New book! A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough

I’m really excited that A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough, edited by Stephanie Lynn Budin and Caroline J. Tully is now available forpre-order. This is the book that was produced from the online conference “Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer’s Golden Bough at 100”.

This multidisciplinary volume examines the ongoing effects of James G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough in modern Humanities and its wide-ranging influence across studies of ancient religions, literature, historiography and reception studies.

It begins by exploring the life and times of Frazer himself and the writing of The Golden Bough in its cultural milieu. The volume then goes on to cover a wide range of topics, including: ancient Near Eastern religion and culture; Minoan religion and in particular the origins of notions of Minoan matriarchy; Frazer’s influence on the study of Graeco-Roman religion and magic; Frazer’s influence on modern Pagan religions; and the effects of Frazer’s works in modern culture and scholarship generally. Chapters examine how modern academia – and beyond – continues to be influenced by the otherwise discredited theories in The Golden Bough, ideas such as Sacred Marriage and the incessant Fertility of Everything. The book demonstrates how scholarship within the Humanities as well as practitioners of alternative religions and the common public remain under the thrall of Frazer over one hundred years since the publication of the abridged edition of The Golden Bough, and what we must do to shake off that influence.

A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough is of interest to scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines, including Ancient History, History of Religion, Comparative Religion, Classical Studies, Archaeology, Historiography, Anthropology, Folklore, and Reception Studies.

Table of Contents

Preliminaries

1. The Golden Bough: setting the scene – Tim Parkin

2. Sir James Frazer and The Golden Bough – Ronald Hutton

3. “Off With His Head!”: Wilhelm Mannhardt’s Wald- und Feldkulte at the Roots of The Golden Bough - Frederico Delgado Rosa

4. The Golden Bough and the Press – Julia Phillips

5. Hypothesis as Theory: The Golden Bough and the Obstinate Nostrums in Religious Studies and the Humanities – Ryan C. Chester

Ancient Near East

6. Ištar’s Sexual Agency in Akkadian Love Literature – Martti Nissinen

7. Dying and Rising Gods in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion and the Frazerian Paradigm of Fertility Religion – JoAnn Scurlock

8. The Fads that Drive Us: From Frazer, Freud, and Foucault to Butler and Connell – Stephanie Lynn Budin

9. The Hebrew Bible Scapegoat: Complicating a Frazerian Typology – Caroline Ward-Smith

Aegean and Classical

10. Embracing the Goddess: Evans and the Minoan feminine divine – Christine Morris

11. Guess Who’s Back, Back Again? Graeber and Wengrow’s Resurrection of Minoan Matriarchy in ‘The Dawn of Everything’ – Stephen O’Brien

12. Same same, but different: Frazer’s Sympathetic Law of Similarity and the study of Greco-Roman defixiones – Saskia Moorrees

13. Reading about Nymphs and Roman Soldiers with and without Frazer – Isabel Köster

Pagan Studies

14. Surviving Frazerisms: twenty-first century Witchcraft and the eternal return – Helen Cornish

15. Moon and Huntress: Frazer’s Arician Diana in Italian-American Witchcraft – Caroline J. Tully

16. Lilith from Demoness to Mother Goddess: a Frazerian legacy in French Luciferian Wicca? – Vanessa Toupin-Lavallée

17. Contemporary Tree Lore and the Ancient Worship of Trees: The Contributions of James Frazer in the Contemporary Study of Religion and Ecology – Ive Brissman

The Modern World

18. Derivative and Associative Popular Frazerism: A Cultural Complex at Work in Late Modern Europe – Alessandro Testa

19. Frazer and the Magical Oath – Fritz Lampe

Coda

20. Diana’s Mirror: The Reflective Surface of Frazer’s The Golden Bough – Robert Fraser 

Back to Italy for an Artist Residency

I've recently returned from Italy where I was attending a conference on shamanism and exploring the archaeological site of the sanctuary of the Roman goddess Diana, as well as looking at all the archaeological and historical museums in Rome. And I'm going back again in October! I'm super excited that I have been selected to participate in the artist residency at DOMUS in the town of Galatina, southern Italy. My artistic project is titled “The Theatre of Spirits: Trance Performances and Séance Phenomena in the Australian Spiritualist Movement, 1870 – 1950.” I will also be researching folkloric and environmental aspects of the Salento region such as the Tarantism phenomenon in which (mainly) women were allegedly bitten by the tarantula and became possessed; and the ecological problem of the death of olive trees affected by rapid desiccation, CoDiRo, due to the proliferation of the Xylella Fastidiosa bacterium which started to afflict the trees in 2013. THis is going to be great!

