The sacrificial rituals of Greek hero-cults in the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods (Kernos supplément 12), Liège 2002. (original) (raw)
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Opuscula 5, 190-192, 2012
This book brings together the papers from a conference which took place at the Centre for the Study of Antiquity and the Department of Classical Archaeology at the University of Aarhus in 2004. The aim of the event was twofold, on the one hand, to establish a network of young scholars working on ancient Greek cult, and on the other, to let them discuss their ideas under the guidance of Richard Hamilton, a seasoned scholar, and subsequently develop them into articles. The scope of the volume is presented by one of the organisers, Jesper Tae Jensen, in a short preface. Then follow eight articles, seven of which were presented at the conference. The book is concluded with an index and a list of the contributors. The articles span a wide field including archaeology, philology, architecture, history, musicology and religion with the particular aim of combining the study of material culture with ancient texts and inscriptions. The first paper, by Lisbeth Bredholt Christensen, explores the definition of the term "cult" within various branches of scholarship, in particular in relation to concepts like "religion" and "ritual", stressing the great distinctions in the uses of the modern terminology. Within the study of religion "cult" has either been of very little interest or considered as "ritual lived" and discussed primarily within particular religions from an emic perspective with no attempt at applying an analytic apparatus, contrary to "ritual" which is treated as a category where different kinds can be discerned, such as transitory rituals, prayer, sacrifice etc, clearly an etic approach. Sociology (at least in the anglophone sphere) instead uses cult for private religions experience often contrasted with how institutionalized and mainstream religion is practiced. In prehistoric archaeology and Classical archaeology and history, on the other hand, cult is a central concept. In the study of prehistory, the preference of the terms cult, rituals and religious practice instead of religion can be explained by the nature of the archaeological evidence, which does not allow for the reconstructions of belief, the core of religion. Among Classicists the situation is partly the inverse, as cult is used as a synonym to religion rather than to ritual, an effect of the prominence of the written evidence which facilitates the interpretation of the archaeological material. This paper cautions for an unreflected use of terms, but there is are certainly further distinctions between the terminologies in different languages which should be addressed as well. Richard Hamilton analyses the relationship between altars, animals and baskets (kistai) on Attic votive reliefs from the Classical period by applying a statistical method, a chi-square test. The evidence consists of 224 reliefs dedicated to Zeus, Apollon, Artemis, Athena, the Nymphs, Asklepios and the banqueting hero, presented in a catalogue in an appendix. Several interesting observations are made. Of particular importance is the relation between altar and kiste, two elements that have to be taken as having different connotations in the reliefs. Altars more frequently occur with animals than with baskets, refuting van Straten's proposal that the kiste holds sacrificial cakes. There is also a variation between the deities and in reliefs for the Nymphs altars may have had a different meaning than to suggest animal sacrifice. A closer investigation of the kistai shows them to be is more strongly associated with children and family groups, in particular women, rather than with sacrifice of animals or vegetarian offerings, a conclusion backed up by a brief detour into Attic vase-painting. Statistics are rarely used in this way on ancient evidence, which makes the paper interesting, in particular, as pointed out by Hamilton, such an approach demands both a precise description of one's thesis and a consideration of the converse of the same thesis. On the other hand, the relationships revealed cannot be explained by this method. Bronwen Wickkiser's contribution examines the relation between the establishment of Asklepios in Athens and the plague, as the introduction of the god is usually taken to be a response to the local healing gods' incapacity to help. The only source informing us about the
Contesting the Past: Tomb Cult, Hero Cult, and Epic in Early Greece
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History of religions, 2019
Gunnel Ekroth, in “Why Does Zeus Care about Burnt Thighbones from sheep? Defining the Divine and Structuring the World Through Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greece,” sets the plate for this volume by reassessing the historical backdrop against which nascent Christian traditions related to animal sacrifice emerge. Animal sacrifice was the central ritual action of ancient Greek religion, as well as in most religions of the eastern Mediterranean in antiquity. Although modern scholars have studied this religious practice for more than 100 years, animal sacrifice has always posed something of a problem, as it is so fundamentally alien to western European Christian culture. In order to understand animal sacrifice in the ancient world, one needs to encounter it in its own historical setting. This means not only exploring its role in what moderns more narrowly construe as the religious sphere, but also in social and political orderings as well. Of central importance, to archaeologists of sacrifice like Ekroth, is the practical execution of the rituals. Ekroth introduces readers to a relatively new wealth of material evidence about animal sacrifice in the pre-Christian, Greek world. Ekroth’s critical contribution is to assess the results of recent research on the archaeology of sacrifice. Her main concern is with historical animal sacrifice as it was actually performed, primarily, in the thysia ritual, which occurred across ancient Greek sanctuaries between the 8th and 1st centuries BCE. At these events, mainly domesticated animals along with the fruit of agricultural labor and libations, after being dedicated to a deity, were sacrificed and shared – with butchered portions ostensibly going to gods like Zeus who preferred thighbones, while the rest of the animal, in particular the meat, was given to the human participants. Ekroth encounters in the material handling, treatment, and distribution of meat derived from ritualized animal sacrifice an ancient structuring of the world. Analysis of these sacrificial rituals provides us with windows to the cosmologies, hierarchies of social power, and group identities associated with those who participated.
