Ritual Objects Research Articles

The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Samuel E. Balentine

The last thirty years have seen an increasing number of studies on ritual in the Hebrew Bible inspired by the path-breaking work of scholars like Rendtorff, Douglas, Milgrom, and Levine as well as the development of ritual theory within anthropology. The field is well placed for a handbook that builds on past scholarship in order to develop pathways for new research, and a particular strength of this volume is its attentiveness to the reception of biblical texts in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. As is typical for the Oxford Handbooks, this is a substantial volume with 34 essays covering a wide range of topics. The first section has essays on the wider cultural context: Mesopotamia (Abusch), Egypt (Teeter), Hatti (Beckman), Syria-Palestine (Curtis), Greece (Kowalzig). Greece might easily have been overlooked and its inclusion is welcome. The second section examines interpretative approaches: history of religion (Grabbe), ritual theory (Gruenwald), and social and cultural anthropology (Gilders). Readers expecting an analysis of recent ritual theory will find what they seek in the incisive essay by Gilders. Gruenwald’s essay presents his distinctive views on ritual and (rather oddly for a handbook on the Hebrew Bible) a case study on baptism. The third section is the largest and considers the different components of ritual: the gods (Hartenstein), sacred space (Hundley), ritual experts and participants (Hieke), sacred time (Davis), ritual objects (Bonfiglio), practices (Gane), and the ritualizing of iconic texts in Judaism (Watts), Christianity (Parmenter), and Islam (Svensson). The fourth section has reflections on the cultural and theological perspectives: sin and expiation (Janzen), clean/unclean and holy/profane (Lawrence), sickness and healing (Rooke), death and afterlife (Schmidt), and divine presence and absence (Berlejung). The fifth section examines the history of interpretation: Qumran (Schuller), early Christianity (Bradshaw), early Judaism (Newman), and rabbinic Judaism (Reif). Since Newman’s essay deals extensively with Qumran, there is a degree of overlap with the object of Schuller’s examination. The sixth section studies the sociocultural effects of rituals in the Hebrew Bible in the realms of politics (Morrow), ethics (Davies), Israelite society (Cook), and economics (Schaper). The seventh and final section examines the theological heritage of biblical rituals in biblical theology (Klingbeil), secular Judaism (Marx), Christian rituals (Werline), and Islamic rituals (Gauvain). In the essays, notes have been kept to a minimum, but each essay has a bibliography. Balentine provides a two-page introduction to the entire volume and there is a subject index, including selected authors, but no index of scriptural or ancient texts.

고려시대 시책(諡冊)의 기원과 활용 양상

Shichaek(諡冊) was an item designated with a posthumous entitlement for someone, and was used as a ritual object(Euimul, 儀物) in ceremonies assigning posthumous titles(Wiho, 位號) to kings(Myoho, 廟號) or others(Shiho, 諡號). Shichaek was only created and used for prominent royal family members including the king. Institutions relevant to Shichaek that were observed on the Korean peninsula originated in ancient China, and although it is speculated that Shichaek were also used during the Three Ancient dynasties period, written records of their implementation only appear after the beginning of the Goryeo period, and so do several artifacts that were actually used at the time.BR The Goryeo dynasty Shichaek seems like a variation of the Dang(唐)-styled Shichaek, which would have been modified during the Five Dynasties/Ten States(五代十國) period and imported into Goryeo, as Goryeo established tributary/appointment relationships with them. Such possibility can be suggested by the fact that pictorials of certain Shinjang(神將) figures inscribed on the Shichaek artifacts created in the 12th and 13th centuries for Goryeo Kings Injong and Shinjong perfectly resemble a counterpart pictorial that can be found on an Aechaek(哀冊) piece made for Emperor Gojo of the Former Chok(前蜀) dynasty from 10th century China.BR As mentioned earlier, Shichaek was used in rituals providing deceased royal family members with Myoho and Shiho titles. When the rituals were imported into Goryeo, necessary items also naturally came along. Therefore all these new artifacts referenced in the early Goryeo records show us that the Wiho(位號) Entitlement system of China -newly refined during the Dang period- was effectively introduced to the Goryeo society as well. As it was trying to establish a new dynastic system since the absorption of Hu-Baekje and Shilla, Goryeo was in need of new philosophies and institutions, and the Shichaek institution would have undoubtedly been one of them.

