Updated version of author's thesis (master's)--Tel Aviv University, 2003.

For millennia, the sacred drummers of pre-Christian Mediterranean and western Asia were women. In this inspiring book, Layne Redmond, herself a renowned drummer, tells their history. Artistic representations reveal that female frame drummers carried the spiritual traditions of many of the earliest recorded civilizations. During those ancient times, the drummer-priestesses held the keys to experience of the divine through rhythm. They were at the center of the goddess worship of matriarchal societies until the ascendance of patriarchal cultures and the loss of drumming as a spiritual technology. With wisdom and passion, Redmond chronicles our species’ deep connection to the drum, our rich heritage of inseparable spirituality and music, and the modern-day women reclaiming it. This book encourages readers—both women and men—to reestablish rhythmic links with themselves, nature, and other people through the power of drumming. Redmond illustrates her message with an extensive collection of images gathered during ten years of research and travel. Woven throughout the book are strands of ancient ritual and mythology, personal stories, and scientific evidence of the benefits of drumming. It is at once a history, a memoir, and a resounding call for spiritual and social renewal.

Rising science fiction and fantasy star P. Djèlí Clark brings an alternate New Orleans of orisha, airships, and adventure to life in his immersive debut novella The Black God's Drums. Alex Award Winner! In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air--in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums. But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations. Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God’s Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans. “A sinewy mosaic of Haitian sky pirates, wily street urchins, and orisha magic. Beguiling and bombastic!”—New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

日本人学者による聖書考古学の研究書

This book with online video (111 min.) will introduce the reader to the tambourine and folk dance tradition of Southern Italy, the Tarantella. Students will learn the techniques of Tarantella tambourine playing as well as the history of this ancient tradition. This book reflects 25 years of field research and performance by the author, Alessandra Belloni

“I felt as if I had had a cathartic emotional experience not by talking but by following Ms. Roxo’s coaching to tune into my energy and desire.” —New York Times What if your deepest fears and wounds were the KEY to living a turned on, passionate life, sharing your gifts with the world, and having mind-blowing orgasms along the way? And what if you could embrace all of you—all of your messy, wild, raw, sensual self—exactly as you are right now AND still feel good? This is what it means to f*ck like a goddess—literally and metaphorically. To let life make love to you and enjoy every bit, even the parts that hurt, and to find the magic in all of it. And this is your birthright. So why is it so damn hard for women to simply feel comfortable in their own skin, let alone feel strong and secure enough to freely share their gifts with the world? “Because each of us has been conditioned, programmed, and literally brainwashed into thinking we are not enough,” writes Alexandra Roxo,” and it is up to us to rewrite that story.” A prominent voice in transformational healing and the divine feminine, Roxo shares tried-and-true methods that have led to both her own healing and that of hundreds of her coaching clients over the years. “We are in need of an uprising of bold, wild women who have reclaimed their bodies and stand in their sacred sexuality for them,” she writes. “As women, we need to liberate our voices, step into total security within ourselves, and fully own our raw, sensual power, finally letting go of the shame, guilt, denial, and repression that’s been put upon us.” The methods in this book will inspire you, challenge you, bring up your resistance, and unleash your gifts. It won’t always be easy, but if you do the work, you’ll discover what it really feels like to f*ck like a goddess.

Presents evidence to support the author's woman-centered interpretation of prehistoric civilizations, considering the prehistoric goddesses, gods and religion, and discussing the living goddesses--deities which have continued to be venerated through the modern era.

Using the visual and tactile experience of small-scale figurines, Greeks and Babylonians negotiated a hybrid, cross-cultural society in Hellenistic Mesopotamia.

This interdisciplinary volume is a ‘one-stop location’ for the most up-to-date scholarship on Southern Levantine figurines in the Iron Age. The essays address terracotta figurines attested in the Southern Levant from the Iron Age through the Persian Period (1200–333 BCE). The volume deals with the iconography, typology, and find context of female, male, animal, and furniture figurines and discusses their production, appearance, and provenance, including their identification and religious functions. While giving priority to figurines originating from Phoenicia, Philistia, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine, the volume explores the influences of Egyptian, Anatolian, Mesopotamian, and Mediterranean (particularly Cypriot) iconography on Levantine pictorial material.

A thorough, academic look at the past, present, and future of Norse polytheism. Welch highlights many Norse goddesses as well as other divine females of the Norse pantheon - Valkyries, Norns, Giantesses, Disir - and in a straightforward manner, makes a definitive case for the primordial goddess.