 

Aqua Profonda: Water and the Tarot of the Drowning World

This is the text of a presentation I did on Kahn and Selesnick's Tarot of the Drowning World, which was hosted by Morbid Anatomy on the 10 September 2023. For the complete PowerPoint with all images, see my academia page.

I’m very excited to be able to talk about the Tarot of the Drowning World. Of all the tarot decks on the market today that I am aware of, it is only the Tarot of the Drowning World and the Carnival at the End of the World tarot decks that I feel motivated to make the effort to learn, and this is because of (along with the excellent artwork) their contemporary relevance. These two decks are, let’s say, “up to date” with what is happening in the – or on the – world today.

While I appreciate many other decks, based on their theory or their art or both: (1) I simply don’t have time to master them all and; (2) the Kahn, Selesnick, and Falkner tarot decks are directly relevant to the environment – which should be a topic of major concern and interest to all humans and certainly is to me.

Today I want to focus on the presence and associations of Water in the Tarot of the Drowning World.

While thinking of a title for this presentation I remembered the term “Aqua Profonda”. This is a rather famous term in inner city Melbourne, Australia, where I live as it refers to a sign painted on a wall at the Fitzroy Pool, which is located just up the road, here, from me. The pool opened in 1908, but the sign was painted around 1953 or 54 at the initiative of the pool manager, James Murphy, because he found that he kept having to rescue Italian migrant children from the deep end of the pool. He asked an Italian friend what the words for “deep water” were in Italian and had them painted at the deep end of the pool.

“Aqua” here is actually misspelled; in Italian it has a “c” in it – as it is here, it’s the Latin. That reminds me of the Italian Acqua Alta, which in Latin is “deep water”, but in Italian is “high water”, evoking the Acqua Alta high water in Venice. Acqua Alta the name for the high tides that flood part of Venice (and some other places around the northern Adriatic) between autumn and spring, caused by a combination of the moon’s pull on the water and two winds, the sirocco and the bora, also Venice is sinking, very slowly, but I digress.

The Aqua Profonda sign is a big deal in Melbourne and it even has heritage listing so it can’t be destroyed. In addition to its association with the post-war migration program; it appeared in the 1982 film Monkey Grip – which is based on a 1977 novel by Australian writer Helen Garner, about living in share housing and experimental approaches to relationships in Fitzroy, which back then was considered a slum, although now it is extremely desirable and expensive. In the film Aqua Profonda serves as a metaphor for the tempestuous relationship of the main protagonists; and lastly, Aqua Profonda was the slogan of the Save Our Pool campaign in the mid 1990s when the council was considering closing the pool.

So, Aqua Profonda means Deep Water, but to me it also evokes, Profound Water – which seems pertinent to the Tarot of the Drowning World deck, because isn’t that what we want to access – or to be – as diviners? Profound!

Synonyms for “profound” include words like deep, thoughtful, reflective, philosophical, weighty and insightful. The dictionary definition includes: very great or intense; penetrating or entering deeply into subjects of thought or knowledge; and having deep insight or understanding. This is what the visual aspect of the Tarot of the Drowning World – with its water – evokes for me: this inundation, this potentially deep water, on top of which float human figures, objects, animals, plants, and all sorts of flotsam. Maybe they are arising from, or are buoyed up by, this Aqua Profonda. Maybe this Aqua Profonda is our deep dark subconscious mind from which float up images and insights…

Aiming for or claiming profundity can seem hubristic – but it’s surely no bolder than claiming the power or skill of divination itself.   

While I am very enthusiastic about the Tarot of the Drowning World, I have not yet mastered it to a sufficient degree to use in a professional setting. My tarot deck of choice since 1984 has been the Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris-designed Thoth deck – and I didn’t use that in a professional capacity until about 10 years after originally learning it.

