Abstract: This article applies approaches from current emotion research on material affective scaffolds—objects made and used to enhance, and more generally transform, affective states—to the emerging field of study focusing on emotions in ancient Near Eastern societies. Its main goal is to extend the framework of 4E cognition—with its central notion that human cognition is embodied, embedded,...
Abstract This contribution adds to anthropological and historical studies on spirit possession with textual sources from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, asking to what extent concepts of possession can be grasped in these two cultures and whether these concepts resemble each other in any systematic way. The discussion focuses on exemplary cases of “negative” possession encountered in healing...