Animals in Ritual and Funerary Context, Proceedings of the 2nd RPWG in Basel, 01.–04.02.2018, 2021
Meat-sharing and commensal consumption of meat are central motifs in the Homeric epics. As remains of commensal meals, gifts for the dead or gods and sacrifices, animal bones and sacrificial knives are omnipresent in Early Iron Age Greek sanctuaries. Nevertheless, in Classical Greek archaeology, reflections on the role of meat have traditionally involved the study of numerous later texts and images from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period that were also used for the reconstruction of various rituals and institutions of Early Greek societies. The current paper aims to provide a diachronic overview of the social roles of meat consumption in Early Greek societies, through an investigation of funerary and ritual archaeological contexts in Central Greece as well as a study of contemporaneous texts and images. A series of Archaic vase-paintings displaying the ‘ransom of Hector’ and Achilles as a ‘Lord’ over large quantities of meat was selected as a starting point for the discussion. The evidence shows that meat-sharing and commensal consumption were employed as social tools to gain reputation (‘social capital’) by members of social elites, especially local leaders, throughout the Early Iron Age and the Archaic period. In 6th century BCE Athens, several details such as the emergence of larger sacrificial processions or altars on painted vases indicate a growing importance of larger cult communities. Coming full circle to the display of Achilles in the ‘ransom of Hector’, the change in some details (the replacement of the phiale by a knife) that can be observed at the end of the 6th century BCE, might ref lect a change in the perception of meat-sharers, in contrast to the institutionalised bloody sacrifice in sanctuaries conducted by a cult community of citizens that became a key instrument for the demarcation of the polis identity.
Designating Sacrificial Animals in Greek Ritual Norms, ZPE 225 (2023), p. 51-68
ZPE, 2023
The main goal of this paper is to analyse the terms referring to sacrificial animals in Greek ritual norms in order to clarify their meaning and arrive at a better definition. Secondly, since these terms have often been translated in an approximate way in previous research, I seek to offer the most appropriate trans- lations in English. The objective is therefore to achieve a consistent use of the terms by scholars, reflecting as much as possible the Greek usage. A precise philological understanding of the Greek terms related to animals should provide a solid foundation for various studies, in particular for the investigation of which sorts of animals were sacrificed and to which deities and heroes they were offered.
The aim of the paper is to reanimate the discussion on Thessalian rites of passage, in the light of supplementary epigraphic evidence, directly or indirectly related to local age-classes and pertinent ritualized attitudes. Archaeological evidence will be taken into consideration as well, in particular groups of votives from Thessalian sanctuaries dedicated to kourotrophic deities, who presided over the passage between the various stages of the human biological and social life. Lastly, attention will be paid to legendary narrations, which recount attitudes as well as feats of young Thessalian heroic figures. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 658573. cf. https://history-bookstore.eie.gr/en/section-greek-roman-antiquity/a010780/