As a Thelemite with a background in western ceremonial magick the theory behind this deck makes sense to me and I find the images very informative. This is the deck I use in both my personal and my professional tarot reading. I have many other tarot decks and a couple of oracle decks, but I always use the Thoth deck for professional reading and any serious reading I do for myself. I just find it the clearest and most informative deck to use. So, I’d have to have a good reason to consider making the effort to learn, and form a relationship with, another deck.

I have had two stints as a professional tarot reader; once for a period of time in the early 1990s at a shop called Mythical Moon and more recently since 2019 at a shop called Muses of Mystery, both located in Melbourne. It wasn’t until this second time around working as a tarot reader that I noticed that the cards of the Thoth deck did not cover some of the types of concerns relevant to humans today. Two obvious examples of this lack of contemporary coverage are that it is very gender binary and it does not address or incorporate the environmental crisis. While sure, you can make it cover those topics – you can extend certain cards’ meanings to include those issues – but it doesn’t really. It wasn’t designed that way.

Of course the Thoth deck was designed in the early 20^th century, and is based on what I’ll generalise as the “Western Mystery Tradition”, incorporating Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythology, the Qabalistic tree of life, alchemy, astrology, and the Empedoclean Four Elements – which I love, of course!

Seeing as this presentation focuses on Water in the Tarot of the Drowning World, let’s first look at how the Thoth deck conceptualises Water, and then I’ll look at how the Tarot of the Drowning World conceives of Water, in my opinion.

The Thoth tarot deck classifies Water as one of the Four Elements or the Classical Elements, a model proposed in the mid-fifth century BCE by the Pre-Socratic philosopher, Empedocles of Akragas in Sicily. Empedocles conceived the basis of existence as consisting of, or deriving from, four roots: Fire, Water, Air and Earth, moved by two opposing forces, Love and Strife. The model of the Four Elements was transmitted through the centuries, and found its way into the proto-tarot back when it was a game in 16^th century Florence.[1]

In the late nineteenth century the Four Elements system was an important component in the theory informing the magical rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the magical society Crowley was initiated into and which paved the way for the popularity of occultism today. The Four Elements consequently feature in Crowley’s Thoth (and many other subsequent) tarot decks. What is important to note in regard to this is that in the Thoth tarot the Four Elements are symbolic.  

As Crowley explains “One must constantly remember that the terms used by ancient and medieval philosophers do not mean at all what they mean nowadays. ‘Water’ does not mean to them the chemical compound H2O; it is an intensely abstract idea, and exists everywhere...The word ‘element’ does not mean a chemical element; it means a set of ideas; it summarises certain qualities or properties.”

In popular occultism water is characterised as passive, feminine, and emotional. In the Thoth deck “water” represents aspects of water such as (and I quote Crowly here) the “swift passionate attack of rain and springs… water’s power of solution…brilliance… its power of reception and reflection… purity and beauty… dreaminess, illusion and tranquility… transmission, refraction, distortion…elasticity, volatility, hydrostatic equilibrium… the catalytic faculty and the energy of steam… transmutation, stagnancy and putrefaction… and crystallisation.” Water is attributed to the Zodiac signs Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, the suit of Cups, to the Queens in the Court Cards, and also to one of the Major Arcana, the Hanged Man, through the attribution to it of the Hebrew letter Mem, which means water. Crowley explains that “It would perhaps be better to say that it [in this card] represents the spiritual function of Water in the economy of initiation; it is a baptism which is also a death.” Again, here despites its many forms, Water is symbolic.

The Thoth tarot deck derives from the ceremonial magic classification system, devised back when we thought we humans could impose order on the visible and invisible worlds… before things started going out of control.

So how is the Tarot of the Drowning World different? What does it mean when the whole deck is “attributed” to water?

The Tarot of the Drowning World goes beyond the orderly control imposed on nature by the model of the Four Elements. It has re-tooled the tarot to meet up with the on-going transformations of our world and is based in physical reality. While the images may evoke the deep well of the unconscious, of profound water, profound wisdom, they also suggest a natural disaster. Almost all the trumps call to mind Millais’ drowned Ophelia – and is that us? Insane, suicidal? Or drowned in a tsunami, with our homes flooded by the sea because the ice caps are melting? Yes, according to Sarah Faulkner’s explanation of the deck. Water in the Tarot of the Drowning World seeps, wells up, or rushes in, overwhelming the world; apocalyptic water destroys, and washes away, not in a fiery Aeon of Horus, but drowning us, approaching inexorably while we had our backs tuned.

