Belief in the Past: The Proceedings of the 2002 Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion

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This collection of twelve papers, the proceedings of a conference on archaeology and religion held in Manchester in 2002, aims to bring together these two fields which have had an unhappy relationship in the past. Ritual’ is the last resort when the archaeological evidence resists interpretation, perhaps because, as Timothy Insoll argues, archaeologists view the world through secular eyes. The contributions examine a range of sites, from different periods and cultures, in order to suggest new ways of assessing the material evidence. Religion, after all, might have been the primary factor in shaping past societies. Subjects include: the archaeology of Norse religion; the archaeology of the Mesaran Tholos tombs; cult places in Minoan Crete; the Neolithic Sweet Track’ of Somerset; neurophenomenology; the archaeology of Ethiopian monasticism; smelting iron in Ethiopia; India’s Temple City’; the modern history of Sanchi, a site of Buddhist monuments; royal funerals and sacrifices in Nepal; Christianity and conversion in south-west Britain.