Biological and social life of human beings is punctuated by rites of
passage. Although some of them are documented in detail, rites of
passage in ancient Near Eastern cultures have not previously been
presented comprehensively and parallel to each other. A thorough study
is achieved in this volume by combining various approaches and
disciplines. The basic rites of passage are examined: birth,
adolescence, changes of social status, and death.
The
present volume consists of twenty-one contributions by specialists of
ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and neighbouring cultures. It is
structured around three main axes: “Becoming someone: The social
dimension of rites of passage”, where the interface between the
religious sphere and the socio-political structure is examined; “Real
life, symbolic life: Ritualized life and death in rites of passage”, or
how each threshold crossed by an individual is perceived as a new
beginning; and “Liminality and impurity: The dangers of transformation”,
which defines the complex relation between notions of purity and
impurity and rites of passage.