This is a tarot of the overwhelming of the psyche, of submersion in emotion and sensation, but it is in this devastating realisation of drowning that the mercurial spark ignites and urges us not to give in and sink, but to swim to the surface. We’re not dead yet. Grab onto something and kick your legs until you reach an island, or shore. The Tarot of the Drowning World points to a real, physical, climate emergency – one which we are in – but it says “don’t give up.” What is washed away makes room for regeneration.

Sarah asks, “Is the Drowned World a new world being born, arising out of a dark abyss or cosmic ocean? Yes…. Submerged and Resurgent.” Panic and victimhood turn into ingenuity and determination. Use an apocalypse to receive apokálypsis (or revelation). Stare into the cards and allow it to arise. Create the future.

So, like the Thoth and all good tarot decks, the Tarot of the Drowning World is more than just a divinatory system. It is a story, a world, a lesson, a source of knowledge, and of solutions. It is both literal and symbolic, both a vision of impending death and destruction, and of creation and regeneration. Most importantly, it situates humans within the world, on a horizontal plane in relationship with literal water – with rising seas, inundation of islands, flooding, sinking, drowning, tears, fluids, lakes, rivers, rain, puddles, and drinks – and encourages us to see renewal within devastation and to actively envision the future.

 

 

---

[1] Minchiate

 

Upcoming Workshop: Diana, Aradia, and the Night Flying Tradition

The power of the moon’s energies is undeniable, it affects the tides, our dreams, and our bodily cycles. The moon has been associated with magic since the beginning of time, across various cultures and traditions. It is connected to intuition, change, fluidity, reflection, and the element of water. Diana is the Roman goddess of the moon, patroness of the wilderness, hunters, crossroads, and childbirth. She is often part of a triad, sometimes with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, and Virbius, the woodland god; or with Luna, the actual moon and Hekate, goddess of transitions. Aradia is the daughter of Diana by her brother Lucifer, the god of light, who was sent to earth to teach her followers magic. Best known from Charles G. Leland’s book, Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, first published in 1899, Aradia is a central figure in the modern witchcraft revival.

This workshop looks at the origins and histories of Diana and Aradia, their spheres of influence, roles as patronesses of witchcraft, and the night-flying tradition of shamanism. Participants will also experience a Full Moon ritual devoted to Diana and Aradia in order to establish and strengthen their own relationship with these goddesses.

The Presenter, Caroline Tully

Caroline has a background in various traditions of witchcraft and magic and is also an archaeologist who studies ancient Mediterranean Pagan religions and their manifestation in the modern world. She has written many articles and chapters on these topics and is the author of the book, The Cultic Life of Trees in the Prehistoric Aegean, Levant, Egypt and Cyprus (Peeters 2018). Caroline reads Tarot and is a regular workshop facilitator on a range of magical subjects at Muses of Mystery, Melbourne’s finest metaphysical destination.

When: Saturday 26 August, 2023

Where: Muses of Mystery (Melbourne)

Time: 11.00-2.00

Fee: $ 80.00

 

 

New antiquities exhibition - Amor et Mors: Vessels for the Beautiful Body in Life and Death

This glass unguentarium is one of the objects featuring in a new exhibition I am curating of Greek and Roman perfumed oil and cosmetic vessels called ‘Amor et Mors: Vessels for the Beautiful Body in Life and Death’. It will be in the Treasury Gallery, in the Old Quad at the University of Melbourne, and will open to the public on 17 July 2023 and continue until May 2024. My exhibition is half of the larger exhibition, ‘Ancient Lives: Insights from the Classics and Archaeology Collecton’. The other half of the exhibition is curated by Tamara Lewit, focuses on wine, and is called ‘White, Tawny, Blood-Red, Black: Wine in the Greek and Roman Worlds.

 

Image credit: Unguentarium, 3rd century CE, Glass. Dimensions: 10.5cm (height) x 3.8cm (width) x 3.5cm (depth). The University of Melbourne Art Collection. Gift of David and Marion Adams, 2009.