Relics in Exile: A Collection of Armenian Sacred Objects between Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire, 1672–1699

Abstract Despite the historians’ growing interest in material culture, collections of sacred objects have largely been overlooked by scholars of religious history and art history alike. While the former tend to reduce church artifacts to their religious function, the latter focus mostly on individual items of singular artistic import. This essay examines a collection of displaced relics from the perspective of their shifting meanings and multiple uses as ritual objects, offerings, gifts, and commodities. Charting the parallel displacements of objects and people during the Polish-Ottoman wars of 1672–1699, I argue that the mutability of the relics shaped the refugees’ attempts to deal with the conflicting social obligations and economic pressures of exile. Drawing on the church inventories and trial records of the Armenian communities in Poland-Lithuania, this essay offers a wider analytical framework with which to approach the problems of migration, displacement, and collective possessions in the early modern world.

Moroccan Torah Scrolls: Theorizing a Diasporic Afterlife

Torah scrolls are more than ritual objects; when used in a congregation, they take on semi-human characteristics and are given special agency. For Sephardic communities, some scrolls bear witness to the history of migration and trade that has uprooted them over five centuries. This article examines Torah scrolls originating in Morocco or used today by Moroccan communities, arguing that they take on a different meaning for the community depending on whether they are used, displayed, or guarded. We consider the difference in social meaning between chanting from a scroll and venerating it, and how Moroccan Jewry is impacted by efforts in Morocco, Israel, and the diaspora to ascribe ownership of the Torah via networks of patrimony and belonging. Offering an ethnographically informed analysis of Torah scrolls in London, Essaouira, and Tel Aviv, this article demonstrates that Torah scrolls serve as productive members of the communities that own them when they facilitate a thorough understanding of the migration networks that create communities.

"There Are No Cultural Islands like Ceshinsky's": Ceshinsky's Community Bookstore and Intellectual Space in Chicago, 1922–1966

"There Are No Cultural Islands like Ceshinsky's"Ceshinsky's Community Bookstore and Intellectual Space in Chicago, 1922–1966 Erin Faigin (bio) In 1981, a local Chicago television station asked Saul Bellow to lead a walking tour through Humboldt Park, his childhood home. Although Bellow was born in Quebec, he moved with his family to Chicago in 1924 when he was nine years old. The Bellows settled in Humboldt Park, a neighborhood on the northwest side of the city. Originally settled by Germans and Scandinavians, by the 1920s Humboldt Park was home to a diverse mix of European immigrants, among them Italians, Poles, and Russian Jews. The Bellows lived on Cortez Street, just south of the intersection of Division and Damen. Walking west on Division from Damen in the 1920s, one might pass by a meeting of the Zionist Organization of America at Budapest Hall or a staging of a Yiddish play at the Biltmore Theatre.1 At the intersection of Division and Campbell, one could catch a streetcar headed downtown, but for most Humboldt Park residents there was no need. Between California and Damen, they shopped at Jewish-owned bakeries and groceries, were styled in Jewish-owned shoe stores and photo studios, visited Jewish dentists and doctors, called on Jewish exterminators and contractors, and sought counsel from Jewish undertakers in times of grief.2 Yet, for Bellow and his friends, the most important institution on Division Street was Moshe Ceshinsky's bookstore, located just east of California Street. Ceshinsky's Community Bookstore offered more than the opportunity to exchange cash for goods; the space itself facilitated the exchange of ideas. Bellow would later reminisce: [End Page 15] [My] friends and I are trying to locate Ceshinsky's little island of culture. In the days of our youth our neighborhood didn't look very different from similar districts in Manchester or St. Etienne, but it is undoubtedly worse now. There are no cultural islands like Ceshinsky's. He may not have been aware that he was selling inflammatory books—Germinal, The Flowers of Evil, Man's Fate, the works of Marx and Engels—to high-school students. To him all books were precious.3 At Ceshinsky's, fathers smoked cigars and debated politics; landsmanshaftn4 held meetings; Yiddish poets perfected manuscripts; leftists could buy the Communist Daily Worker or the Trotskyist New International; Jews purchased ritual objects imported from Israel. Ceshinsky's Community Bookstore was a cultural island for Jewish immigrants in the sea of change that was their new home, Chicago. Before Ceshinsky opened his own bookstore, he worked as a traveling salesman for Yiddish publishing houses and newspapers.5 He was introduced to America by way of rail, both its dispersion and its connection. Upon settling in Chicago in 1922, he promptly opened his own bookstore, transitioning from itinerant salesman to neighborhood businessman. In opening a storefront on Division Street, Ceshinsky claimed a stake for himself and for Yiddish literature in Humboldt Park. Although his business was vulnerable to the fluctuations of the market, he was no longer subject to the vagaries of being a mobile salesman. Yet, through his business, Ceshinsky continued to use books as mobile manifestations of a Yiddish public sphere disrupted and reconfigured by migration. As Derek Penslar argues, the Jewish press represents a microcosm of the Jewish public sphere, the collectivity of private Jewish individuals engaged in the creation of public discourse.6 Tony Michels describes the emergence of a "Yiddish-speaking, working-class version of Habermas' public sphere" in late nineteenth-century New York and identifies the Yiddish socialist press as its central institution.7 Over the course of the early twentieth century, the Yiddish public sphere described by Michels expanded in geographical and political scope. No longer centered on the Lower East Side, the Yiddish public sphere in which Ceshinsky participated was polycentric, broadly leftist, and economically diverse. When he became a publisher in the 1930s, Ceshinsky took a role in shaping the geographic boundaries and cultural content of that Yiddish public sphere. The publications produced by his publishing house, [End Page 16] Ceshinsky Farlag, described a world where Yiddish was a multigenerational, global, thriving language.8 Ceshinsky Farlag published Zishe...

