In the not too distant past, most archaeologists believed that most of the world’s islands were not inhabited until relatively recent times, after the introduction of food producing Neolithic economies.  In recent years, however, convincing evidence has emerged for far earlier Paleolithic occupations, such as on of Flores in Indonesia, home of the controversial “hobbit” […]

Early Christian monks wrote about experiencing visions of God through an ascetic practice of sacred spectating. Numerous texts denote this monastic tenet with the Greek word theōria. In this talk, I propose that the implications of sacred spectating reach beyond its literary treatment. The notion of spectating divine truths contributed also to the creation of […]