Accession Number 2009.0257.000.000

Diana and Aradia Full Moon Workshop with Caroline Tully, 4 February

The power of the moon’s energies is undeniable, it affects the tides, our dreams, and our bodily cycles. The moon has been associated with magic since the beginning of time, across various cultures and traditions. It is connected to intuition, change, fluidity, reflection, and the element of water. Diana is the Roman goddess of the moon, patroness of the wilderness, hunters, crossroads, and childbirth.  She is often part of a triad, sometimes with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, and Virbius, the woodland god; or with Luna, the actual moon and Hekate, goddess of transitions. Aradia is the daughter of Diana by her brother Lucifer, the god of light, who was sent to earth to teach her followers magic. Best known from Charles G. Leland's book, Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, first published in 1899, Aradia is a central figure in the modern witchcraft revival.

This workshop looks at the origins and histories of Diana and Aradia, their spheres of influence, sacred animals, relationships with other gods, and roles as patronesses of witchcraft. Participants will also experience a Full Moon ritual devoted to Diana and Aradia in order to establish and strengthen their own relationship with these goddesses.

The Presenter, Caroline Tully

Caroline has a background in various traditions of witchcraft and magic and is also an archaeologist who studies ancient Mediterranean Pagan religions and their manifestation in the modern world. She has written many articles and chapters on these topics and is the author of the book, The Cultic Life of Trees in the Prehistoric Aegean, Levant, Egypt and Cyprus (Peeters 2018). Caroline reads Tarot and is a regular workshop facilitator on a range of magical subjects at Muses of Mystery, Melbourne’s finest metaphysical destination.

Book here.

 

 

 

Dr Caroline Tully CV

CURRICULUM VITAE

CAROLINE TULLY PhD.

E-mail: tullyc@unimelb.edu.au

Web: unimelb.academia.edu/CarolineTully

 

EDUCATION

2017  PhD.  Aegean Bronze Age Art and Archaeology, University of Melbourne.                                                  

2007–2009  Postgraduate Diploma, Arts (Classics and Archaeology), University of Melbourne.

2005–2007  Graduate Diploma, Arts (Classics and Archaeology), University of Melbourne.

2004   Continuing Education, Arts (Classics and Archaeology), University of Melbourne.

1993–1995  Bachelor of Arts, Fine Art (Textiles and Printmaking), Monash University.

 

AWARDS and FELLOWSHIPS

2019  The British School at Athens, Richard Bradford McConnell Fund for Landscape Studies.

2018  Honorary Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne; Nominee for the Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD, University of Melbourne.

2015  The Postgraduate Ancient World Award.

2013  The Jessie Webb Scholarship.

2012  The Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne, Graduate Research in Arts Travel Scheme; The School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, School Research Allocation Grant; The School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne Graduate Grant.

2011  The Alma Hansen Scholarship; The Norman Macgeorge Scholarship; The Prue Torney Memorial Prize; The Australian Federation of University Women Victoria: William and Elizabeth Fisher Scholarship and Bursaries in Memory of Feminist Fathers – Special Award; The Melbourne Abroad Travelling Scholarship (MATS): Riady Travelling Scholarship 2011; The Barrett Trust 2011; The School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, School Research Allocation Grant.

2009  Australian Postgraduate Award; The Biblical Archaeology Society Dig Scholarship, for Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel.

 

EMPLOYMENT

2022  Museums Victoria, Provenance Researcher and Consultant; editor Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Australian Tapestry Workshop, artisan/weaver

2021  University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Lecturer / Honours Seminar Facilitator / Tutor

2020  University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Teaching Assistant / Tutor/ Lecturer

2019  University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Teaching Assistant / Tutor/ Lecturer; Archaeologist at Dr Vincent Clark and Associates | Archaeology and Cultural Heritage.

2018  University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Teaching Assistant / Tutor/ Lecturer; Research Assistant.

2017  University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Teaching Assistant / Tutor/ Lecturer; Faculty of Arts, Research Assistant and Antiquities Curator; Institut für Orientalische und Europäische Archäologie (OREA), Sub-editor.

2016  University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Teaching Assistant / Tutor; Hamilton Art Gallery, Curator Mediterranean Antiquities Exhibition; Ian Potter Museum of Art, Classics and Archaeology Gallery, Guest Lecturer.

2015  La Trobe University, Centre for Mediterranean Studies, Teaching Assistant / Tutor; University of Melbourne, Teaching Assistant / Tutor/ Lecturer; University College, Parkville, Teaching Assistant / Tutor.

