The Sacrificial Economy: Assessors, Contractors, and Thieves in the Management of Sacrificial Sheep at the Eanna Temple of Uruk (ca. 625–520 b.c.), (original) (raw)
Related papers
Castration, cult and agriculture. Perspectives on Greek animal sacrifice
Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome, 7, 2014
The castration of most male animals seems to have been the rule in ancient Greece when rearing cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs; only very few adult males are needed for breeding purposes and flocks of bulls, rams, billy-goats and boars are difficult to keep, since they are too aggressive. Castrated males yield more and fattier meat, and, in the case of sheep, more wool. Still, sacred laws and sacrificial calendars stipulate the sacrifice of uncastrated victims, and vase-paintings frequently represent bulls, rams and billy-goats in ritual contexts. This paper will discuss the role of uncastrated male animals in Greek cult in the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods, both from a religious and an agricultural perspective. Of particular interest are the relations between the practical, economic reality and the theological perception of sacrifice. These issues will be explored using epigraphical, literary, iconographical and zooarchaeological evidence.
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.
Human sacrifice in the ancient Near East
This paper examines the evidence for human sacrifice in the ancient Near East, through archaeological, iconographic and textual records, with some of the most compelling material coming from the so-called 'Royal Cemetery' of the ancient site of Ur. This is discussed in the light of scholarly bias in a topic that causes great controversy and is often seen as horrific and barbaric in the modern western world. Such views are too easily and too often applied to ancient cultures without proper justification and resulting in interpretations based on unfounded assumptions. Evidence for human sacrifice is almost always disputed, it may be difficult to detect in all three kinds of material, and it tends to require a firmer base and conviction than other interpretations, with scholars either being reluctant to consider sacrifice an option or indeed too eager to do so. If complete contexts are studied, however, it is possible in some instances to suggest human sacrifice, whereas in other instances a different interpretation may seem more appropriate, and in some cases it must simply be admitted that we do not have enough material for an adequate interpretation.
Lamb, Mutton, and Goat in the Babylonian Temple Economy
In the mid-first millennium B.C.E., the Eanna temple of Uruk distributed the meat of sheep and goats to its associates and dependents. The meat of post-sacrificial lambs went to the Eanna's prebend holding elite, while others received the meat of goats and older sheep without ceremony and on the hoof. Many assume this latter distribution worked to supply the Eanna's lowest classes with substandard meat. I argue, instead, that there was nothing inherently substandard about this meat; moreover, there is little evidence that it was intended for the Eanna's lowest classes. This paper then explores the distribution of meat to the Eanna's sub-elite, especially in place of temple rations and payments of silver.