“Nature”, the Minoans and Embodied Spiritualities

Abstract

Recent emphasis on the concept of the body has so far failed to impact radically on old archaeologies of spirituality. This chapter suggests that such new work will remain marginalized unless we problematize three central features of the Judaeo-Christian religious heritage: monotheism, anthropomorphism and transcendence. These concepts shaped traditional archaeological models of religion, and continue explicitly or implicitly to inform contemporary formulations of the divine. It can be argued that monotheism tends towards abstraction and notions of centralized authority; personification towards narratives of anthropomorphism; and transcendence towards a devaluation of the physical world. I will explore how those themes can develop, suggest that we may be unaware how much they have influenced archaeologists in their study of prehistoric religions, and trace how they seem to have been reflected specifically in the study of early Minoan religion.