Religious networks
Sacred travelers and itineraries in late First Millennium BCE Babylonia: a view from temple and private archives (RelNet)
Image: “TCL 06, 09 Artifact Entry.” (2007) 2023. Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI).
June 15, 2023. https://cdli.ucla.edu/P363682.
Trips, routes and itineraries
It is important to study the movements, routes and itineraries that structured the contacts between different places of worship and the relationships between them. Religious networks operate in space and time; any movement has a beginning, a destination, a route and a duration.
Types of pilgrimages, motivations and ritualization
The study of pilgrimages is understood in RelNet from a broad point of view. It involves any type of trip made for a religious reason, regardless of the distance and time necessary to carry it out. This inclusive perspective is necessary when analysing the phenomenon in ancient societies, in which religion permeates all aspects of life and society.
Human and divine participants in the journeys
It is essential to identify the people who participated in the processions, the divinities involved in the ceremonies and to analyse the deployment of the official religion in Babylonian society.
Political dimension of sacred journeys
RelNet will clarify the scope of royal euergetism and its impact on religious networks.
Religious networks in Babylon at the end of the 1st millennium BCE
Identify patterns in the articulation of sacred movements + Provide data on the topography + Clarify the character of Esagil as a node + Analyse the dynamics of religious processions + Clarify the scope of royal euergetism
(Langin-Hopper 2023: 213, graphic by S. Matskevich)
Map of Babylon
Map showing important Babylonian cities (circled). Borders of the Seleucid and Parthian empires are marked at their greatest geographical extent.