2014  Ian Potter Museum of Art, Classics and Archaeology Gallery, Presenter/facilitator for the Secondary Schools Program.

2013  Ian Potter Museum of Art, Classics and Archaeology Gallery, Presenter/facilitator within the Secondary Schools Program; University of Melbourne, Teaching Assistant / Tutor/ Lecturer.

2010–2012  University of Melbourne, Teaching Assistant / Tutor/ Lecturer.

1996–2010  Australian Tapestry Workshop, Tapestry Weaver/Artisan.

1999–2005  Federal Publishing Company, Feature Writer and Reviewer for Witchcraft Magazine.

 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

2021  Fourth Year/Honours ‘Problems in Greek Prehistory’, University of Melbourne. 

2016–2021, 2010–2013  Third Year ‘Interpreting the Ancient World’, University of Melbourne.

2016–2019  Second Year ‘Ancient Greece: History and Archaeology’, University of Melbourne.

2017, 2015, 2010  First Year ‘Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia’, University of Melbourne.

2015  First Year ‘Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War’, La Trobe University; Second Year ‘Classical Mythology’, University College, Parkville.

2014  Secondary Schools Program, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Classics and Archaeology Gallery, University of Melbourne.

2013  Second Year ‘Egypt Under the Pharaohs’, University of Melbourne; Secondary Schools Program, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Classics and Archaeology Gallery, University of Melbourne.

2012–2013  Second Year ‘Egyptian and Near Eastern Myth’, University of Melbourne.

 

CURATORIAL AND MUSEUM CONSULTATION EXPERIENCE

2022  Museums Victoria, Provenance Researcher and Consultant for the ‘Open Horizons’ exhibition from the National Museum of Athens

2017  Arts West Gallery, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne, Curator for the ‘Decadence and Domesticity’ section of The Arts of Engagement exhibition.

2016  Hamilton Art Gallery, Curator for Mediterranean Antiquities Exhibition.

2015–2016  Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Assistant Curator, Mummymania Exhibition.

 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD EXPERIENCE

2019  Archaeologist at Koonwarra Salvage, Victoria, Australia.

2009–2012  Archaeologist at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel.

2011  Archaeologist at Caesarea Maritima, Israel.

 

BOOKS

Minoan Transcorporeality. Munich: Theion Publishing (forthcoming).

The Cultic Life of Trees in the Prehistoric Aegean, Levant, Egypt and Cyprus. Aegaeum 42. Peeters: Leuven, 2018.

 

SELECTED ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

‘Lifting the Veil of Isis: Egyptian Reception and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.” In Alternative Egyptology: Papers in Honour of Willem van Haarlem, edited by Ben van den Bercken. Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam.

‘Against Nature: Tree-Shaking Action in Minoan Glyptic Art as Agonistic Behaviour.’ In Gesture – Stance – Movement: Communicating Bodies in the Aegean Bronze Age, edited by Ute Günkel-Maschek, Céline Murphy, Fritz Blakolmer and Diamantis Panagiotopoulos. Heidelberg University Publishing (In Press).

 ‘Agonistic Scenes.’ In The Blackwell Companion to Aegean Art and Architecture, edited by Louise Hitchcock and Brent Davis. Oxford: Blackwell (In Press).

‘Introduction to The Pomegranate special issue on Pagans and Museums.’ Pomegranate: International Journal of Pagan Studies 23: 1–2. 2022.

‘Understanding the language of trees: ecstatic experience and interspecies communication in Late Bronze Age Crete.’ In Ecstatic Experience in the Ancient World, edited by Sarah Costello, Karen Foster and Diana Stein. London: Routledge, 2021.

‘Traces of places: sacred sites in miniature on Minoan gold rings.’ In Sacred Sites and Sacred Stories: Transmission of Oral Tradition, Myth, and Religiosity, edited by David Kim, 11–40. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

‘Cockles, mussels, fishing nets and finery: the relationship between cult, textiles and the sea depicted on a Minoan-style gold ring from Pylos.’ Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies. Special issue the ‘Entangled Sea’ edited by Ina Berg and Louise Hitchcock. 8: 3-4. 2020. 365–378.

