ABSTRACT
This article is a subset of a larger study, “Religion and Society at Umm el-Jimal,” being undertaken in the publication program of the Umm el-Jimal Project. The objective is to examine the archaeological data as a source for the religious history of the Umm el-Jimal community in the late pagan, Christian, and Islamic historical phases. This task would be easy if, as has been done traditionally, it were limited to presenting the remnants of overtly sacred religious practices, which at Umm el-Jimal would be several pagan altars of the 1st-3rd centuries AD (de Vries 2009) and the 15 churches of the 5th-9th centuries. It is assumed, however, that ancient pre-modern religion is pervasive in all cultural aspects of a society (cf. Lincoln 2006: 1–8, 51–61).
