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Full Description
Scholars have sometimes maintained that the study of the history of African religions is an impossible endeavor. Some have contended that African religions do not have a history unto themselves, apart from their interaction with the newer religious traditions of Islam and Christianity. Others concede that such a history exists, but believe the source materials are insufficient to reconstruct such a history. This book speaks directly to these critics.
The history of African religions becomes in many ways like a pentathlon, expecting the scholar who conducts such research to work with written texts, to learn African languages, to live within a community where these religious traditions are practiced, to study material culture, both sacred and mundane, and a variety of archaeological sources from tree rings to stone circles and gravesites. By relying on the existing corpus of written texts, oral traditions, linguistic analyses, descriptions based on participant observation, and various types of archaeology, Robert M. Baum demonstrates that African religious history is nearly as old as humanity itself. Baum has spent his entire academic career focused on the historical study of African religious traditions, as far back as accessible sources will permit. This volume traces the history of African religions beginning with early hominids and their ritual and burial sites through ancient Egypt, North and Northeast Africa, and Africa south of the Sahara from the Fourth Millennium BCE to the birth of Islam in the Seventh Century.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Maps
List of Photographs
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Before Adam and Eve: African Religions from Lucy to the Neolithic Revolution
Chapter Three: A Religious History of Ancient Egypt: From Unification to the Reforms of Akhenaten
Chapter Four: Not Out of Egypt: African Religions from 3200-1200 BCE
Chapter Five: Egypt and the Nile Valley Before the Roman Occupation
Chapter Six: Beyond the Nile Basin: African Religious History from 1300 BCE to the Dawn of the Common Era
Chapter Seven: Egyptian Religious Traditions Under Foreign Domination: From the Roman Conquest to the Arab Conquest
Chapter Eight: North and Northeast Africa in the Age of Roman and Byzantine Domination: From the First Century BCE to the Lesser Hijra
Chapter Nine: The Sahara and South: African Religious History from the Beginnings of the Common Era to the Lesser Hijra
Chapter Ten: Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
