the north therefore established their local deities on a regional level: Marduk for Babylon, Nabu for Borsippa, Nergal for Kutha and Shamash for Sippar. […] In the lists and epithets attested in the official inscriptions, many deities were placed on the same level, in an effort to find a connection between each deity and the king. The new structure of the pantheon placed Marduk, god of Babylon, as its head.” §REF§ (Liverani, 2013, 248-9) Liverani, Mario. The Ancient near East: History, Society and Economy, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7DRZQS5Q\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7DRZQS5Q </b></a> §REF§ “State rituals and festivals had a strong spatial component and were instrumental in producing not only power and legitimacy but also coherence and solidarity between the center and the provinces under its control. During the New Year Festival in Babylon, the gods from other cultic centers traveled to Babylon to honor the chief god Marduk and to take part in the assembly of the gods to determine the destinies of the king and the land, thus reflecting on a divine level the allegiance of the major Babylonian cultic centers to the capital.” §REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 45). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§ “Religion may be seen as a salient feature of Babylonian culture, which could not exist independently of the culture: being a Babylonian meant believing in the Babylonian gods. So the so-called political centre of the country, the palace, was always a centre of religion, too. The king acted for his land and his people before the gods, and the immortals bestowed well-being and fertility to the king as representative of his country.” §REF§ (Sallaberger, 2007, 269) Sallaberger, Walther. 2007. ‘The Palace and The Temple in Babylonia’, in The Babylonian World, ed. Gwendolyn Leick, Routledge (pp.265-275). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/UXSXSGHC\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: UXSXSGHC </b></a> §REF§ “Ancient Near Eastern societies did not make a distinction between religious and secular power. Their cultural discourse sacralized kingship and the sociopolitical hierarchy, which was thought to have been established by the gods. Myth imagined the king to be made of the flesh of the gods, equipped not only with surpassing wisdom and knowledge but also physical perfection and extraordinary strength. He was considered to partake in the divine scheme and bridge the division between mortals and immortals.” §REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 44). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 311, "polity": { "id": 474, "name": "iq_uruk", "long_name": "Uruk", "start_year": -4000, "end_year": -2900 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\"One thing to note is the so-called folk religion likely was practiced in smaller shrines or in the home, while state-level religions, which may have already begun even in the ubaid cultures or at least their forerunners, were worshipped at the large temples in cities. This became clear and well established by the Uruk period.\" (pers. comm. Mark Altaweel 2024). Sources consulted highlight the challenges of interpreting the archaeological evidence of religious activity from this early period, although significant temple sites have been excavated and are thought to have occupied a key position in new patterns of governance. “In the truly revolutionary transition from largely kinship organized society of the pre-Uruk to the state societies of the fourth and even more clearly the third millennia, leaders needed a public rationale for their political and economic authority. Association with the gods provided one such rationale. […] The placement of contemporary temples at high and low places on the mound at Uqaor and Uruk-Warka may, according to Oates, indicate that the ancients recognised differences between state religion and older folk religion at the same centre. […] Certainly, the very presence of specialised temple districts on hillsides at the LC5 Syrian “colony” sites of Habuba Kabira/Qannas (Stommenger, 1980) and Jebel Aruda (van Driel, 2002) indicates the importance of religion as part of the whole social and ideological fabric of ancient societies.” §REF§(Rothman, 2004, 102, 104). Rothman, M. S. (2004). Studying the Development of Complex Society: Mesopotamia in the Late Fifth and Fourth Millennia BC. Journal of Archaeological Research, 12(1), 75–119. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VV3ICSVM\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: VV3ICSVM </b></a> §REF§“As the Mesopotamian concept of the divine was patterned after a sociomorphic understanding of the world, gods were part of a social network, independent of their form or appearance, whether anthropomorphic, theriomorphic, or hybrid. The gods’ actions were deigned by their functions and by roles that were based on Mesopotamian social organization. Religion thus reinforced the structure of Mesopotamian society.” §REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 37). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 312, "polity": { "id": 342, "name": "iq_babylonia_2", "long_name": "Kassite Babylonia", "start_year": -1595, "end_year": -1150 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The Kassites had their own pantheon, known to us primarily from people’s names. Their gods did not become prominent in the cult of Babylonia, however. The only gods for whom shrines were built were the patron deities of the king, Shuqamuna and Shumaliya. They were important in coronation rites and had a chapel in the palace. But otherwise, Kassite kings honored the ancient Babylonian gods as their own.” §REF§ (Van de Mieroop, 2016, 184) Van de Mieroop, Marc. 2016. A History of the Ancient Near East, ca 3000-323 BC, Wiley-Blackwell. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9H88VQ7A\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 9H88VQ7A </b></a> §REF§ “One of the most important ventures of the Kassite rulers was their self-representation as kings, installed and legitimized by the relevant Mesopotamian gods. […] Kassite adherence to Babylonian religion found its material expression in the care of extant Babylonian temples as well as in the building of new ones, such as the Ishtar temple at Uruk. This temple presented a specific aspect of Kassite acculturation. Like the rulers of earlier empires, Kassite kings understood the importance of connecting the traditional cultural traits with new ones, concealing the fact that they had created a new geopolitical order and thus in reality broken with local traditions. Nominally, the Kassite kings ruled in the name of the Babylonian gods, but the gods who protected and guided them remained Kassite ones.” §REF§ (Heinz, 2012, 718). Heinz, Marlies (2012). The Ur III, Old Babylonian, and Kassite Empires. In Potts, D. T. (Ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, pp.706-721). John Wiley & Sons. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HIN8NS88\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: HIN8NS88 </b></a> §REF§ “Religion may be seen as a salient feature of Babylonian culture, which could not exist independently of the culture: being a Babylonian meant believing in the Babylonian gods. So the so-called political centre of the country, the palace, was always a centre of religion, too. The king acted for his land and his people before the gods, and the immortals bestowed well-being and fertility to the king as representative of his country.” §REF§ (Sallaberger, 2007, 269) Sallaberger, Walther. 2007. ‘The Palace and The Temple in Babylonia’, in The Babylonian World, ed. Gwendolyn Leick, Routledge (pp.265-275). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/UXSXSGHC\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: UXSXSGHC </b></a> §REF§ “Ancient Near Eastern societies did not make a distinction between religious and secular power. Their cultural discourse sacralized kingship and the sociopolitical hierarchy, which was thought to have been established by the gods. Myth imagined the king to be made of the flesh of the gods, equipped not only with surpassing wisdom and knowledge but also physical perfection and extraordinary strength. He was considered to partake in the divine scheme and bridge the division between mortals and immortals.” §REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 44). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 313, "polity": { "id": 346, "name": "iq_neo_babylonian_emp", "long_name": "Neo-Babylonian Empire", "start_year": -626, "end_year": -539 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "Sources caution against distinguishing ‘Chaldean’ tribal identity within the broader official framework of Mesopotamian or Babylonian religion. As the last two quotes indicate, individual kings continued to use the ordering of the polytheistic pantheon of Mesopotamian gods and the presence of god statues to further their political agendas in this period. “As king of the Sealand, [Nabopolassar] founded a dynasty headed by an urban, literate Chaldean nobility. Various types of record, such as chronicles and oracles, describe individual kings as ‘Chaldean,’ but we are not certain what that implies in this period. The tribal grouping called Chaldean may already have developed into a specialized group of scholars and religious wise men, especially astronomers, ‘magicians’ (diviners and incantation priests), and astrologers.” §REF§ (Dalley, 2021, 216) Dalley, Stephanie. (2021) The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC – AD 116, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U4HSRAKT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: U4HSRAKT </b></a>§REF§ “Neo-Babylonian culture focused on issues of formality. This formality is visible in its religion, with its obsessive attention to the execution of rituals, the way gods, their statues and symbols were represented and the pronunciation of their epithets and appropriate formulas. All these aspects became an intrinsic part of public and private religion and a testing ground for the king.” §REF§ (Liverani, 2013, 550-2) Liverani, Mario. The Ancient near East: History, Society and Economy, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7DRZQS5Q\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7DRZQS5Q </b></a> §REF§ “Religion may be seen as a salient feature of Babylonian culture, which could not exist independently of the culture: being a Babylonian meant believing in the Babylonian gods. So the so-called political centre of the country, the palace, was always a centre of religion, too. The king acted for his land and his people before the gods, and the immortals bestowed well-being and fertility to the king as representative of his country.” §REF§ (Sallaberger, 2007, 269) Sallaberger, Walther. 2007. ‘The Palace and The Temple in Babylonia’, in The Babylonian World, ed. Gwendolyn Leick, Routledge (pp.265-275). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/UXSXSGHC\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: UXSXSGHC </b></a> §REF§ “Ancient Near Eastern societies did not make a distinction between religious and secular power. Their cultural discourse sacralized kingship and the sociopolitical hierarchy, which was thought to have been established by the gods. Myth imagined the king to be made of the flesh of the gods, equipped not only with surpassing wisdom and knowledge but also physical perfection and extraordinary strength. He was considered to partake in the divine scheme and bridge the division between mortals and immortals.” §REF§ (Pongratz-Leisten, 2013, 44). Pongratz-Leisten, B. (2013). Mesopotamia. In B. Spaeth (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Cambridge Companions to Religion, pp. 33-54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZEG8QMQQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZEG8QMQQ </b></a> §REF§ “[Nabonidus] provides a new astral triad: Shamash-Sin-Ishtar. These gods ruled more marginal cities, namely, Larsa and Sippar for the sun god Shamash, Ur and Harran for the moon god Sin, and Uruk and the mythical Akkad for Ishtar (Venus). This broader contextualisation of religion allowed the king to justify his reconstruction of the temple of Sin at Harran, which had remained in ruins for 54 years. Marduk himself allegedly commissioned its restoration. This complex cultic explanation recognises the central role of Marduk as the god bestowing Babylonian kingship to the king and deciding one’s future. However, it clearly enlarges the spectrum by including other marginal gods, thus pleasing more cities and priesthoods and criticising the role of Marduk.” §REF§ (Liverani, 2013, 542) Liverani, Mario. The Ancient near East: History, Society and Economy, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7DRZQS5Q\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7DRZQS5Q </b></a> §REF§ “At his accession Nabopolassar sent back to Susa those gods that the Assyrians had removed to Uruk, as part of his policy to dissuade Elam from trying to undermine the new regime in Babylonia.” §REF§ (Dalley, 2021, 216) Dalley, Stephanie. (2021) The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC – AD 116, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U4HSRAKT\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: U4HSRAKT </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 314, "polity": { "id": 10, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_5", "long_name": "Late Formative Basin of Mexico", "start_year": -400, "end_year": -101 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“Although the expressions of the Old Fire God are variable, they evidence his emergence as a primary figure in domestic ritual. Storm God vessels also appear in both domestic and public contexts of this time (Carballo 2007, p. 53). At La Laguna (Carballo 2007, p. 61, figs. 9a–b) and Ticoman (Vaillant 1931, p. 393, plates LXVIII, LXXIXe–f), fragments of censer covers or perhaps masks bearing iconography that might refer to ‘‘Tlaloc’’ have been reported. But Carballo (2007, p. 62) points out that the first documented occurrence of ‘‘Tlaloc vessels’’ comes from the three tombs in Tlapacoya’s Mound 1 (Barba 1956). He identifies these funerary structures as dedicatory offering complexes, rather than tombs, and suggests that the deposits were made to consecrate different construction phases of public architecture (Carballo 2007, p. 62), in essence a precursor to state ritual practices that appear later in the Moon Pyramid at Teotihuacan (Bracamontes 2002; Sugiyama 2007). Tlapacoya’s tombs, however, are similar to Tomb 1 at Tetimpa (Urun ̃uela and Plunket 2001, pp. 8–9), although no Tlaloc effigy jars were among the burial furniture and do not occur in any context at his site. Tetimpa’s Tomb 1 is one of three tombs, and numerous other interments, placed in the platform nucleus under a room used for family ritual. At Tlapacoya, ‘‘Tlaloc’’ vessels occur not only in the tombs of Mound 1 but also outside the civic ceremonial area. An elaborate example was included in a secondary burial of seven individuals about 30 m northeast of the archaeological zone (Torres 1997). Although the suggestion that Tlapacoya’s tombs are dedicatory offerings and that early versions of ‘‘Tlaloc’’ vessels mark them as such is intriguing, the fact that they also are found in other burial contexts at Tlapacoya and that similar tombs occur in senior lineage houses in villages implies that overlapping ritual practices were in use during the Late and Terminal Formative.” §REF§ (Plunket & Uruñuela 2012, 27-28) Plunket, Patricia and Uruñuela, Gabriela. 2012. ‘Where East Meets West: The Formative in Mexico’s Central Highlands’. In Journal of Archaeological Research. Vol. 20:1. Pp. 1-51. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9FVQN8UD\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 9FVQN8UD </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 315, "polity": { "id": 9, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_4", "long_name": "Middle Formative Basin of Mexico", "start_year": -800, "end_year": -401 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "The Olmec-style was still relevant in Middle Formative central Mexico “However, the most dynamic expressions of ritually focused art in the Middle Formative Period are to be viewed in the context of Olmec-style, sculpted-stone masterpieces, monumental and otherwise, that first appear along the Gulf Coast in the Mexican states of Tabasco and Veracruz. Also in this area of the Gulf Coast, a sophisticated symbol system first appears for use on both stone and clay objects. In many instances, the individual elements and motifs of this “Olmec symbol system” seem to combine the naguales of the earlier shamanically based rituals with the new and developing symbolic requirements of agriculturally driven rituals.” §REF§ (Reilly III 2012, 768) Reilly III, F. Kent. 2012. ‘Mesoamerican Religious Beliefs: The Practices and Practitioners’. In The Oxford handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Christopher A. Pool. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/K6DPAVSS\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: K6DPAVSS </b></a> §REF§ “In conclusion, domestic ritual framed by the sanctified house structure, served significant sociological functions of defining and preserving household identity and property, thereby facilitating its social reproduction, as well as the more obvious religious functions of maintaining prescribed relationships with the spirit world. Ancestors served as mediators in both respects, for ancestral origin was an important source of identity and legitimate rights to property, while ancestral spirits likely functioned as familiar intervenors with the more formidable cosmic forces.” §REF§ (Grove & Gillespie 2002, 17) Grove, David C. and Gillespie, Susan D. 2022. ‘Middle Formative Domestic Ritual at Chalcatzingo, Morelos’. In Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica. Edited by Patricia Plunket. Los Angeles: The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/2SPXZAMK\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 2SPXZAMK </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 316, "polity": { "id": 11, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_6", "long_name": "Terminal Formative Basin of Mexico", "start_year": -100, "end_year": 99 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“The presence of the talud-tablero \"temple\" diagnostic on the residential platforms of Tetimpa leads us to believe that the earliest first century A.D. three-temple-complexes of Teotihuacan were originally elite houses and not specialized religious structures, although they subsequently seem to have acquired temple status (compare with Grove and Gillespie, 2002; Kirch, 20)” […] “Although we know next to nothing about the domestic organization of Classic period Cholula, the city of Teotihuacan offers many intriguing parallels to Tetimpa that seem to reflect the village on a monumental scale. The very specific triadic format of the three-temple-complex at Teotihuacan is a mirror of the residential architecture at Tetimpa and probably other Formative villages and towns. We and others have suggested links between this architectural format and lineage structures, both along the Street of the Dead and within the apartment compounds of Teotihuacan (Headrick, 1999, 2001; Plunket and Unírmela, 1998a, 2002c). The talud-tablero system used on every platform at Tetimpa served no practical purpose. The tablero embellishment that wraps around the façade of the sloping wall of the platform can be viewed best as a symbolic divide between the underground quarters of deceased family members and those of their living descendants who occupy the surface (Unirmela and Plunket, n.d.-a). Urban Teotihuacan adopted this ancient symbolic device (dated as early as 300 B.C. at Tlalancaleca, Puebla [García Cook, 1984]) for use on most of the city's temples, enhancing the tablero with a thin stone frame and painted stucco. Rather than create an entirely new symbol, Teotihuacan drew upon the canons of the past - the emblem of house and lineage - in order to deal with the problems of continuity and change in a complex urban environment. We believe that the city embraced this traditional configuration as one of several strategies designed to incorporate the tremendous influx of immigrants that arrived at the beginning of the first century A.D.; the modular nature of the building program was well suited to rapid growth and could bridge the imposing chasm between village and city, between past and present. At the same time, Teotihuacan appears to have established this triadic structure as a cornerstone of its emerging state ideology, converting it into a formula that was repeated on a monumental scale along the Street of the Dead, perhaps to provide lineage representation at the very heart of the city (see Headrick, 1999).” §REF§ (Plunket & Uruñuela 2005, 96-97) Plunket, Patricia and Uruñuela, Gabriela. 2005. ‘Recent Research in Puebla Prehistory’. Journal of Archaeological Research. Vol. 13:2. Pp. 89-127. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WEQU4V37\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: WEQU4V37 </b></a> §REF§ “People may have been drawn to Teotihuacan partly by the attraction of its religious significance and possibly even by the appeal of an urban center,but probably a strong coercive element was also involved. Perhaps techniques and practices of statecraft were not well enough developed to permit firm control of sizable populations outside the capital city. It may have been hard to control subordinate elites not living close enough to be in almost daily contact with the heads of the polity. Also, although the amount of labor required for building the Sun Pyramid must have been immense (Tatsuya Murakami [2010: 490–91] estimates that it would have required nearly 12 million person-days), given the population of the city and assuming 50 years for its construction, the per capita burden per year would have been modest, something like fifteen days per year from each able-bodied adult male. People probably spent more time in rituals and festivals: creating costumes and learning, performing, and witnessing them; activities that leave few material traces. Yet, assembling the labor force for building the Sun Pyramid could have been one reason for the continued growth of Teotihuacan. Subjecting people to the experience of sharing supervised labor on such a project could have been a means of altering consciousnesses to create a populace more amenable to being subordinated by a small elite. Such a strategy has been proposed for the pyramid-building projects of early Egypt. This, plus the labor involved in subsequent projects of civic-ceremonial building at Teotihuacan, would help explain the continuing concentration of population.” §REF§ (Cowgill 2015, 77) Cowgill, George L. 2015. Ancient Teotihuacan: Early Urbanism in Central Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/D2M5GMC9\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: D2M5GMC9 </b></a> §REF§ “Based on the spatial distribution of early ceramics recovered from the surface, the population of the Teotihuacan Valley lived in small villages primarily on swampy lands near springs during the Cuanalan phase. The planned city of Teotihuacan seems to have developed rather quickly as a regional ritual center during the Patlachique phase. The area of greatest ceramic concentration shifted to the northern part of the city, and the area of the major monuments (Cowgill 1992). Excavations at the Moon Pyramid revealed a pyramidal platform dated to the end of the Patlachique phase. Building 1 deviated about 4 degrees from the standard orientation followed throughout the city in later periods and likely predates the layout of the city as we see it today. The remains of a large public structure predating the Sun Pyramid were identified during a recent exploration in 2010. The building consisted of a thick, long wall covered with plaster. Recent excavations in the Citadel have also revealed an architectural compound that existed prior to the construction of the Citadel and the FSP. These data indicate that the city began, under strong governmental control, as a public, ceremonial complex with a layout that was quite different from the one we see today. Most of these earlier structures were demolished when a grand-scale construction program began around 200 AD.” §REF§ (Sugiyama 2012, 219-220) Sugiyama, Saburo. 