Title: A brief history of tree thinking: the enduring power of animism
Abstract: Today trees sit in a blindspot for scholars of Roman religion. Yet if we take a long view back over the history of scholarship on Roman religion, this sidelining of trees becomes an ironic coda to almost a century and a half of unmitigated scholarly enthusiasm for sacred trees. Why have sacred trees been pushed to the margins in this way? What effect has the sacred tree's fall from grace had on our own scholarship? Understanding the history of our thinking about sacred trees – the way it moulds our presumptions about their significance within Roman religion and dictates what questions we ask about them – is the major aim of this chapter.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-09-15
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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