‘Enthroned Upon Mountains: Constructions of Power in the Aegean Bronze Age.’ Co-authored with S. Crooks. In The Ancient Throne. The Mediterranean, the Near East, and Beyond, 3^rd millennium BCE 0 14^th Century CE. Proceedings of the Workshop held at ICANNE in Vienna, April 2016, edited by Liat Naeh and Dana Brostowsky Gilboa, 37–59. Vienna: OREA, 2020.

‘Celtic Egyptians: Isis Priests of the Lineage of Scota.’ In Ancient Egypt in the Modern Imagination, edited by Eleanor Dobson and Nichola Tonks, 145–160. London: Bloomsbury, 2020.

‘Power Ranges: Identity and Terrain in Minoan Crete.’ Co-authored with S. Crooks. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture 13: 2. 2019. 130–156.

‘The Self Possessed: Framing Identity in Late Minoan Glyptic.’ Co-authored with S. Crooks. In ΜΝΗΜΗ / Mneme: Past and Memory in the Aegean Bronze Age, Aegaeum 43, edited by Elisabetta Borgna, Ilaria Caloi, Filippo Carinci and Robert Laffineur, 749–752. Peeters: Leuven, 2019.

‘The artifice of Daidalos: Modern Minoica as religious focus in contemporary Paganism.’ In New Antiquities: Transformations of Ancient Religion in the New Age and Beyond, edited by Dylan Burns and Almut-Barbara Renger, 76–102. Sheffield: Equinox, 2019.

‘Introduction to The Pomegranate special issue on Paganism, Art, and Fashion.’ The Pomegranate: International Journal of Pagan Studies 21:2. 2019. 141–145.

‘The artifice of Daidalos: Modern Minoica as religious focus in contemporary Paganism.’ The International Journal for the Study of New Religions 8: 2. 2018. 183–212.

‘Thalassocratic Charms: Trees, Boats, Women and the Sea in Minoan Glyptic Art.’ Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of Cretan Studies, 24th September 2016, Heraklion, Crete. 2018. 1–12.

‘Egyptosophy in the British Museum: Florence Farr, the Egyptian Adept and the Ka.’ In The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947, edited by Christine Ferguson and Andrew Radford, 131–145. London: Routledge, 2018.

‘Virtual Reality: Tree Cult and Epiphanic Ritual in Aegean Glyptic Iconography.’ Journal of Prehistoric Religion. Robin Hägg memorial issue. Vol. XXV: 19–30. 2016.

‘Numinous tree and stone: re-animating the Minoan landscape.’ Co-authored with S. Crooks and L. Hitchcock. In METAPHYSIS: Ritual Myth and Symbolism in the Aegean Bronze Age. Aegaeum 39. E. Alram-Stern, F. Blakolmer, S. Deger-Jalkotzy, R. Laffineur and J. Weilhartner (eds), 157–164. Leuven: Peeters, 2016.

‘Dropping Ecstasy? Minoan Cult and the Tropes of Shamanism.’ Co-authored with Sam Crooks. Time and Mind: The Journal for Archaeology Consciousness and Culture. 8.2: 129–158. 2015.

‘Museums of Israel.’ In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Claire Smith (Ed.) Springer: New York, 2014.  

‘The British Museum’. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Claire Smith (Ed.) Springer:  New York, 2014. 

‘The Sacred Life of Trees: What trees say about people in the prehistoric Aegean and Near East.’ In Proceedings of the 33^rd Australian Society for Classical Studies Conference. 2012. Available online at http://www.ascs.org.au/news/ascs33/index.html

‘Walk Like an Egyptian: Egypt as Authority in Aleister Crowley’s Reception of The Book of the Law.’ The Pomegranate: International Journal of Pagan Studies 12:1. 2010. 20–47.

Report on the excavation at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel, 2009. Biblical Archaeology Review 36: 1. (Jan/Feb 2010). Available online at http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/scholarship-recipient-report.asp

                                         

REFEREES

Professor Louise Hitchcock  Room 674, Level 6, Arts West, University of Melbourne. Ph: 8344 7033, Email: l.hitchcock@unimelb.edu.au

Associate Professor Andrew Jamieson  Room 673, Level 6 Arts West, University of Melbourne. Ph: 8344 3403, Email: asj@unimelb.edu.au

 

Downloadable version of my CV.