NAMING AND MAPPING THE GODS IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN SPACES MOBILITIES IMAGINARIES (original) (raw)
Related papers
2022
Oracular sanctuaries have long been studied and understood through the only lenses of the biggest and apollonian examples of Delphi, Claros or Didyma. This article, and the PhD thesis it relies on, intend to show the diversity and importance of the oracular phenomenon, through the example of Hellenised Anatolia. It first offers a reflection about how to identify oracular sanctuaries, through the key words used by literary and epigraphic documentations to characterise these sanctuaries, the divine word they delivered, their specific staff and specific rites. It then gives a glimpse of the geographical distribution, diversity and complexity of the phenomenon in Anatolia, where 46 sanctuaries are attested and display very diverse characteristics. The very definition of oracular sanctuaries eventually seems too narrow for the Anatolian diversity, but is in the meantime blurred by other quasi oracular rites and sanctuaries of Anatolia. This article thus offers a reflection on its redefinition, according to a more emic perspective.
Religious Landscape and Sacred Ground: Relationships between Space and Cult in the Greek World
Revue de l’histoire des religions, 2010
Modern studies of "sacred ground" have been infl uenced by Greek authors who emphasized its economic function. However, literary sources, sacred laws and various engravings stipulate that such land was not to be leased out. Theoretically, only ordinary territory provided reve nue to religious sanctuaries, but available docu ments do not always make it pos sible to distinguish between the two types of land. Nonetheless, when sacred ground was farmed, it was no lon ger perceived as part of the religious landscape. Distinguishing markers were thus necessary to differentiate between sacred and com mon ground. Pay sage reli gieux et terre sacrée: rap ports entre espace et culte dans le monde grec Les études modernes rela tives aux « terres sacrées » ont été infl u en cées par des auteurs grecs ayant mis l'accent sur leur fonc tion éco no mique. Pour tant, les sources lit té raires, les lois sacrées et diverses ins crip tions sti pulent que ces terres ne devaient pas être affer mées. En théo rie, seules les terres ordi naires appor taient des reve nus au sanc tuaire pour le culte. Cepen dant, la docu men ta tion ne per met pas tou jours de dépar ta ger ces terres. Néan moins, lorsque les terres sacrées étaient culti vées, elles n'étaient plus per çues comme appar te nant au pay sage reli gieux. De fait, il était néces saire de recou rir à des mar queurs pour les dis tin guer des terres communes.
SBL 2022 Conference Speaker in the Greco-Roman Religions Program Unit (Nov. 20, 2022) - Denver, CO
Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), 2022
I presented my paper, "Becoming ‘Monsters’? Paul’s Use of Dehumanizing Terms as Boundary Markers in Philippians," on Nov 20, 2022 for the Greco-Roman Religions program unit at the 2022 SBL Annual Meeting in Denver CO. Grateful to the co-chairs (Drs. Barbette Stanley Spaeth [College of William and Mary] and Maria Doerfler [Yale University]) for giving me the opportunity to present my research. From the Program Unit CFP: "Description: This unit is highly interdisciplinary and comparative, a forum regularly bringing together historians of religion, specialists in Christian origins, classicists, archaeologists, and social scientists from across the world to pursue questions that foster new cooperative research initiatives. Call for papers: We invite papers for the following sessions: 1. Materiality and Religion in the Greco-Roman World: on the “material turn” in the study of religion, including studies of amulets, clothing and cosmetics, cult architecture, the protection of doorways, funerary artifacts and spaces, the arrangement of altars and votives, iconic books, etc., that discuss matters of efficacy, agency, assemblage, human/thing interaction, and discursive reflections on object-agency. Papers should be explicit in their understanding of “materiality of religions.” 2. Sex, Embodiment, and Cult Spaces in Greco-Roman Antiquity: on embodied religious experiences associated with cult spaces, including pilgrimage, devotional behaviors, ritual performances, sacred prostitution, therapeutic practices. We welcome papers mapping processes of religious continuities and discontinuities, individual or collective conversions, transformations and reconstructions of places and space. 3. Encountering Monsters: Religious Interactions with the Monstrous in Greco-Roman Antiquity: on interactions with monstrous beings in the literature and material culture of ancient Mediterranean religions. We welcome papers exploring the place and function of a wide range of human and non-human monstrous entities in myth, cultic rites, apotropaic contexts, processes of identity construction, including mutation from/into human form, and other phenomena of relevance for Greco-Roman religions. 4. Remodeling the Motel of the Mysteries: Innovations in the Study of Secret Cults (joint session with the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions): on recent innovations in the study of mystery religions, including analyses of soundscapes, affective impact, social identities, network analyses, digital reconstructions of sacred spaces, the descriptions of mystery rites by the Church Fathers, the intersections of mystery cult with magical practices, and distinctions between Greek and Roman mystery rites."
This article examines three cave-sanctuaries in the Iron Age western Mediterranean: Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar, Es Culleram in Ibiza and Grotta Regina in western Sicily. Notwithstanding some gaps in the archaeological record resulting from the history of their investigation, they are compared by considering parameters such as their landscape, position, visibility, physical features, provenance/type of finds, titular deities, ritual activities and sensorial experiences. The complexity of their data and the type of ritual activities performed inside these spaces show the variety of religious responses to cavescapes. Their location between land and sea and in a border position emphasises the connection of these three sanctuaries and their deities to liminality and physical and spiritual journeys, although specific facets of the deities worshipped in these caves emerge particularly at Es Culleram and Grotta Regina, which also show a strong connection to the territory and the local people.