Greek Votive Offerings

Greek Votive Offerings
Author: William Henry Denham Rouse
Publisher: CUP Archive
Total Pages: 492
Release: 1902
Genre: Cults
ISBN:

This essay explores the relationship of ancient Greeks to their dieties through votive offerings - those things given freely to a being conceived as superhuman.

Votive Body Parts in Greek and Roman Religion

Votive Body Parts in Greek and Roman Religion
Author: Jessica Hughes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2017-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108146163

This book examines a type of object that was widespread and very popular in classical antiquity - votive offerings in the shape of parts of the human body. It collects examples from four principal areas and time periods: Classical Greece, pre-Roman Italy, Roman Gaul and Roman Asia Minor. It uses a compare-and-contrast methodology to highlight differences between these sets of votives, exploring the implications for our understandings of how beliefs about the body changed across classical antiquity. The book also looks at how far these ancient beliefs overlap with, or differ from, modern ideas about the body and its physical and conceptual boundaries. Central themes of the book include illness and healing, bodily fragmentation, human-animal hybridity, transmission and reception of traditions, and the mechanics of personal transformation in religious rituals.

Bodies of Evidence

Bodies of Evidence
Author: Jane Draycott
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351573365

Dedicating objects to the divine was a central component of both Greek and Roman religion. Some of the most conspicuous offerings were shaped like parts of the internal or external human body: so-called ?anatomical votives?. These archaeological artefacts capture the modern imagination, recalling vividly the physical and fragile bodies of the past whilst posing interpretative challenges in the present. This volume scrutinises this distinctive dedicatory phenomenon, bringing together for the first time a range of methodologically diverse approaches which challenge traditional assumptions and simple categorisations. The chapters presented here ask new questions about what constitutes an anatomical votive, how they were used and manipulated in cultural, cultic and curative contexts and the complex role of anatomical votives in negotiations between humans and gods, the body and its disparate parts, divine and medical healing, ancient assemblages and modern collections and collectors. In seeking to re-contextualise and re-conceptualise anatomical votives this volume uniquely juxtaposes the medical with the religious, the social with the conceptual, the idea of the body in fragments with the body whole and the museum with the sanctuary, crossing the boundaries between studies of ancient religion, medicine, the body and the reception of antiquity.

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: 240
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.

Household Gods

Household Gods
Author: Alexandra Sofroniew
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2016-02-15
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1606064568

Daily religious devotion in the Greek and Roman worlds centered on the family and the home. Besides official worship in rural sacred areas and at temples in towns, the ancients kept household shrines with statuettes of different deities that could have a deep personal and spiritual meaning. Roman houses were often filled with images of gods. Gods and goddesses were represented in mythological paintings on walls and in decorative mosaics on floors, in bronze and marble sculptures, on ornate silver dining vessels, and on lowly clay oil lamps that lit dark rooms. Even many modest homes had one or more religious objects that were privately venerated. Ranging from the humble to the magnificent, these small objects could be fashioned in any medium from terracotta to precious metal or stone. Showcasing the collections in the Getty Villa, this book’s emphasis on the spiritual beliefs and practices of individuals promises to make the works of Greek and Roman art more accessible to readers. Compelling representations of private religious devotion, these small objects express personal ways of worshiping that are still familiar to us today. A chapter on contemporary domestic worship further enhances the relevance of these miniature sculptures for modern viewers.

Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice

Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice
Author: Christopher A. Faraone
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2012-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107011124

The first general critique of the interpretations of animal sacrifice established by Walter Burkert, the late J.-P. Vernant, and Marcel Detienne.

The Archaeology of Ancient Greece

The Archaeology of Ancient Greece
Author: James Whitley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2001-10-04
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780521627337

A synthesis of research on the material culture of Greece in the Archaic and Classical periods.