Recensione a Roberta Rizzo, Culti e miti della Sicilia antica e protocristiana, Roma, Salvatore Sciascia Editore, 2012. 1 vol. 16 × 24 cm, 400 p. ISBN : 978–88–8241–387–3 (original) (raw)
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Journal of ancient Judaism, 2016
This paper addresses the animal bone material from ancient Qumran from the perspective of zooarchaeologial material recovered in ancient Greek cult contexts. The paper offers an overview of the importance of animal bones for the understanding of ancient Greek religion and sacrificial practices in particular, followed by an interpretation of the Qumran material taking its starting point in the bone material and the archaeological find contexts, including importance of the presence or absence of an altar at this site. The methodological implications of letting the written sources guide the interpretation of the archaeological material are explored and it is suggested that the Qumran bones are to be interpreted as remains of ritual meals following animal sacrifice while that the presence of also calcined bones supports the proposal that there was once an altar in area L130. Finally the similarities between Israelite and Greek sacrificial practices are touched upon, arguing for advantages of a continued and parallel study of these two sacrificial systems based on the zooarchaeological evidence.
In the Homeric epics, the process of animal sacrifice is often epitomised as an act of burning the thighbones for the gods and sharing the splanchna (offal) between the human participants in the ritual. This indicates the special position which ritual practice assigned to the internal organs of animals. It is further confirmed by Plutarch who reports that even Pythagoreans, notorious for their vegetarianism, would take their share of the splanchna. Even though from the point of view of twentieth century scholarship, which consisted in explaining religious phenomena by their social function and/or origins, the act of collective consumption of splanchna seemed to fit perfectly virtually all theoretical frameworks and to confirm their validity, its details in fact remain obscure. Even the full list of organs belonging to the category of splanchna is far from obvious, and the exact procedure for their roasting, division and consumption, however frequently mentioned in texts and depicted on vases, is nowhere described in detail. In my contribution, I would like to reassess some of the sources in order to ask (and possibly partially answer) the question of how much may actually be said about splanchna.
From snout to tail. Dividing animals and reconstructing ancient Greek sacrifice
From snout to tail. Exploring the Greek sacrificial animal from the literary, epigraphical, iconographical, archaeological, and zooarchaeological evidence (ActaAth-4, 60), eds. J.-M. Carbon & G. Ekroth, Stockholm, 9-20, 2024
Animal sacrifice fundamentally informed how the ancient Greeks defined themselves, their relation to the divine, and the structure of their society. Adopting an explicitly cross-disciplinary perspective, the present volume explores the practical execution and complex meaning of animal sacrifice within ancient Greek religion (c. 1000 BC–AD 200). The objective is twofold. First, to clarify in detail the use and meaning of body parts of the animal within sacrificial ritual. This involves a comprehensive study of ancient Greek terminology in texts and inscriptions, representations on pottery and reliefs, and animal bones found in sanctuaries. Second, to encourage the use and integration of the full spectrum of ancient evidence in the exploration of Greek sacrificial rituals, which is a prerequisite for understanding the complex use and meaning of Greek animal sacrifice. Twelve contributions by experts on the literary, epigraphical, iconographical, archaeological and zooarchaeological evidence for Greek animal sacrifice explore the treatment of legs, including feet and hoofs, tails, horns; heads, including tongues, brains, ears and snouts; internal organs; blood; as well as the handling of the entire body by burning it whole. Three further contributions address Hittite, Israelite and Etruscan animal sacrifice respectively, providing important contextualization for Greek ritual practices.