RITUAL BUILDINGS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT IN BILAD AL-SHAM FROM THE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD TO THE END OF THE PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC “B” PERIOD: SELECTED SITES

This article examines the types of excavated buildings and areas with ideological and religious features in Bilad al-Sham from the Paleolithic Period until the Pre-Pottery Neolithic “B” Period. Religion played an important role in reducing people’s fear and weakness towards other creatures, as they practiced religious rituals in a variety of forms, beginning in the Paleolithic Period with some caches of ritual objects made of various materials such as pieces of stone or bone, or in the form of architectural structures containing stones in human and animal form, representing what can be called ritual buildings. With further development of people’s religious thoughts and beliefs, religious features became more apparent, and their numbers and variety increased. In the Neolithic Period, ritual buildings became more rooted and show further development and cohesion of people’s thoughts and religious beliefs. As a result, the types of ritual buildings included independent buildings containing artistic and architectural religious elements; rooms within the residential buildings containing caches for flint, stone, bone or animal tools and art pieces and plastered skulls; or colorful drawings on the walls or floors of buildings, all connected to religious thought, which means that the buildings can be called ritual buildings.

Buried Scripture and the Interpretation of Ritual

Inference to religion and ritual does not require scripture. Since the early twentieth century, archaeologists have identified hundreds of deposits containing Buddhist scriptures, images and ritual objects throughout the Japanese archipelago, the majority dating to the late Heian period (794–1185 ce). Previous research suggests that scripture was the central feature of these deposits. This article argues that these deposits resulted from a range of highly variable contexts of religious and social practice, not limited to a focus on scripture. I survey early excavations and interpretations of sutra burial and then turn to two main case studies. These examples show that these deposits were complex assemblages that implicated diverse religious meanings, time frames and social actors. Scripture deposits can demonstrate how religious ritual illuminates, underwrites and interweaves variant scales of agency, time and social practice.

Cornerstones: Shaligrams as Kin

Shaligrams are the sacred fossil ammonites of the Himalayas. Viewed primarily as manifestations of Hindu gods, these aniconic deities are obtained by pilgrimage to Himalayan Nepal and are then brought home, to families and communities all over South Asia and the diaspora, to become both deity and kin. Shaligrams also act as conversants, if inanimate ones, during the course of ritual and everyday talk. Therefore, the semiotic separation of bodies and persons in Shaligram religious practice, discussed here in relation to Tulsi Vivah (the marriage of Tulsi and Shaligram) festivals and in daily puja and darshan rituals, reimagines individuals as represented by but distinct from their physical forms. This practice then links language and ritual objects with broader understandings of human and divine personhood in South Asia as it is conceptualized both within and between physical bodies.

