Middle East Studies Lecture
Rites of Passage in Ancient Near Eastern Rituals
- Date
- Tuesday 20 May 2025
- Time
- Address
-
Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- 1.128 (Verbarium)
Ever since Arnold van Gennep’s pioneering ethnographic work, sociologists and anthropologists have been fascinated by the concept of “rites of passage”. Van Gennep claimed that such three-stage rituals occur in every significant event in people’s lives. In my talk, I present my book “Magical Passages in Ancient Near Eastern Rituals: Liminality, Transformation and Separation” (Routledge, 2025), in which I analyze magical rituals from the ancient Near East (Babylonia, Assyria and Hatti) as rites of passage that used makeshift gates and structures, as well as house doors.