Thighs or tails? The osteological evidence as a source for Greek ritual norms
La norme en matière religieuse en Grèce ancienne, ed. P. Brulé, 2009
Our knowledge of the normative practice of Greek animal sacrifice is usually based on written and iconographical sources. Recent publications of animal bones from Greek sanctuaries offer new possibilities to define the practical execution of sacrificial rituals. This paper discusses the god’s part of the animal victim burnt on the altar, which could consist of the thigh bones or the osphys (sacrum and caudal vertebrae) or both. The altar debris and consumption refuse from ritual contexts allow us to distinguish variations within this norm. Sheep and goat femora were the preferred parts to burn, though at some sites cattle thigh bones were favoured. Tails and sacrum bones are rarely found. Pig bones hardly ever seem to have formed part of the god’s share burnt on the altar, though pigs clearly were eaten in sanctuaries. It is suggested that the thigh bones may have been the original offering at a thysia, perhaps a tradition deriving from the Mycenaean period. The burning of tails could have been inspired from Near Eastern sacrificial practices and was perhaps added to the Greek animal sacrifices at a later stage to increase the element of divination.
2013
The importance of the zooarchaeological evidence as a source for ritual practices in ancient Greece is gradually becoming widely recognized. Animal bones provide a kind of evidence for Greek cult practice which is constantly growing, and can complement and elucidate the information provided by texts, inscriptions and images. This volume brings together sixteen contributions exploring ritual practices and animal bones from different chronological and geographical perspectives, foremost ancient Greece in the historical period, but also in the Bronze Age and as early as the Neolithic period, as well as Anatolia, France and Scandinavia, providing new empirical evidence from a number of major sanctuaries and cult places. On a methodological level, the complexity of identifying ritual activity from the zooarchaeological evidence is a recurrent theme, as is the prominence of local variation visible in the bone material, suggesting that the written sources and iconography may offer simplified or idealized versions of the rituals actually performed. Although zooarchaeology needs to and should be integrated with other kinds of sources, the independent study of the bones in an unbiased manner is of utmost importance, as the bones can provide a different “reality” than that encountered in our other sources.
What we would like the bones to tell us: a sacrificial wish list
Bones, behaviour and belief. The zooarchaeological evidence as a source for ritual practice in ancient Greece and beyond (ActaAth-4°, 55), eds. G. Ekroth & J. Wallensten, Stockholm 2013, 15-30., 2013
Animal bones comprise the only category of evidence for Greek cult which is constantly significantly increasing. The use of ever more sophisticated excavation methods demonstrates the importance of zooarchaeologicalmaterial for the study of Greek religion and how such material can throw light on texts, inscriptions and images, as the animal bones constitute remains of actual ritual actions and not mere descriptions or representations of these actions. This paper outlines some areas where the zooarchaeological evidence may be of particular pertinence, for example, in elucidating the complex and idiosyncratic religious terminology of shares of sacrificial victims mentioned in sacred laws and sacrificial calendars, or in providing a context for a better understanding of the representations of animal parts on Attic vases. The role of meat within ancient Greek society, the choice of sacrificial victims and the handling of “non-sacrificable” animals such as game, dogs and equids within Greek cult can also be clarified by comparisons with the animal remains.
From the butcher's knife to god's ears: The leg and tail in Greek sacrifice
From Snout to Tail: Exploring the Greek sacrificial animal from the literary, epigraphical, iconographical, archaeological, and zooarchaeological evidence, 2024
This paper argues that, throughout the process of Greek sacrifice, the leg and tail formed a single integrated unit that was both practical and deeply religious. It has long been accepted that thighs and tails were burned on altars in ancient Greece and that this act was where communication with the gods took place, thus forming one of the most important elements of ancient Greek sacrifice. However, up to this point the leg and tail have not been treated as elements of a single holistic unit. Through reinterpretation of textual and iconographic evidence, combined with my study of butchery and an extensive experimental archaeological project involving the burning of thighs and tails, the thigh and tail are shown to form a single sacrificial unit from the butchering of the sacrificial animal, through being burnt on the altar, until they conveyed communication with the divine.
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Introduction: bones of contention?
Bones, behaviour and belief. The zooarchaeological evidence as a source for ritual practice in ancient Greece and beyond (ActaAth-4° no. 55), eds. G. Ekroth & J. Wallensten, Stockholm 2013, 9-13. , 2013