КОЛОДЦЫ И ПЕЧИ: РИТУАЛИЗИРОВАННАЯ УТИЛИЗАЦИЯ ОСВЯЩЕННЫХ ПРЕДМЕТОВ В ПОСТСОВЕТСКОЙ ПРАВОСЛАВНОЙ ТРАДИЦИИ

The author discusses practices of the destruction of the ‘church garbage’ (items that were used in church, but for various reasons became subject to disposal) in present-day Russia. These are ritual objects that have aged, deteriorated and fallen out of use (church utensils, robes, etc.), or household items – rags, brooms, detergents – that were used in the ecclesiastical space. All these objects are supposed to possess the invisible virtue, which was transmitted to them in various ways – through consecration, contact with relics or simply by being in the church. Objects of that type cannot be disposed in the usual way, along with ordinary garbage. In the church tradition, already in the Middle Ages, there existed different ways of ritualized disposal of consecrated objects. In post-Soviet Russia, with the rapid revival of churches and monasteries, many traditions are being restored – or constructed anew. That also applies to the practices of disposal of ‘church garbage’. The article is based on the materials collected during expeditions to the south of the Nizhny Novgorod region and during surveys in Moscow churches and monasteries.

Heterogeneity of Emotional Impression and Visual Appearance of Taotie in the Periods of the Ancient Chinese Dynasties of Xia, Shang-Yin and Zhou

Assessing the inlay of art objects and rituals of the Shang-Yin era (1554-1046 BC) with the image of Taotie, the special virtuosity of the ancient masters in the arrangement of visual accents is noted, where the visual center of inlay and fixation of the gaze is the image of a beast-like monster with a menacing ferocious appearance. Awe and fear are the ideas embedded in the image of Taotie, the impact of which is comparable to an encounter with an aggressive animal or with something inexplicably mystical. His mouth suggests a grin, without the existing visible outlines of the lower jaw, complemented by snake-like details twisted into waves and spirals, adding the impression of a tense, ready-to-attack body. This is what a snake, tiger, or even a cat looks like, having a curved tense body at the moment of aggression. The resulting psychological reaction regards the object as a potentially dangerous creature. Despite the dominant position of the Taotie image, which appeared in the era of metal on objects of art and ritual, its appearance is not the same for the three dynasties. Originating from imperfect images in the form of ornaments in the Hia period (2070-1765 BC), most likely associated with the possibilities of bronze casting, it was improved in the Shang Dynasty, when the symbol was given more importance than writing. In the Zhou era (1045-770 BC), his image acquires features that are not clear, without emphasis on the depicted being, explained primarily by the change of priorities from the cult of ancestors to the cult of heaven. Changes in the visual appearance indicate a different attitude towards the character, respectfully special in the Shang period and the early Bronzes of the Hia era, and a certain alienation in the Zhou dynasty, when his image is still used, but at the same time only resembles the national ornament of the ancestors.

Графо-фонетические особенности имени Аюки–хана (на материале калмыцких деловых писем XVII–XVIII вв.)

Introduction. This article discusses the graphemic and phonemic features, as well as the origin of the name of the famous Kalmyk Ayuka Khan (1642–1724). Archival documents, namely, numerous official letters in the Kalmyk language indicate that in the 17th–18th centuries personal names of Sanskrit and Tibetan origin were popular among the Kalmyks of Russia. A large layer of anthroponyms associated with the names of deities, sacred symbols, philosophical concepts, ritual objects, etc. were borrowed by them via Sanskrit and Tibetan written sources, with the spread among them of Buddhist teachings; and most of these items that belong to the spiritual sphere of the people are still in active use. While the anthroponymy of the written Kalmyk language of the period in question has been little discussed, the study of a particular borrowed anthroponym, in my opinion, is of much relevance. This article aims to analyze the name ‘Ayuka’ in terms of its graphemic and phonemic composition, as well as its origin. The study’s database comprises Ayuka Khan’s official letters sent to Peter I, as well as to the officials of the Russian government in the period between 1685 and 1724; the documents are part of the collections of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (Moscow) and the National Archives of the Republic of Kalmykia (Elista). Conclusions. The study shows that the Khan’s name is of Sanskrit origin; in the documents, it was transliterated using the symbols of the Galik script and was pronounced in the Kalmyk environment in its Tibetan version.

