Gods, Objects, and Ritual Practice

by Sandra Blakely (Editor)

Overview

Conversations about materiality have helped forge a common meeting ground for scholars seeking to integrate images, sites, texts and implements in their approach to religion in the ancient Mediterranean. The thirteen chapters in this volume explore the productivity of these approaches, with case studies from Israel, Athens, Rome, Sicily and North Africa. The results foreground the capacity of material approaches to cast light on the cultural creation of the sacred through the integration of rhetorical, material, and iconographic means. They open more nuanced pathways to the uses of text in the study of material evidence. They highlight the potential for material objects to bring political and ethnic boundaries into the sacred realm. And they emphasize the role of ongoing interpretation, debate, and multiple readings in the creation of the sacred, in both ancient contexts and scholarly discussion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781937040796
Publisher:	Lockwood Press
Publication date:	07/01/2017
Series:	Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religions , #1
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sandra Blakely completed her Ph D in Classics and Anthropology at the University of Southern California, and is currently an associate professor of Classics at Emory University, with research interests in religion, mobility, historiography, and the anthropology of the ancient world. She has received fellowships from the Getty Research Institute, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Arizona, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Hellenic Studies, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations vii

Contributors xvii

1 Introduction: Object, Image, and Text: Materiality and Ritual Practice in the Ancient Mediterranean Sandra Blakely 1

Section 1 From Image to Context: Iconography and Polysemnity

2 Divine Twins or Saintly Twins: The Dioscuri in an Early Christian Context Annewies van den Hoek 17

3 Altars, Astragaloi, Achilles: Picturing Divination on Athenian Vases Sheramy D. Bundrick 53

4 Incarnating the Aurea Aetas: Theomorphic Rhetoric and the Portraits of Nero Eric R. Varner 75

Section 2 Reading the Gods: Texts and Gifts

5 No More Than One Candle, Torch, or Wreath: Private Citizens and the Commemoration of L. Caesar at Pisa J. Bert Lott 119

6 The Cadence of the Language of Magic in Greek Curse Tablets and First Corinthians Jill E. Marshall 129

7 Sacred Objects, Material Value, and Invective in Cicero's Verrines II 4 Isabel Köster 151

Section 3 Implements and Images

8 Local Production and Domestic Ritual Use of Small Rectangular Incense Altars: A Petrographic Provenience Analysis and Examination of Craftsmanship of the Tell Halif Incense Altars Seung Ho Bang Oded Borowski Kook Young Yoon Yuval Goren 171

9 Judaean Pillar Figurines and the Making of Female Piety in Ancient Israelite Religion Erin Darby 193

10 Priestesses in Action: Ritual Instruments Employed by Roman Women Meghan J. DiLuzio 215

11 Rhetoric, Repetition, and Identity in the Frieze of Sacred Objects on the Temple of Divus Vespasian and Divus Titus Susan Ludi Blevins 233

Section 4 Sites and Structures: Gods, Men, and Cultural Identities

12 Channeling Identity: The Fountain of Glauke in Corinth and Jacob's Well in John 4 Eric Moore 261

13 "In This Holy Place": Incubation at Hot Springs in Roman and Late Antique Palestine Megan S. Nutzman 281

14 Gods, Graves, and Extratextual Rituals in Archaic Colonial Sicily Lela M. Urquhart 305

Subject Index 329

Ancient Sources Index 337