2012. ‘Ideology, Polity, and Social History of the Teotihuacan State’. In The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Christopher A. Pool. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/S8N9NHTG\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: S8N9NHTG </b></a> §REF§ “An important distinction in the representations and corresponding ritual practices of the two deities was further elaborated at Teotihuacan, where the Old God remained primarily in the domestic sphere while the Storm God was venerated in domestic contexts but was also central to public rituals conducted by state rulers.” §REF§ (Carballo 2007, 53) Carballo, David M. 2007. ‘Effigy Vessels, Religious Integration, and the Origins of the Central Mexican Pantheon’. Ancient Mesoamerica. Vol. 18:1. Pp. 53-67. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/R92IISZE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: R92IISZE </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 317, "polity": { "id": 12, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_7", "long_name": "Classic Basin of Mexico", "start_year": 100, "end_year": 649 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“The city layout, monumental architecture, mural paintings, and commemorative sacrificial burials were a symbolic manipulation of sacred space and provided an important medium for the ideological foundation, all of which tended to structure the minds of the public in a particular way. People from different social strata appear to have participated in the realization of this ideologically specified framework through social groups and work forces of various kinds. These long-term public works must have helped to structure religious canons and behavioral norms that led the public to interpret state politics, economy, society, and history habitually as events taking place at the center of a meaningful \"world\". Sacred space conceptualized symbolically as a cosmological representation seems to have been divided into co-related units with particular religious meanings and sociopolitical and economic implications. For example, many temple-pyramid complexes with residential compounds along the Avenue of the Dead may have been associated with people who had specific sociopolitical and economic functions attached to particular ritual, cosmological, or divine meanings at the compound according to the microcosms represented by the city's space management. Not only ruling groups but also state officers from middle or lower classes, traders, merchants, craft specialists, agriculturists, slaves, and other types of citizens living in the metropolis may have been distributed meaningfully and functionally in accordance with the microcosmic significance of various sectors. It seems that the religion represented by monumental architecture and the surrounding landscape were integrated into the state polity at Teotihuacan”. §REF§ (Sugiyama 1993, 122, 123) Sugiyama, Saburo. 1993. ‘Worldview Materialized in Teotihuacan, Mexico’. Latin American Antiquity. Vol. 4:2. Pp. 103-129. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/6T732EP5\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 6T732EP5 </b></a> §REF§ “What makes the White Patio so interesting is that its residents employed the space to promote a supernatural rationale for the nature of Teotihuacan’s political structure. The patio represents an incidence of state propaganda within the context of domestic ritual space.” §REF§ (Headrick 2007, 118-119) Headrick, Annabeth. 2007. The Teotihuacan Trinity: the Sociopolitical Structure of an Ancient Mesoamerican City. Austin: University of Texas Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7JJVM5JP\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7JJVM5JP </b></a> §REF§ “We may envision domestic cult as the main low-level integrative device that the state had to integrate progressively larger social units such as household groups, barrios, districts, and finally the city itself.” §REF§ (Manzanilla 2002, 43) Manzanilla, Linda. ‘Living with the Ancestors and Offering to the Gods Domestic Ritual at Teotihuacan’. In Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica. Edited by Patricia Plunket. Los Angeles: The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/6C2CPHNE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 6C2CPHNE </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 318, "polity": { "id": 8, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_3", "long_name": "Early Formative Basin of Mexico", "start_year": -1200, "end_year": -801 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“If Aztec society represents a mature expression of pre-Columbian religion in central Mexico, with the substantial ethnohistoric and archaeological record permitting nuanced considerations of its variability through space and the hierarchy of power, the Formative period (1500 B.C.–A.D. 100) represents its much more nebulous coming-of-age. It is the period, however, when hierarchical relationships associated with initial urbanization became entrenched. There is archaeological evidence that a hereditary nobility developed at various urban centers of the period, and the political landscape was transformed through new urban-rural relations that established centers of power and tiered settlement hierarchies associated with these (Carballo 2016; Joyce 2009). Religion was central to all of these transformations. As urban centers and their leaders attracted people through ritual spectacles and the creation of widely shared, temporally enduring conceptualizations of deities, a sacred landscape, and the human actions appropriate to mediating these, important elements of a cultural logic of inclusion and exclusion, collectivity and inequality, became crystalized. Pervasive patterns of the first millennium B.C. established a macroregional template for later pulses of urbanism that included an east-west oriented temple-plaza (and occasionally ballcourt) arrangement, the widespread appearance of at least two major deities, and a symbolic grammar for ritual offerings.” §REF§ (Carballo 2018, 125-126) Carballo, David M. 2018. ‘Religion, urbanism, and inequality in ancient central Mexico’. In Religion and Politics in the Ancient Americas. Edited by Sarah B. Barber and Arthur A. Joyce. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BE6HQPIJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: BE6HQPIJ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 319, "polity": { "id": 7, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_2", "long_name": "Initial Formative Basin of Mexico", "start_year": -2000, "end_year": -1201 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“In the Late Archaic and Early Formative periods (7000–1500 BC), technological breakthroughs occur in several cultural areas, including advances in pottery and the domestication of plants, which led to horticulture and ultimately agriculture. The archaeologist David Freidel (1995: 3–9) has proposed that shamans may have played a major role in achieving plant domestication, through their function as healers who collected medicinal plants. During this same dynamic period, permanent villages developed and larger populations became more settled than in the earlier Paleolithic and Early Archaic periods. Plant domestication and its metaphysical dimensions became centered on maize, beans, and squash, and these were added to shamans’ ceremonies and ritual practices. These new and evolving rituals focused on agricultural fecundity, rain making, the successful growth of plants, and greater agricultural yields. This new ritual focus did not replace the shamanic practices of the previous age; rather, it incorporated the hallowed rituals of ancestral contact and transformation into the new, complementary, agriculturally focused ritual cycles. The practitioners responsible for conducting and performing these also cyclically driven ritual practices for rain and agriculture fertility functioned fully as priests. Unlike the earlier part-time shamans, priests are full-time religious specialists who access the supernatural indirectly by focusing their religious practice on precisely conducted repetitive or formulaic rituals of renewal (Hultkrantz 1963).” §REF§ (Reilly III 2012, 766) Reilly III, F. Kent. 2012. ‘Mesoamerican Religious Beliefs: The Practices and Practitioners’. In The Oxford handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Christopher A. Pool. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/K6DPAVSS\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: K6DPAVSS </b></a> §REF§ “By the beginning of the Initial Formative period, around 2000 BC, maize, squash, and several other food crops had been domesticated, and settled villages supported by varying mixes of agricultural products and wild resources sprang up across Mesoamerica over the next thousand years. The resulting ability to intensify and control access to staples and ceremonial foods alike aided the subsequent development of social inequalities and political hierarchies.” §REF§ (Pool 2012, 171) Pool, Christopher A. 2012. ‘The Formation of Complex Societies in Mesoamerica’. In The Oxford handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Christopher A. Pool. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KISGMGK6\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: KISGMGK6 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 320, "polity": { "id": 6, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_1", "long_name": "Archaic Basin of Mexico", "start_year": -6000, "end_year": -2001 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“In the Late Archaic and Early Formative periods (7000–1500 BC), technological breakthroughs occur in several cultural areas, including advances in pottery and the domestication of plants, which led to horticulture and ultimately agriculture. The archaeologist David Freidel (1995: 3–9) has proposed that shamans may have played a major role in achieving plant domestication, through their function as healers who collected medicinal plants. During this same dynamic period, permanent villages developed and larger populations became more settled than in the earlier Paleolithic and Early Archaic periods. Plant domestication and its metaphysical dimensions became centered on maize, beans, and squash, and these were added to shamans’ ceremonies and ritual practices. These new and evolving rituals focused on agricultural fecundity, rain making, the successful growth of plants, and greater agricultural yields. This new ritual focus did not replace the shamanic practices of the previous age; rather, it incorporated the hallowed rituals of ancestral contact and transformation into the new, complementary, agriculturally focused ritual cycles. The practitioners responsible for conducting and performing these also cyclically driven ritual practices for rain and agriculture fertility functioned fully as priests. Unlike the earlier part-time shamans, priests are full-time religious specialists who access the supernatural indirectly by focusing their religious practice on precisely conducted repetitive or formulaic rituals of renewal (Hultkrantz 1963).” §REF§ (Reilly III 2012, 766) Reilly III, F. Kent. 2012. ‘Mesoamerican Religious Beliefs: The Practices and Practitioners’. In The Oxford handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Christopher A. Pool. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/K6DPAVSS\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: K6DPAVSS </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 321, "polity": { "id": 15, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_10", "long_name": "Middle Postclassic Basin of Mexico", "start_year": 1200, "end_year": 1426 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“The fundamental unit of Aztec political organization during the Postclassic period was the altepetl, the native independent state found in the Basin of Mexico and Morelos. Its structure is best described as consisting of four elements: a dynastic ruler (tlatoani), a patron deity, a market, and multiple ranked social groups, the tlaxilacaltin (García Sánchez 2005:84; Hodge 1991, 1996; Lockhart 1992:14–16, 185; Monzón Estrada 1949:57; Schroeder 1991:144–145, 1994, Smith 2003:148, 2008:89; van Zantwijk 1985; Williams 1991). […]Social integration was also reinforced through participation in large-scale rituals conducted in the central plaza and associated central temple.” §REF§ (Fargher et al. 2017, 145-146) Fargher, Lane F., Blanton, Richard E. and Heredia Espinoza, Verenice Y. 2017. ‘Aztec State-Making, Politics and Empire: The Triple Alliance’. In The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría,. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/6XR4DBRE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 6XR4DBRE </b></a> §REF§ The following quote refers to similarities between Teotihuacan and the Postclassic altepetl, in particular between the Teotihuacan apartment compound and the tlaxilacalli. “In both, a central temple or shrine in the public space functioned to reinforce a shared group identity involving the veneration of a patron deity or group ancestors (Calnek 1976:297; Carrasco Pizana 1971a:33; Manzanilla 1996; Séjourné 1966; Sempowski 1994; Smith 2008; Storey 1991). Interestingly, archaeological research suggests that venerated ancestors were exhumed and carried as relics (bundles) when corporate groups migrated out of Teotihuacan, and Postclassic/Colonial codices depict migrating Nahua tlaxilacaltin carrying bundles that contained their deities or deified ancestors (Manzanilla 2002:62; van Zantwijk 1985:38, Figure 3.1, 103, Figure 5.2). Ethnohistoric sources indicate that tlaxilacalli members developed a shared religious identity around their patron deity and participated in tlaxilacalli- wide rituals (Lockart 1992:142–163, 203–204; Reyes García 1996:44; Smith 2003:229–233, 2008:170–172).” §REF§ (Fargher et al. 2017, 147) Fargher, Lane F., Blanton, Richard E. and Heredia Espinoza, Verenice Y. 2017. ‘Aztec State-Making, Politics and Empire: The Triple Alliance’. In The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/6XR4DBRE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 6XR4DBRE </b></a> §REF§ “Within archaeology, variability in Aztec religion along the axes of political strategy and socio-spatial context was most productively investigated by Brumfiel (2001, 2006, 2011). Her research illustrated the different goals and foci of practitioners of state religion operating within urban capitals, such as Tenochtitlan, and the religion of imperial subjects and commoners practiced in rural centers and households at Xaltocan and elsewhere (see also De Lucia 2014) Brumfiel problematized the study of Aztec religion by noting the prevailing focus on the official transcript of Mexica-Aztec state religion, and showing how elements such as sacrificial rites and martial and solar themes (both encapsulated in the imperial patron deity, Huitzilopochtli) were absent or minimized in hinterland, commoner, and domestic settings, where rituals were instead overwhelmingly oriented toward the agricultural cycle and human life cycle. Agricultural cycles and fertility themes were also central to the public rituals of urban state religion, but Brumfiel (2001:308) noted the dual structure of Middle to Late Postclassic (A.D. 1250–1519) religion allowed for shifts in foci depending on the historical contingencies of political and social hierarchies.” §REF§ (Carballo 2018, 122) Carballo, David M. 2018. ‘Religion, urbanism, and inequality in ancient central Mexico’. In Religion and Politics in the Ancient Americas. Edited by Sarah B. Barber and Arthur A. Joyce. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BE6HQPIJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: BE6HQPIJ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 322, "polity": { "id": 16, "name": "mx_aztec_emp", "long_name": "Aztec Empire", "start_year": 1427, "end_year": 1526 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“In Mexico-Tenochtitlan, although the tlahtoani was the supreme leader, he shared power with the cihuacoatl (“serpent woman”)— whom the Spanish called the “viceroy.” In the most general terms, the king associated with the Sun focused on “foreign policy” (particularly war), while the cihuacoatl—named after the goddess of the earth—was in charge of internal affairs. This dualism is reflected in the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, which was also a double building: the southern part was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the sun god of war, and the northern section to Tlaloc, god of the earth and rain (López Austin and López Luján 2009).” §REF§ (Olivier 2017, 580) Olivier, Guilhem. 2017. ‘Humans and Gods in Mexica Universe’. In The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Enrique Rodríquez-Alegría. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/GSNPXAIV\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: GSNPXAIV </b></a> §REF§ “Playing on the importance of security and glory to society, and combined with the gradual economic and military rise of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the Sacred Precinct articulated two basic functional complexes: the religious, derived from building a shrine to Huitzilopochtli in the center of the universe, and the political, shaped by the growing needs of the state. The ties between both complexes became so strong that today it is not possible to clearly distinguish between them in the ceremonial activities described in sixteenth century historical sources. Religion and politics were not only mutually dependent of each other, but both had blended together and become transformed in order to form the foundations of an ever expanding state. […] Each of the Coatepec construction phases symbolized, celebrated, and sanctified the addition of new tribute payers to the Mexica domain. Significantly, when the members of the excan tlatoloyan, or Triple Alliance—Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan—could not subjugate an independent polity (e.g., the unsuccessful campaign against the Purepecha of Michoacan), they postponed the building’s inauguration until a successful conquest was achieved. This helps us understand why the archaeological ruins of Coatepec, located in the historic center of Mexico City, provide evidence for at least 13 total or partial expansion phases during just 130 years (Figure 43.5).” §REF§ (López Austin & López Luján 2017, 608-610) López Austin, Alfredo and Leonardo López Luján. 2017. ‘State Ritual and Religion in the Sacred Precinct of Tenochtitlan’. In The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs. Edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Enrique Rodríquez-Alegría. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8NZ5DPEN\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 8NZ5DPEN </b></a> §REF§ “The basic orientation of Aztec monthly rituals toward the agricultural cycle is somewhat surprising. Tenochtitlan was, after all, a conquest-based urban capital, apparently insulated from rural concerns with rain, fertility, and harvests. But when harvests are small, peasants meet their own subsistence needs first, and even slightly substandard harvests create noticeable shortages of marketed food. In times of famine, people who are detached from the land suffer the most (Hicks 1987; Mellor and Gavian 1987: 540). Basic subsistence issues were reflected in ritual activities of Tenochtitlan's households. Household ritual activity allowed an annual round that paralleled state ritual without actually being a part of it. Household ritual focused on honouring rain and fertility gods; households celebrated warfare only when household members offered captured enemy soldiers for sacrifice, an act recognized by feasting in the warrior's honor. Calpullis were more active participants in state rituals, but their activities, too, mostly supported the monthly rituals of the agricultural year. Like households, the calpullis were most commonly drawn into the celebration of warfare when their members offered enemy soldiers for sacrifice. However, both ethnohistoric and archaeological data from Tenochtitlan suggest that Aztec rulers did target a specific group for ideological indoctrination: namely, the young, male population of Tenochtitlan” §REF§ (Brumfiel 2001, 301) Brumfiel, Elisabeth M. 2001. ‘Aztec hearts and minds: Religion and State in the Aztec Empire’. In Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History. Edited by Susan E. Alcock et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QSENKW96\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: QSENKW96 </b></a> §REF§ “The social organization of the Aztecs was characterized by central dualisms that could create tensions or promote harmony when manipulated by leaders or challenged by others, and these dualisms were generated and mediated through religion (van Zantwijk 1985:94–95). One is exemplified in the dual structure of Tenochtitlan’s Templo Mayor (Figure 6.2a), and other Postclassic twin temples called huey teocalli (“great god’s house”) in Nahuatl. At Tenochtitlan, this dual structu re accommodated both the symbolism of an Altepetl (“Water Mountain”) presided over by Tlaloc (associated with rain and fertility), and of Coatepec (“Serpent Mountain”) presided over by Huitzilopochtli (associated with the sun, war, and the Mexica as an ethnic group) (López Austin and López Luján 2009; Matos Moctezuma 1988). This coupling presents an essential symbolic dualism between water and fire – one seen as so conflicted and irreconcilably opposed that it stood for war.” §REF§ (Carballo 2018, 122-123) Carballo, David M. 2018. ‘Religion, urbanism, and inequality in ancient central Mexico’. In Religion and Politics in the Ancient Americas. Edited by Sarah B. Barber and Arthur A. Joyce. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BE6HQPIJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: BE6HQPIJ </b></a> §REF§ “Early states are comprised of state and local level religions that are related dialectically. The state religion sanctifies the legitimacy of state government and is a source of real and symbolic power that the ruling class manipulates to impose its values on all citizens. Local religions validate structures and organizations with which they are associated. Both may be polytheistic but local level polytheism may harbor theologies that provide justification for local organizations that may threaten state authority. Polytheism is a manifestation of inchoateness against which the state reacts Aztec religion comprised state and local polytheism (Bray 1977:393). This condition persisted despite attempts by the state to overcome it. State priests attempted to reduce state and local polytheism and replace or integrate local calpulli and kin based religions with the state religion. Yet some of these activities promoted polytheism, for the state had a policy of incorporating the major deities of conquered peoples into its pantheon (Caso 1937:8). While this welded subject peoples into the Aztec state and empire, it also created an increasingly chaotic state pantheon.” §REF§ (Kurtz 1984, 308-309) Kurtz, Donald V. 1984. ‘Strategies of Legitimation and the Aztec State’. In Ethnology. Vol. 23:4. Pp. 301-304. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/B6CF38TF\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: B6CF38TF </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 323, "polity": { "id": 14, "name": "mx_toltec", "long_name": "Toltecs", "start_year": 900, "end_year": 1199 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“The apparently unusual phenomenon of partly theocratic rule ostensibly continuing during a period of increased centralization and militarism is not therefore necessarily an isolated one. The evidence for the prevalence of such a state of affairs in Tollan is certainly plentiful. To take only one source, the Andes de Cuauhtitldn call Quetzalcoatl both priest and king. Though enjoying certain clearly temporal functions, he is also addressed as \"my son and priest, Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl.\" Quauhtli, who established himself as Quetzalcoatl's substitute and likeness, is a tlenamacac, or sahumador, and therefore also of priestly rank. Sahagun is equally at pains to stress the sacerdotal role of Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl, whereas the Memorial Breve of Chimalpain and the Historia de los Mexicanos on the contrary treat him as a temporal ruler. Notwithstanding, Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl, according to most accounts, is not merely a king, but also a priest and the personification of a god.” […] “It has already been stressed that a distinction constantly has to be maintained between the heavenly and earthly Tollan. It would seem that Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl is likewise portrayed on two different planes, on the one hand the eternal and ethereal hero and on the other the human ruler who governed Tollan, perhaps alone, but more probably with other rulers, as will shortly be seen. One must think not in terms of a single and unified Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl but of several concepts concentrated in one being or succession of beings; not only does one encounter the contrasting notions of god and mortal, but in addition the tired old man, the bold warrior, and even the little child” […] “In conclusion, it may again be stressed that reasonable evidence exists of plural rule in Tollan. Indications are also offered by the sources of a regime part secular and part theocratic. In this respect Tollan may have represented an intermediate stage between the governments of Teotihuacan and of Tenochtitlan. It seems, moreover, probable that a series of holders of the title Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl played a leading part in the collective ordering of the state, even if their precise role is not absolutely clear.” §REF§ (Davies 1977, 287-288, 291, 295) Davies, Nigel. 1977. The Toltecs: Until the fall of Tula. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/3KTP86GD\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 3KTP86GD </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 324, "polity": { "id": 13, "name": "mx_basin_of_mexico_8", "long_name": "Epiclassic Basin of Mexico", "start_year": 650, "end_year": 899 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 290, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesoamerican Religions", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": "The label “Mesoamerican Religions” is broadly accurate: though some practices and beliefs varied from group to group, area to area, and period to period, the overall system of religious practices and beliefs was fundamentally the same across the region and during much of the timeline under consideration. Moreover, it was an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one, meaning that any variations would not have been considered as significantly distinct. However, it is also worth noting that there was no true Mesoamerican equivalent to the word or indeed the concept of “religion”. Not only that, but there are several issues related to religious beliefs and practices that are very difficult to reconstruct based on the available sources.§REF§summary of Jesper Nielsen’s pers. comm. to Enrico Cioni via Zoom conversation, May 10 2024. Summary approved by Jesper Nielsen via email on May 14, 2024.§REF§", "description": "“Two recent works have posited similar theories that suggest that a panMesoamerican cult that linked elites in webs of exchange and interaction during the Postclassic period began during the Late Classic at sites like Xochicalco and Cacaxtla (López Austin and López Luján 2000; Ringle, et al. 1998). Both models place the Feathered Serpent at the center of a pan-Mesoamerican cult, based on the widespread veneration and strength of cults devoted to Quetzalcoatl during the Late Postclassic period. […] Shared religion in Late Classic Central Mexico involved multiple deities, and was by no means uniform from polity to polity. While in some instances the fusion of foreign gods into local cults was an organic process, in others it was likely a deliberate ideological maneuver to reify cosmopolitan identities and facilitate cultural and economic interactions. Rather than an overarching cult related to a single deity, elites and commoners alike from different polities were linked through several interrelated cults devoted to various deities. Regional deities and smaller cults undoubtedly became amalgamated with those of other polities or regions through cultural and economic interaction. The integration of religious cults from various regions within Mesoamerica was an ongoing process as polities sought to expand their economic networks, with Teotihuacan and Tula playing key roles during the Classic and Early Postclassic periods, respectively. This process was perhaps accelerated during the Late Classic period, as sites like Xochicalco and Cacaxtla struggled to define themselves as regional superpowers with far-reaching foreign ties. The roots of the shared religion and art styles during the Late Postclassic period can be found in the efforts of Late Classic sites to foster allegiances with foreign powers, and the study of Late Classic deity cults can demonstrate the complexity local variability of exchange networks between sites and across regions.” […] “Human sacrifice, including several distinct forms such as decapitation, display of dismembered body parts, carving skeletal trophies, flaying, and heart sacrifice, was not a Late Classic innovation, nor was it demonstrably introduced to the Maya region from Central Mexico, or into Central Mexico from the northern frontier of Mesoamerica. Rituals involving human sacrifice such as the ballgame and new fire ceremonies do, however, seem to coalesce during the Late Classic period, tying together various strands from across Mesoamerica and becoming more codified into forms that were brought to full term during the Early and Late Postclassic periods. Iconic forms such as the chacmool, a sacrificial altar widely used during the Postclassic, may have roots in the Late Classic, and makes use of symbolism found in both the Maya region and Central Mexico. Sacrificial imagery from the Late Classic period differs from that of later periods in that it appears less “iconic” and institutionalized, and seems to have the aim of evoking a more visceral reaction from the viewer. This could represent anxieties concerning political instability among competing city-states. On a socio-political level, the need for sacrifice and display of violence is often salient in times of crisis, accompanying the need to restore a perceived social and ideological order (Burkert 1983; Swenson 2014; Wolf 1999).” §REF§ (Turner 2015, 109-110, 208) Turner, Andrew David. 2015. Cultures at the Crossroads: Art, Religion, and Interregional Interaction in Central Mexico, AD 600-900. PhD Dissertation. Riverside: University of California. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZZ5ACP74\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZZ5ACP74 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 325, "polity": { "id": 508, "name": "ir_ak_koyunlu", "long_name": "Ak Koyunlu", "start_year": 1339, "end_year": 1501 }, "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 Aq-Qoyunlu were Sunni Muslims, but many of the Armenians and Kurds that came under their control were Christian.” §REF§ (Stokes 2009, 31) Stokes, James. 2009. ‘Aq-Qoyunlu’. In Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East. New York: Facts on File. Seshat URL:<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/IW92F692\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: IW92F692 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 326, "polity": { "id": 500, "name": "ir_elam_6", "long_name": "Elam - Igihalkid Period", "start_year": -1399, "end_year": -1200 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 262, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Elamite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“ Šilhak-Inšušinak mentions the rulers of the Igihalkid dynasty who preceded him in (re-)construction works on the Inšušinak temple (cf. D. POTTS [2004], p. 205) among whom Untaš-Napiriša, son of Humbanumena.” §REF§ Gorris, E. 2020. When God is forgotten… THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF THE THEOPHORIC ELEMENT HU (M) BAN IN ELAMITE AND MESOPOTAMIAN ONOMASTICS. Les Études classiques 88: 163-180. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9ATVZD66\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 9ATVZD66 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 327, "polity": { "id": 374, "name": "ir_safavid_emp", "long_name": "Safavid Empire", "start_year": 1501, "end_year": 1722 }, "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": "This quote specifically refers to Twelver Shi'ism.