Возможности и особенности применения палинологического анализа на археологических объектах разного типа

A wide variety of archaeological sites associated with various human activity has led to the emergence of a wide range of problems solved by archaeological palynology. On the example of the palynological materials accumulated in the Laboratory of Nature Sciences of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the opportunities and features of the palynological analysis application are considered both on classical objects for Russian archaeopalynology (cultural layer, buried soils, defensive ramparts, burial mounds, etc.) and on non-traditional ones (latrines, vessels, funerary objects, ceramics, etc.). It is shown that the reconstruction of the natural environment, generally accepted for palynology, is mainly possible for the materials from long timed sites of shepherds in caves and rock shelters and cultural layers of sites, settlements, hillforts. Materials obtained from other objects (ancient and medieval arable lands, storage pits, latrines, the contents of ritual objects, vessels, and the gastrointestinal tract of the buried) give an idea of very local and short-term environmental conditions or events usually associated with economic and/or daily activities of a person, with his food, funerary rites and traditions. In this regard, the possibilities of the palynological method and the purposes will be different for each specific research. Recommendations for the sampling for palynological analysis are given for each specific case.

Restive spirits seeking release: the Implicit Religion of the Grateful Dead

ABSTRACT What can the Grateful Dead’s music and community tell us about religion in the postmodern world? While the music operates like a lodestone for many adherents as they negotiate their lives and their situations in the world, we can delve more deeply into the underexplored spiritual elements to the community around the Grateful Dead. This article argues that the Grateful Dead continues to function as Implicit Religion for many, 25 years after the death of guitarist and founding member Jerry Garcia. We will explore the religious dimensions of the music, the subculture, the signs, symbols and myths around the band, including the origins of the band’s name. As different ritual objects take on significance in the lives of their followers, the Grateful community remains an orienting force in many people’s lives.

Pastoral subsistence and mounted fighting in the Eastern Tianshan Mountain region: New insights from the Shirenzigou worked bone assemblage.

Situated at a geographic crossroads, the eastern Tianshan Mountain region in northwest China is crucial to understanding various economic, social, and cultural developments on the Eurasian Steppes. One promising way to gain a better knowledge of ancient subsistence economy, craft production, and social change in the eastern Tianshan Mountain region is to study the artifact assemblages from archaeological contexts. Here, we present an analysis of 488 worked animal bones from the large site of Shirenzigou (ca. 1300–1 BCE), to date the largest assemblage of this kind uncovered in the eastern Tianshan Mountain region. We classified these worked bones into six categories, including “ritual objects”, “ornaments”, “tools”, “worked astragali”, “warfare and mobility”, and “indeterminate”. The identification of animal species and skeletal elements indicates that worked bones from Shirenzigou are characterized by a predominance of caprine products, particularly worked astragali, which is consistent with the large proportion of caprine fragments found in animal remains associated with food consumption. This demonstrates the contribution of caprine pastoralism to bone working activities at Shirenzigou. The making of most worked bones does not appear to have required advanced or specialized skills. Considering the absence of dedicated bone working space, alongside the variability in raw material selection and in dimensions of certain types of artifacts, we infer that worked bone production at Shirenzigou was not standardized. In terms of raw material selection and mode of production, Shirenzigou differed from their settled, farming counterparts in the Yellow River valley of northern China. In addition, along with the evidence for violence and horseback riding, the increasing use of bone artifacts associated with warfare and mobility during the late occupation phase of Shirenzigou reflects growing social instability and implies the likely emergence of single mounted horsemen, equipped with light armors, in the region during the late first millennium BCE. Our results provide new insights into animal resource exploitation and changing lifeways of early pastoral societies in the eastern Tianshan Mountain region, expanding our knowledge of the economic, social, and political milieu of late Bronze Age and early Iron Age eastern Eurasia.

Cultural Hybridization in Christian China: The Art of Cloisonné at The Service of God

The usual conception of traditional Chinese art tends to forget the existence of a rich cultural legacy of Christian origin that has been reflected in the manufacture of ritual objects for the convert communities and European missionaries in China. Among the most used techniques, cloisonné stands out, with important liturgical or decorative pieces treasured by missionaries and collectors, many of them in Western museums today. This work tries to make an approximation to some of those ritual objects used by the Christian Chinese communities that reflect the great influence that the Western artistic models had in the conception of art as a result of the cultural hybridization between both worlds.

