The Spaces of Domestic Religion in Late Antique Egypt

Abstract Domestic religion-or family religion, or household religion-should be considered as a cluster of concerns and orientations, not just “religion in the home.” More importantly, the ritual resolution of these concerns is typically pursued- by the agents of domestic religion (more often women)-in a variety of places, not just in the home: that is, the local environment and neighborhood and even further afield. For example, a pilgrimage shrine is not in itself a phenomenon of domestic religion; it is its own religious phenomenon. But it is in the nature of domestic religion to include that pilgrimage shrine as part of a “domestic” topography of ritual spaces. This is the kind of extra-domestic space that this paper addresses.