Topic: 2. Sacrifice and religion: Comparisons, Antiquarians, Anthropology (16th-18th Century)
Religious sacrifices across various cultures and contexts sparked widespread interest in Early Modern Europe. As Christianity expanded into regions inhabited by "infidels" and "pagans", Europeans encountered a diverse array of sacrificial customs, ranging from the Sati rituals in India to the Aztec sacrifices in the Americas. This cross-cultural exposure captivated a wide audience, including theologians, philosophers, political thinkers, antiquarians, orientalists, missionaries, poets, artists, and even the general public. These encounters broadened the European understanding of sacrifice and led to a critical reassessment of classical and biblical sacrificial rites. This section includes:
- Sources: A selection of early modern printed materials, which include descriptions of the Americas, Asia, and Africa, alongside antiquarian and philological studies on religious sacrifice in classical antiquity and beyond. It also presents early modern works of ethnological observations and the first attempts to compare different sacrificial practices in various traditions and contexts, laying the groundwork for disciplines like the history of religions and anthropology.
- Iconographic Representations: A rich collection of images from the 16th to 18th centuries, illustrating a range of sacrificial rituals and practices as seen in different cultural and geographical contexts.
- Related Bibliography: An extensive bibliography spanning scholarly works from the 19th to 21st centuries, providing contemporary analyses and interpretations of these early studies and observations.
Human sacrifices at Huaca Pucllana in Lima, Peru
in: Human Sacrifice and Value. Revisiting the Limits of Sacred Violence from an Anthropological and Archaeological Perspective, pp. Chap. 10
: , .
Jüdische Reaktionen auf die mittelalterlichen Blutbeschuldigungen vom 13. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert
in: Die Legende vom Ritualmord: Zur Geschichte der Blutbeschuldigungen gegen Juden, pp. 133-136
Berlin: Metropol, 1993.
Paired Leopards and Encircled Prey: Images of Rivalry and Sacrifice at Çatalhöyük
in: Violence and the Sacred in the Ancient Near East. Girardian Conversations at Çatalhöyük , pp. 129-150
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
The Birth of Orientalism
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Le sacrifice du buffle à S'ieng Khwang, Laos
Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient, 1991.
Sacrifice in Ibo Religion
Ibadan: University Press, 1970.
Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan
University Press of Colorado: Boulder, 1999.
Inventing Inventors in Renaissance Europe: Polydore Vergil’s De inventoribus rerum [chap. 6]
Tübingen: Siebeck, 2007.
Living Well and Living On: Martyrdom and the Imago vitae in the Early Modern Age
in: Myths, Martyrs, and Modernity. Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of Jan N. Bremmer, pp. 569-592
Leiden: Brill, 2010.
An Intellectual History of Cannibalism
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Offering, Sacrifice and Gift
in: Numen, v. 23 (), issue 3: pp.161-178.
The Sacrifice of Abraham : the Cretan Biblical Drama E thusia tou Abraam and Western European and Greek Tradition
Birmingham: Ibadan University of Birmingham, 1978.
Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature
Oakland: University of California Press, 2017.
The Bahr ul-Asrar: Travelogue of South Asia, by Mahmud b. Amir Wali Balkhi
Karachi: Institute of Central & West Asian Studies, 1980.