Religious Practice and Cultural Construction of Animal Worship in Egypt from the Early Dynastic to t

Religious Practice and Cultural Construction of Animal Worship in Egypt from the Early Dynastic to the New Kingdom presents an articulated historical interpretation of Egyptian ‘animal worship’ – intended as a segment of religious practice focused on the mobilisation of selected animals within strategically designed ritual contexts – from the Early Dynastic to the New Kingdom, and offers a new understanding of its chronological development through a fresh review of pertinent archaeological and textual data. The goal is twofold: (1) to re-conceptualise the notion of ‘animal worship’ on firm theoretical and material bases, reassessing its heuristic value as a tool for analysis; (2) to demonstrate, accordingly, that ‘animal worship’ did not represent a late degeneration of traditional religion, socially (popular cult) and thematically (animal mummies and burials) restricted, but a complex domain of religious practice with a longer history and a larger variety of configurations than usually assumed.