\r\n\r\n\"The Safavid period marks an obvious watershed in the religious history of Iran in that it witnesses the elevation of Twelver Shi'ism to the position of state religion and the practical fusion of Iran and Shi'ism into a single religio-national entity.\" §REF§Algar, H. 1991. Religious forces in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Iran. In Avery, P., G.R.G. Hambly and C. Melville (eds) \"The Cambridge History of Iran\" pp. 705-729. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.§REF§" }, { "id": 328, "polity": { "id": 501, "name": "ir_elam_7", "long_name": "Elam - Shutrukid Period", "start_year": -1199, "end_year": -1100 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 262, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Elamite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "‘\" The following quote suggests that Shutruk-Nakhunte, second King of the Shutrukid Dynasty, was devoted to the gods of the Elamite Religion: “\"I am Shutruk-Nahhunte, son of Hallutush-Inshushinak, beloved servant of the god Inshushinak, king of Anshan and Susa, who has enlarged the kingdom, who takes care of the lands of Elam, the lord of the land of Elam. When the god Inshushinak gave me the order, I defeated Sippar. I took the stele of Naram-Sin and carried it off, bringing it to the land of Elam. For Inshushinak, my god, I set it as an offering.” §REF§ Mieroop, Marc Van De (2015). A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC. John Wiley & Sons. p. 199. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9H88VQ7A\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 9H88VQ7A </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 329, "polity": { "id": 499, "name": "ir_elam_5", "long_name": "Elam - Kidinuid Period", "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": 262, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Elamite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "The following quote depicts Kidinu and Tepti-ahar (Kings of the Kidinuid Dynasty) as ‘servants’ of the Elamite god Kirmasir. “Kidinu and Tepti-ahar styled themselves “servant of Kirmašir” (Steve, Gasche, and De Meyer, p. 92; Herrero, 1976, p. 104). §REF§ Vallat, F. 2011. ELAM VI. Elamite Religion. ‘’Encyclopedia Iranica’’, online edition, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/elam-vi (accessed 2 August 2016)\" Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/3ACKKUDJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 3ACKKUDJ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 330, "polity": { "id": 128, "name": "ir_sassanid_emp_1", "long_name": "Sasanid Empire I", "start_year": 205, "end_year": 487 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 28, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Zoroastrianism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Through Ardashir and the family of Sasn, Zoroastrianism was made the official religion of the empire.” §REF§ (Daryaee 2014, ??) Touraj Daryaee 2014. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. London, England: I.B. Tauris. Seshat ULR: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5ETDRZZE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5ETDRZZE </b></a> §REF§ “We may even see Ardashir and the religion which he proclaimed to be the official religion of the empire as a deviation from the traditions(s) of Zoroastrianism, hence a heresy. That is, the Zoroastrian religion he proclaimed as “orthodoxy” did not appear to have been accepted by all. This new tradition which the Sasanian invented was adopted by the Sassian states and priests and the Zoroastrians were made to conform to it.” §REF§ (Daryaee 2014, 71) Touraj Daryaee 2014. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. London, England: I.B. Tauris. Seshat ULR: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5ETDRZZE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5ETDRZZE </b></a> §REF§ “[i]n the late third century CE.There may have been religious doctrinal differences between Zoroastrian schools of thought if such schools existed, since Kerdir states that he put down heresies and tried to put all the different Mazdean thinkers in line with the official state religion: “them (heretics) I punished, and I tormented them until I made them better”.” §REF§ (Daryaee 2014, 77) Touraj Daryaee 2014. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. London, England: I.B. Tauris. Seshat ULR: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5ETDRZZE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5ETDRZZE </b></a> §REF§ “In all of his documents Šāpur refers to himself as mzdysn (‘Mazda-worshipping’).” §REF§ (Shahbazi 2002) Shapur Shahbazi, “ŠĀPUR I: History,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2002, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/shapur-i (accessed on 24 August 2017). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/AXUR465Q\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: AXUR465Q </b></a> §REF§ “The Magus Kartir tells us that Šāpur showed favor towards Zoroastrians and allowed their priests to accompany his army on his Roman campaigns. But his devotion did not induce him to elevate Zoroastrianism as the only religion of the empire, and there is no evidence that an organized state church existed during his time.” §REF§ (Shahbazi 2002) Shapur Shahbazi, “ŠĀPUR I: History,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2002, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/shapur-i (accessed on 24 August 2017). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/AXUR465Q\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: AXUR465Q </b></a> §REF§ “We should also say something about the nature of “official” doctrinal Zoroastrianism that was upheld in the Sasanian period. The Middle Persian sources, which are the product of priestly tradition, lead us to believe that the path to the Zoroastrian religion was one (ra¯h ı ¯ de¯n e¯k) and that the priests tied to the state were its representatives. That this religion was connected to the state and that they were deemed inseparable is mentioned in a famous passage in the De¯nkard (De¯nkard Madan edition 470.7):Ha d xwada yı h den ud de n xwada yı h . . . pad awe sa n xwada yı h abar de n ud de¯n abar xwada¯yvh winna¯rdagı¯h Know that kingship is religion and religion is kingship . . . for them kingship is arranged based on religion and religion based on kingship.Even if we do not have much information about the Zoroastrian sects, however, the Zurvanite and monotheistic forms of Zoroastrianism were present.” §REF§ (Daryaee 2014, 80) Touraj Daryaee 2014. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. London, England: I.B. Tauris. Seshat ULR: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5ETDRZZE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5ETDRZZE </b></a> §REF§ “It is all to east to take the Great Kings at their word as they championed the doctrines of Zoroastrianism in their political pronouncements especially as some of them also persecuted Christianity. Whether or not such sentiments were genuine, a closer analysis of the evidence suggests a more pragmatic royal use of religion. The political realities on the ground were more often the deciding factor in how the kings related to the religious sectors of Sasanian society. This state of affairs sometimes set the kings against the Zoroastrian clerics, whose agendas were not always in alignment, and it explains why Christian persecutions were usually motived more by politics than doctrine. Moreover, this dynamic also explains the prominence of the Christian church in the later Sasanian period as kings employed it as a base of support, much as they had the Zoroastrian hierarchy.” […] “One basic fact has long been accepted: although Zoroastrianism was prominent in the Sasanian Empire, it was in fact a vast and diverse empire of many traditions existing in a coherent, if not always harmonious, system. The fortunes of these traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, Manichaeism, Buddhism and so on, fluctuated with the temperatures and policies of each Shahanshah and, to a lesser extent, other entities such as powerful Zoroastrian molads.” §REF§ (Patterson 2017:181; 182) Patterson, Lee E. 2017. ‘Minority Religions in the Sasanian Empire: Supression, Integration and Relations with Rome.’ In Sasanian Persia: Between Rome and the Steppes of Eurasia. Edited by Eberhard W. Sauer. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5JDM2MSE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 5JDM2MSE </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 331, "polity": { "id": 505, "name": "ir_neo_elam_3", "long_name": "Elam III", "start_year": -612, "end_year": -539 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 262, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Elamite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": null }, { "id": 332, "polity": { "id": 504, "name": "ir_neo_elam_2", "long_name": "Elam II", "start_year": -743, "end_year": -647 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 262, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Elamite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": null }, { "id": 333, "polity": { "id": 507, "name": "ir_elymais_2", "long_name": "Elymais II", "start_year": 25, "end_year": 215 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 249, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Mesopotamian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "‘\" “Zoroastrianism seems to have encountered a rigid barrier in the mountainous area of Elymais, which was decidedly within the Semitic Mesopotamian sphere of influence.” §REF§ Salaris, D. (2014). Space and rite in Elymais: Considerations on Elymaean religious Architecture and rock reliefs during the Arsacid Period (Master's thesis, University of Sydney.). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/IEZT7HFX\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: IEZT7HFX </b></a> §REF§ \"After these considerations, the tetrastyle temple of Bard-e Neshandeh—definitively removed from the list of places of Zoroastrian worship (Schippmann 1971: 498)—may be confidently interpreted as a cult place based on a proficient integration between Mesopotamian and Iranian architectural models and dedicated to local deities (Fig. 15).\"§REF§ Salaris, D. (2017). A Case of Religious Architecture in Elymais: The Tetrastyle Temple of Bard-e Neshandeh, Annali Sezione Orientale, 77(1-2), 134-180. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/24685631-12340029 Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/2WMU83FE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 2WMU83FE </b></a>§REF§ \"But the hostility shown by the Elymaeans to the Achaemenid kings, as recorded by Nearchus, and the fact that the Elymaeans worshipped non-Iranian gods would seem to suggest that the people of Elymais were descendants of the traditional Elamite inhabitants of these regions. A comparative study of Elymaean religious iconography supports the view that the Elymaeans worshipped Semitic gods of Babylon and Assyria, possibly in syncretization with traditional Elamite deities (Hansman, 1985, pp. 229-46).\" §REF§ Hansman 1998. Elymais. Encyclopedia Iranica Online. Available at https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/elymais (last consulted February 6, 2023). