BACKGROUND The practice of sacrifice has occurred in several cultures and religions throughout history and still exists today. Candomblé, a syncretical Afro-Brazilian religion, practices the sacrificial ritual called "Orô" by its adherents. The present work aims to document the use of animal species in these sacrificial practices in the cities of Caruaru (PE) and Campina Grande (PB) in Norteast...

* Egyptian sculpture has created statues and reliefs with deformations similar to morphological changes such as found in human schistosomiasis; characteristics of splenomegaly have been depicted in naturalistic reliefs and also symbolically in order to indicate assumed qualities of deities. Such statues show usually to some degree a transformation from male to morphological female features as i...

The ancient Maya, like many other early cultures, developed a body of beliefs and myths on which they based their explanations for the origin and order of the cosmos. Everything that exists and happens was understood as the action of invisible and impalpable divine energies, beings or deities, who found representation through art and whose exploits were told in the sacred books. Some gods dealt...

* Egyptian sculpture has created statues and reliefs with deformations similar to morphological changes such as found in human schistosomiasis; characteristics of splenomegaly have been depicted in naturalistic reliefs and also symbolically in order to indicate assumed qualities of deities. Such statues show usually to some degree a transformation from male to morphological female features as i...

Cave studies have traditionally relied heavily on ethnographic or ethnohistoric analogy to understand the sacred context ofM~soamericancaves. What is little understood are the behavioral processes that produced the artifact assembla?es In c~ves and the nature ofthe relationship between caves and their ancient users residing in surrounding surface sztes. Thzs study demonstrates that caves can pr...