The Significance of Votive Offerings in Selected Hera Sanctuaries in the Peloponnese, Ionia and Western Greece

The Significance of Votive Offerings in Selected Hera Sanctuaries in the Peloponnese, Ionia and Western Greece
Author: Jens David Baumbach
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2004
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

The goddess Hera is associated with pregnancy, childbirth, marriage, the home and family, agriculture and vegetation, and military matters. A number of sanctuaries, heraia, were built to honour the goddess and to house the cult activities associated with her.

Votives, Places, and Rituals in Etruscan Religion

Votives, Places, and Rituals in Etruscan Religion
Author: Margarita Gleba
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2009
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004170456

By considering votive, mortuary and secular rituals, the volume offers a contribution to the continued study of Etruscan culture and gathers new material, interpretations and approaches to the less emphasized areas of Etruscan religion.

The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion

The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
Author: Hans Beck
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2023-03-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1009301837

Which dimensions of the religious experience of the ancient Greeks become tangible only if we foreground its local horizons? This book explores the manifold ways in which Greek religious beliefs and practices are encoded in and communicate with various local environments. Its individual chapters explore 'the local' in its different forms and formulations. Besides the polis perspective, they include numerous other places and locations above and below the polis-level as well as those fully or largely independent of the city-state. Overall, the local emerges as a relational concept that changes together with our understanding of the general or universal forces as they shape ancient Greek religion. The unity and diversity of ancient Greek religion becomes tangible in the manifold ways in which localizing and generalizing forces interact with each other at different times and in different places across the ancient Greek world.

Heroic Offerings

Heroic Offerings
Author: Gina Salapata
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2015-02-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 047202986X

Heroic Offerings sheds light on the study of religion in Sparta, one of Greece’s most powerful city-states and the long-term rival of Athens. Sparta’s history is well known, but its archaeology has been much less satisfactorily explored. Through the comprehensive study of a distinctive class of terracotta votive offerings from a specific sanctuary, Gina Salapata explores both coroplastic art and regional religion. By integrating archaeological, historical, literary, and epigraphic sources, she provides important insights into the heroic cults of Lakonia and contributes to an understanding of the political and social functions of local ritual practice. This volume focuses on a large group of decorated terracotta plaques, from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE. These molded plaques were discovered with other offerings in a sanctuary deposit excavated near Sparta more than fifty years ago, but they have remained unpublished until now. They number over 1,500 complete and fragmentary pieces. In technique, style, and iconography they form a homogeneous group unlike any other from mainland Greece. The large number of plaques and variety of types reveal a stable and vigorous coroplastic tradition in Lakonia during the late Archaic and Classical period. Heroic Offerings will be of interest to students and scholars of Greek history, art, and archaeology, to those interested in ancient religious practice in the Mediterranean, and to all inspired by Athens’ chief political rival, Sparta. This volume received financial support from the Archaeological Institute of America.

Popular Religion and Ritual in Prehistoric and Ancient Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean

Popular Religion and Ritual in Prehistoric and Ancient Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean
Author: Giorgos Vavouranakis
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2019-01-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789690463

This volume features a group of select peer-reviewed papers by an international group of authors, both younger and senior academics and researchers, on the frequently neglected popular cult and other ritual practices in prehistoric and ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean.

From Artemis to Diana

From Artemis to Diana
Author: Tobias Fischer-Hansen
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
Total Pages: 590
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 8763507889

This text is presented in English and German. This book contains 19 articles dealing with various aspects of the Greek goddess Artemis and the Roman goddess Diana. The themes presented in the volume deal with the Near Eastern equivalents of Artemis, the Bronze Age Linear B testimonies, and Artemis in Homer and in the Greek tragedies. Sanctuaries and cult, and regional aspects are also dealt with - encompassing Cyprus, the Black Sea region, Greece and Italy. Pedimental sculpture, mosaics and sculpture form the basis of investigations of the iconography of the Roman Diana; the role of the cult of Diana in a dynastic setting is also examined. There is a single section that deals with the reception of the iconography of the Ephesian Artemis during the Renaissance and later periods.

The Hera of Zeus

The Hera of Zeus
Author: Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2022-01-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108897622

The goddess Hera is represented in mythology as an irascible wife and imperfect mother in the face of a frivolous Zeus. Beginning with the Iliad, many narrative traditions depict her wrath, the infidelities of her royal husband and the persecutions to which she subjects his illegitimate offspring. But how to relate this image to the cults of the sovereign goddess in her sanctuaries across Greece? This book uses the Hera of Zeus to open up new perspectives for understanding the society of the gods, the fate of heroes and the lives of men. As the intimate enemy of Zeus but also the fierce guardian of the legitimacy and integrity of the Olympian family, she takes shape in more subtle and complex ways that make it possible to rethink the configuration of power in ancient Greece, with the tensions that inhabited it, and thus how polytheism works.

Apotropaia and Phylakteria: Confronting Evil in Ancient Greece

Apotropaia and Phylakteria: Confronting Evil in Ancient Greece
Author: Maria G. Spathi
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2024-05-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1803277505

The belief in the existence of evil forces was part of ancient everyday life and a phenomenon deeply embedded in popular thought of the Greek world. Stemming from a conference held in Athens in June 2021, this volume addresses the apotropaia and phylakteria from different perspectives: via literary sources, archaeological material, and iconography.

Religion and Society in Ancient Thessaly

Religion and Society in Ancient Thessaly
Author: Maria Mili
Publisher: Oxford Classical Monographs
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198718012

The fertile plains of the ancient Greek region of Thessaly stretch south from the shadow of Mount Olympus. Thessaly's numerous small cities were home to some of the richest men in Greece, their fabulous wealth counted in innumerable flocks and slaves. It had a strict oligarchic government and a reputation for indulgence and witchcraft, but also a dominant position between Olympus and Delphi, and a claim to some of the greatest Greek heroes, such as Achilles himself. It can be viewed as both the cradle of many aspects of Greek civilization and as a challenge to the dominant image of ancient Greece as moderate, rational, and democratic. Religion and Society in Ancient Thessaly explores the issues of regionalism in ancient Greek religion and the relationship between religion and society, as well as the problem of thinking about these matters through particular bodies of evidence. It discusses in depth the importance of citizenship and of other group-identities in Thessaly, and the relationship between cult activity and political and social organization. The volume investigates the Thessalian particularities of the evidence and the role of religion in giving the inhabitants of this land a sense of their identity and place in the wider Greek world, as well as the role of Thessaly in the ancients' and moderns' understanding of Greekness.

A Student's Commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 10

A Student's Commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 10
Author: Shawn O'Bryhim
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2021-06-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1119770505

Discover a holistic perspective on Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 10 with this insightful resource. In A Student’s Commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 10, Shawn O’Bryhim offers an insightful and concise examination of the literary, grammatical, and textual matters integral to Book 10 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Expanding the scope of more traditional textbooks on Book 10, the author explores the archaeological, religious, and cultural elements of the work as it relates to Greece, Rome, and the Near East. Readers will benefit from the inclusion of: A multidisciplinary approach that examines the religious, archaeological, and cultural background of Ovid’s myths A Near Eastern perspective on the material, which will allow a deeper understanding of the subject matter An exploration of the grammatical and literary components that characterize Book 10 Intended primarily for undergraduates in advanced Latin courses on Ovid, A Student’s Commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 10 will also earn a place in the library of anyone who desires a broader approach to the study of Book 10 of the Metamorphoses.