Preserving Jewish heritage

Abstract The family heirlooms and Jewish ritual objects owned by Frankfurt-born Solomon David Schloss (1815–1911), an ardent Jew, who was much affected by the death of his young wife, shed light on how one man participated in the growing trend for preserving Jewish heritage in the late nineteenth century. The story of his collection, spanning a century and a half, coincides with the modern history of collecting Jewish ceremonial art. This account reveals, as with other types of art collection, a variety of motives, changes in meaning and challenges of provenance research. Schloss’s purchase of Jewish ritual items from needy Jews has added moral value to the collection, most of which has remained, as he wished, in the family. Although frequently loaned for didactic public display, the personal sense of ancestry that his objects embody distinguishes them from those in museums.

Action and seduction

Action and seduction

Древние ритуальные объекты Окинского плоскогорья (Восточный Саян)

Sacral beliefs took one of the most important spheres in the life of ancient societies. The evidence of such beliefs can be recognized in stone constructions used for various ritual activities and differentiated by architectonic features depending on their functionality. Some of such constructions were found on the territory of the Oka region (Buryat Republic). One part of them has a four-angled, circular, or ring-shaped form and a diameter up to 2 m; the other had circular burial mound-like or flat configuration with a diameter of 3–6 m. The first excavations of the large stone mounds of the circular form were carried out in 1870 P.A. Rovinskiy near the Oka guard fort (archeological site Oka, locality 1 and 2). The researcher characterized excavated constructions as cenotaphs or sacrificial places. In 2020 A.V. Kharinskiy excavated other two large stone mounds at the Shasnur-3 archeological site. Based on materials from excavations reinforced with ethnographical data, we can regard circular mounds with the 3–6 m diameter in the Mountain Oka region as cenotaphs. One of the small ring-shaped stone settings was investigated by V.I. Tashak at the Zun Nomto-Gol-1 archeological site. Taking into consideration the ethnographical data, the setting from Nomto-Gol-1 as other stone settings with a diameter up to 2 m can be characterized as ancient sacrificial places devoted to the spirits — hosts of the local landscapes. Key words: ancient ritual objects, burial grounds, Eastern Sayan, Oka plateau

The Mosaic Floors of the House of Kyrios Leontis in Nysa Scythopolis (Beth Shean)

The House of Kyrios Leontis in Nysa Scythopolis (Beth-Shean) was partially excavated by two expeditions and at different times, and the mosaic floors have been published only in preliminary publications. Two halls were discovered in the complex. The first hall is decorated with a mosaic pavement of three panels: the Homeric story of Odysseus and the Sirens; beribboned parrots surrounding a dedication inscription; the Nile god, Nilometer, the city of Alexandria, and a Nilotic landscape. The second hall served as a prayer room or a small synagogue. A pair of animals decorated the two entrances, and the hall itself is decorated with populated vine scrolls with animals. Jewish ritual objects appear in the central medallion: the seven-branched candlestick, citron, censer, and ram’s horn. The mosaic floors are inlaid with dedication inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, with the names of the donors and prayers for the holy congregation.
 The iconography, incorporating mythological subjects, the god of the Nile and Nilotic landscape, Jewish ritual objects, common animal chase scenes, and the use of the three languages that were customary in Byzantine Palestine, expresses the character of the city of Nysa Scythopolis as a cultural city inhabited by a mixed, well-educated population.

Weapons in Legal Rituals: Between Myth and Reality

This article seeks to explore the significance of weapons in legal rituals mentioned in sources, such as sagas and laws. Similarities in the phrasing of various types of sources give reason to believe that it is possible to determine certain uses of weapons in Viking Age legal rituals. Such rituals, which shared essential features with legal procedure, consisted of sequences of activities involving phrasing, objects, and gestures to mark a transition from one legal status to another, and they could also convey, and act as preservers of, legal meaning. Examples show that oaths were sworn on weapons, and that they conferred legal validity at the assembly (vápnatak). Old Norse mythology explained and legitimised key values in society, and through it everyday people found a template for how to use weapons in legal rituals. Rituals are however dynamic, and hence the ritual objects may change over time. In the Viking Age weapons were objects laden with meaning, and it was probably the introduction of Christianity that led to them being banned from further use in legal ritual.