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/C2GQDMMV\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: C2GQDMMV </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 334, "polity": { "id": 503, "name": "ir_neo_elam_1", "long_name": "Elam I", "start_year": -900, "end_year": -744 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 262, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Elamite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": null }, { "id": 335, "polity": { "id": 496, "name": "ir_elam_2", "long_name": "Elam - Shimashki Period", "start_year": -2028, "end_year": -1940 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 262, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Elamite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "‘’' Elamite kings sponsored the construction of Elamite temples. “ The scribes of Shilkhak-In-Shushinak, late in the millennium, compiled lists of ancestors. These lists were found at Susa inscribed on a stele and two door sockets and 4 were repeated in a series of bricks found in the In-Shushinak temple. The bricks purport to record the various rulers who built in the temple precinct of In-Shushinak at Susa and preserve the same names' found in the lists of ancestors . Of the twelve kings named in the early king list only Kindattu , Indattu I , his son, Tan-Rukhuratir, and Indattu II, the son of Tan-Rukhuratir, are mentioned in the later lists of ancestors.” §REF§ Carter, E. F. (1971). ELAM IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM BC: THE ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Chicago). Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/IDBMCHHA\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: IDBMCHHA </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 336, "polity": { "id": 107, "name": "ir_achaemenid_emp", "long_name": "Achaemenid Empire", "start_year": -550, "end_year": -331 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 28, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Zoroastrianism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\" Such terminology in the Old Persian inscriptions corresponding to key terms in the Avesta shows beyond doubt that the Achaemenid rulers are well versed in the tenets of Zoroastrianism; but their inscriptions also make it clear that Zoroastrian dualism between truth and lie fits excellently for a “political” use of Zoroastrianism by the rulers to characterize their political fiends as enemies of religion.\" §REF§(Hutter 2020: 1286) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8W97BZBH\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 8W97BZBH </b></a>.§REF§" }, { "id": 337, "polity": { "id": 476, "name": "iq_akkad_emp", "long_name": "Akkadian Empire", "start_year": -2270, "end_year": -2083 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 266, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Akkadian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "\" Although the relationship between the king and the temples must at times have been delicate to work out, they had strong mutual interests and shared a hierarchical view of the world: gods were like rulers and rulers were like gods, exercising their powers in the same ways over the same countryside. Rulers paid homage to the gods and credited them with their successes, lavishing their households with gifts, endowments, and projects. A strong and effective ruler enjoyed divine favor and requited that by sharing the fruits of his success with the gods who had singled him out to rule.\" §REF§(2015: 42) Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/L2D5SHNN\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: L2D5SHNN </b></a>§REF§" }, { "id": 338, "polity": { "id": 131, "name": "sy_umayyad_cal", "long_name": "Umayyad Caliphate", "start_year": 661, "end_year": 750 }, "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 period 661–750 AD was a crucial one for the history of Islam and the Middle East. The territories conquered by the Muslims in the Middle East, north Africa and Spain were ruled from Syria by a succession of caliphs belonging to the Umayyad family, the first caliphal dynasty to emerge in the history of Islam. Under their rule the region began a process of transformation which eventually led to the emergence of Islam, both as a religion and as a culture, in its classical form.” §REF§(Hawting 1986, 1) Hawting, G.R. 2000. The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N77JAM6S\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: N77JAM6S </b></a> §REF§ “Shiism took a different path. After Ali’s death, the caliphate became the possession of dynasties- first the Umayyads and later the Abbasids. The Shia rejected the authority of the caliphs in Damascus and Baghdad and continued to argue that the rightful leaders of Islam could only come from the marriage between Ali and Fatima, Muhammad’s daughter.” […] “The Shia view became crystallized at the siege and battle of Karbala in 680 C.E., when soldiers of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid I, massacred Ali’s son Husayn along with seventy-two of his companions and family members (that number has since symbolized martyrdom). Husayn’s refusal to the legitimacy of the Umayyad caliphate had been a stance that he shared with the people of Kufa, Ali’s capital.” §REF§ (Nasr 2006:40) Nasr, Vali. 2006. The Shia Revival. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/JWIZV4JX\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: JWIZV4JX </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 339, "polity": { "id": 132, "name": "iq_abbasid_cal_1", "long_name": "Abbasid Caliphate I", "start_year": 750, "end_year": 946 }, "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": "“Once in power, the Abbasids embraced the Sunni faith and disavowed any support for Shia beliefs.\"§REF§ (Syad, Akhtar and Usmani 2011, 51) Syad, Muzaffar Husain, Syed Saud Akhtar, and B.D. Usmani, eds. 2011. Concise History of Islam. New Delhi: Vij Books India. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/GN8IEET3\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: GN8IEET3 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 340, "polity": { "id": 108, "name": "ir_seleucid_emp", "long_name": "Seleucid Empire", "start_year": -312, "end_year": -63 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 35, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Ancient Greek Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Epigraphic and numismatic evidence indicates that Antiochus I, soon after he became sole ruler of the empire, decided to endorse officially the cult of the Greek god Apollo as ancestor and patron of the Seleucid dynasty. A decree found at Ilium in Asia Minor in honor of Antiochus just after his accession hails Apollo as ancestor of the royal family.’ […] Seleucid propaganda presented Apollo as the father of Seleucus I and ancestor of the dynasty. Apollo and Artemis as divine couple were both considered ancestors of the Seleucids. The temple of Apollo and Artemis at Daphne, near Antioch in Syria, was founded by Seleucus I.” §REF§ (Paul-Alain Beaulieu 2014, 27) Paul-Alain Beaulieu. 2014. ‘Nabû and Apollo: The Two Faces of Seleucid Religious Policy’. In Orient und Okzident in Hellenistischer Zeit. Edited by Friedhelm Hoffman and Karen Stella Schmidt. Vaterstetten: Patrick Brose. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/H4DVZ846\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: H4DVZ846 </b></a> §REF§ “Various tales were told linking Apollo to the Seleucid House. In particular, Apollo of Didyma was said to have foretold both Seleucus Nicator’s kingship and his death. There was in addition a story relating to Apollo as the divine father of Seleucus […] The kings now drew their legitimacy from Seleucus I and his divine right to rule Asia as relayed by the priests at Didyma. […] Apollo was dominant as the dynasty’s patron deity par excellence […].” §REF§ (Wright 2005, 69, 71) Wright, Nicholas L. 2005. ‘Seleucid Royal Cult, Indigenous Religious Traditions, and Radiate Crowns: The Numismatic Evidence.’ Mediterranean Archaeology. Vol. 18. Pp 67-82. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7ZRSTHB8\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7ZRSTHB8 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 341, "polity": { "id": 106, "name": "iq_neo_assyrian_emp", "long_name": "Neo-Assyrian Empire", "start_year": -911, "end_year": -612 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 116, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Assyrian Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The place of the chief Assyrian god Ashur in Neo-Assyrian imperial ideology, and within the ambit of “heroic priority,” cannot be underestimated. Assyria’s rulers were perceived to be the vice-regents and field commanders of Ashur, an extension of his force and his will. Ancient titles of the Assyrian king that continued in use during the Neo-Assyrian period included šangû (priest) and iššakku (vice-regent) of Ashur. An Assyrian king’s decisions and actions were necessarily legitimate because he was seen to have the a priori approval of Ashur (and, by extension, lesser Assyrian deities such as Enlil, Ninurta, Ishtar and Ninlil); that the king was on the throne signified that he had been deemed fit to hold that office by Ashur. Equally, his victories on the battlefield were a sign of divine favour. Indeed, when an Assyrian king assumed the throne, the officiating priest would publicly proclaim the kingship not of the man but rather of the god, Ashur. In the Assyrian ideology, Ashur was, quite simply, universal ruler in the most literal sense. This finds expression in two motifs of wider Mesopotamian mythology: 1) the Tablet of Destinies (tụ ppi šīmāti) which, as the name suggests allowed the holder to exercise control over fate; and 2) the cosmic “bonds,” allowing the possessor to control the physical cosmos. In the Assyrian conception, Ashur was in possession of both, hence exercising cosmic kingship. This is illustrated by a text stating that Ashur holds the “cosmic bond of heaven and the underworld” and describing Ashur’s depiction on the Tablet of Destinies, presumably in the form of a seal.” §REF§ (Miller 2009, 132-133) Miller, Daniel R. 2009. ‘Objectives and Consequences of the Neo-Assyrian Imperial Exercise.’ Religion & Theology. Vol 16 (3-4): 124–149. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/F4NC563H\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: F4NC563H </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 342, "polity": { "id": 509, "name": "ir_qajar_dyn", "long_name": "Qajar Dynasty", "start_year": 1794, "end_year": 1925 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 270, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Twelver Shia Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The principal religious identity of the majority of Iranians, before, during and since the Qajar period, has consisted of a devotion (of varying intensity in different elements of the population) to Twelver (Ithna ‘Ashad) Shi’ism.” §REF§ (Gleave 2005, 3). Gleave, Robert. 2005 ‘Religion and Society in Qajar Iran: An Introduction.’ In Religion and Society in Qajar Iran. Edited by Robert Gleave. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/EGMITHFH\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: EGMITHFH </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 343, "polity": { "id": 502, "name": "ir_elam_8", "long_name": "Elam - Crisis Period", "start_year": -1100, "end_year": -900 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 262, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Elamite Religion", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Another prerogative of the gods was to confer and protect kingship. Puzur-Insusinak spoke of “the year when Insusinak looked at him (and) gave to him the four regions” (Scheil, 1908, p. 9). It was also Insusinak who conferred kingship upon Humban-numena and the latter’s son Untas-Napirisa (König, nos. 4, no. 13), but it was Manzat who conferred it on Igi-halki (Steve, 1987, no. 2).” §REF§ Vallat, F. 2011. ELAM VI. Elamite Religion. ‘’Encyclopedia Iranica’’, online edition, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/elam-vi. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/3ACKKUDJ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 3ACKKUDJ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 344, "polity": { "id": 703, "name": "in_kalabhra_dyn", "long_name": "Kalabhra Dynasty", "start_year": 200, "end_year": 600 }, "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": "“According to Burton Stein, the Kalabhra interregnum may represent a strong bid by non-peasant (tribal) warriors for power over the fertile plains of Tamil region with support from the heterodox Indian religious tradition (Buddhism and Jainism). This may have led to persecution of the peasant and urban elites of the Brahmanical religious traditions (Hinduism), who then worked to remove the Kalabhras and retaliated against their persecutors after returning to power.” §REF§ (Srinivansan, 2021) Srinivasan, Raghavan. 2021. Rajaraja Chola: Interplay Between an Imperial Regime and Productive Forces of Society. Mumbai: Leadstart Publishing Pvt Ltd. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/UGD5HUFP\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: UGD5HUFP </b></a> §REF§ “This has led to the inference that the Kalabhra rulers may have ended grants to Hindu temples and persecuted the Brahmins, and supported Buddhism and Jainism during their rule.” §REF§ (Jankiraman, 2020) Jankiraman, M. 2020. Perspectives in Indian History: From the Origins to AD 1857. Chennai: Notion Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N3D88RXF\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: N3D88RXF </b></a> §REF§ “The earliest epigraphic evidence for the construction of [Jain] temples and monasteries in brick and mortar is found in the Pulankurichi inscription of King Centan Kurran (ca. 500 A.D.). There is now a general consensus that he was a Kalabhra ruler as the name Kurran does not occur in the Pantiya dynasty.” §REF§ (Umamaheshwari 2018, 48) Umamaheshwari, R. 2018. Reading History with the Tamil Jainas: A Study on Identity, Memory and Marginalisation. New Delhi: Springer. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/W5X9TKB9\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: W5X9TKB9 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 345, "polity": { "id": 703, "name": "in_kalabhra_dyn", "long_name": "Kalabhra Dynasty", "start_year": 200, "end_year": 600 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 2, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Jainism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“According to Burton Stein, the Kalabhra interregnum may represent a strong bid by non-peasant (tribal) warriors for power over the fertile plains of Tamil region with support from the heterodox Indian religious tradition (Buddhism and Jainism). This may have led to persecution of the peasant and urban elites of the Brahmanical religious traditions (Hinduism), who then worked to remove the Kalabhras and retaliated against their persecutors after returning to power.” §REF§ (Srinivansan, 2021) Srinivasan, Raghavan. 2021. Rajaraja Chola: Interplay Between an Imperial Regime and Productive Forces of Society. Mumbai: Leadstart Publishing Pvt Ltd. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/UGD5HUFP\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: UGD5HUFP </b></a> §REF§ “This has led to the inference that the Kalabhra rulers may have ended grants to Hindu temples and persecuted the Brahmins, and supported Buddhism and Jainism during their rule.” §REF§ (Jankiraman, 2020) Jankiraman, M. 2020. Perspectives in Indian History: From the Origins to AD 1857. Chennai: Notion Press. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N3D88RXF\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: N3D88RXF </b></a> §REF§ “The earliest epigraphic evidence for the construction of [Jain] temples and monasteries in brick and mortar is found in the Pulankurichi inscription of King Centan Kurran (ca. 500 A.D.). There is now a general consensus that he was a Kalabhra ruler as the name Kurran does not occur in the Pantiya dynasty.” §REF§ (Umamaheshwari 2018, 48) Umamaheshwari, R. 2018. Reading History with the Tamil Jainas: A Study on Identity, Memory and Marginalisation. New Delhi: Springer. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/W5X9TKB9\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: W5X9TKB9 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 346, "polity": { "id": 705, "name": "in_madurai_nayaks", "long_name": "Nayaks of Madurai", "start_year": 1529, "end_year": 1736 }, "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 Nayaks, though nominally under the rule of Delhi, continued the Chola and Vijayanagar practices of treating temples as surrogate courts. In fact, the temples of Madurai and Tanjore became veritable cities unto themselves. Their gates were rarely closed, and urban life moved in and out at will. The Meenakshi Sunderesvara Temple (1623-59) has two main shrines the larger one dedicated to Shiva the manifestation of Sunderesvara (‘the beautiful one’) and the smaller to his wife Meenakshi (‘the fish-eyed one’). Nonetheless, the temple’s main deity is Meenakshi, a local regional goddess important to the Tamils. Though she was married to Shiva after the rise of the bhakti cults, she maintained her dominance over the populace.” §REF§ (Ching et.al. 2017, 595) Ching, Francis D.K. 2017. A Global History of Architecture. London: Wiley. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/G432N7WK\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: G432N7WK </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 347, "polity": { "id": 698, "name": "in_cholas_1", "long_name": "Early Cholas", "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": 5, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Saivist Hinduism", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“Senganan [Kochchenganan], the Chola king famed in legends for his devotion to Siva figures as the victor in battle of Por against the Chera Kanaikkal Irumporai. The Chera king was imprisoned and later released. Senganan Chola is said to have built 70 fine temples of Shiva.” §REF§ (Agnihotri 1988, 350) Agnihotri, V.K. 1988. Indian History. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/PNX9XBJQ\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: PNX9XBJQ </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 348, "polity": { "id": 704, "name": "in_thanjavur_nayaks", "long_name": "Nayaks of Thanjavur", "start_year": 1532, "end_year": 1676 }, "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 rule of the nayaka in Thanjavur came to an end in the second half of the seventeenth century. Vijayaraghava Nayak (1634-73), son of Raghunatha Nayak, was the last ruler of the nayaka dynasty. On the whole, this period shaped the country both economically and culturally since most of these Hindu (Vaishnava) rulers had cultural, literary, and scientific interests and were comparatively tolerant and open in religious matters.” §REF§ (Lieban 2018, 54) Lieban, Heike. 2018. Cultural Encounters in India: The Local Co-workers of Tranquebar Mission, 18th to 19th Centuries. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/32CRNR7U\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 32CRNR7U </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 349, "polity": { "id": 702, "name": "in_pallava_emp_2", "long_name": "Late Pallava Empire", "start_year": 300, "end_year": 890 }, "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": "“Most Pallavas were Hindus, with the majority of the Pallava rulers belonging to the Brahmin branch, and worshipped Shiva and Vishnu as well as other Hindu deities.” §REF§ (Bush Trevino 2012, 46) Bush Travino, Macella. 2012. ‘The Pallava Dynasty’ In Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia and Africa: An Encyclopedia. Vol.4 Edited by Carolyn M. Elliot. Los Angeles: Sage. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4RPCX448\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 4RPCX448 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 350, "polity": { "id": 702, "name": "in_pallava_emp_2", "long_name": "Late Pallava Empire", "start_year": 300, "end_year": 890 }, "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": "“Most Pallavas were Hindus, with the majority of the Pallava rulers belonging to the Brahmin branch, and worshipped Shiva and Vishnu as well as other Hindu deities.” §REF§ (Bush Trevino 2012, 46) Bush Travino, Macella. 2012. ‘The Pallava Dynasty’ In Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia and Africa: An Encyclopedia. Vol.4 Edited by Carolyn M. Elliot. Los Angeles: Sage. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4RPCX448\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 4RPCX448 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 351, "polity": { "id": 701, "name": "in_carnatic_sul", "long_name": "Carnatic Sultanate", "start_year": 1710, "end_year": 1801 }, "year_from": null, "year_to": null, "tag": "TRS", "is_disputed": false, "is_uncertain": false, "name": "Official_religion", "coded_value": { "id": 10, "name": "Religion", "religion_name": "Sufi Islam", "religion_family": null, "religion_genus": null }, "comment": null, "description": "“The Muslim groups which came into power in Arcot after the establishment of Mughal rule in the Carnatic were descendants of Dakhni service and trading families who had settled on the Coromandel coast in the previous centuries The Navaiyat dynasty came to power when Saadutullah Khan was appointed subadhar, or chief of military and revenue officer of the newly established Mughal subah of Arcot in 1710. […] The most significant aspect of South Indian Islam, however, is that it was predominantly influenced by Sufi mysticism.” §REF§ (Bugge, 2020) Bugge, Henriette. 2020. Mission and Tamil Society: Social and Religious Change in South India (1840-1900). London: Routledge Curzon. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9SKWNUF4\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 9SKWNUF4 </b></a> §REF§" }, { "id": 352, "polity": { "id": 699, "name": "in_thanjavur_maratha_k", "long_name": "Thanjavur Maratha Kingdom", "start_year": 1675, "end_year": 1799 }, "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 Marathas of Thanjavur were Saivities in their faith, and in addition they are noted for their catholicity.” §REF§ (Srinivasan 1984, 44) Srinivasan, C.R. 1984. ‘Some Interesting Aspects of the Maratha Rule as Gleaned from the Tamil Copper-Plates of the Thanjavur Marathas’. Journal of the Epigraphical Society of India. Vol. 11. Seshat URL: <a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/PXQ87WQH\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: PXQ87WQH </b></a> §REF§" } ] }