Conference | Schedule | Speakers | Abstracts
Making room for the new god: introduction of new cults and representations of religious space in Aristophanes' Wealth
Francisco Barrenechea, Bryn Mawr College
The conflicts that ensue between the new and old divinities are played out significantly in terms of space: for instance, through the transference of rituals from one location to another, by the deconsecration of previous sacred spaces, and by the incorporations of divinities into the space reserved for other gods. This dynamic of Wealth closely parallels the historical practice of introducing new gods into the community; therefore, I will provide a comparison between Aristophanes' dramatic treatment of space and the evidence provided by this religious practice in order to illuminate popular conceptions of religious space in Athenian society.
Spatial Ambiguity in Plutarch fr. 178 Sandbach and the Derveni Papyrus
Alberto Bernabé, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
Both Plutarch fr. 178 Sandbach and some columns of the Derveni Papyrus deal with aspects of τελεταί. In both cases a specific space is described, a sort of bridge between this world and the Netherworld. This space is the stage in which initiates gain knowledge, liberation, hope and purity. The knowledge obtained in this intermediate space of the τελετή is probably about the souls’ destiny in the Netherworld, which should be performed in the rite, like a rehearsal of the later fate.
Phaedrus 247c: Hyperouranios topos, the sacred and philosophical realm of Being
Francesc Casadesús Bordoy, Universidad de les Illes Balear
In his effort to separate the immutable and imperishable world of being and truth from the mortal and contingent world, Plato placed somewhere he referred to –in the Phaedrus– as “supracelestial” ὑπερουράνιος τόπος. He thus opened a new space that went beyond even that which was inhabited by the Olympian gods. Even they could only visit it in procession, behind Zeus, together with the cortege of souls that were able to follow him. Because this place was almost inaccessible to human reason it could not be adequately described using the rational language of philosophy or the more imaginative language of poetry. This forced Plato to explore a third avenue in search of the apt terms for describing the sacred sanctuary of being and divine Forms. His solution was to use the mysterious, ritual and initiatory language provided by the Orphic and Dionysiac traditions. With this new use of mysterious language, now transposed in the context of Platonic philosophy, the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος acquired the dimension of sacred and divine space. Its almost supra-divine qualities would have not been conveyed if expressed simply by means of the philosophical logos. Hence, Plato transformed the notions of initiation, purity, and liberation, characteristic of the Orphic-Dionysian religion, into a new philosophical reality, which was originally alien to this language. In essence, what makes Plato’s description of ὑπερουράνιος τόπος extraordinary is that he was able to overcome the limits of language by creating a new one. In addition to being philosophically rich, this new language afforded a terminology with a strong mysterious flavor enveloped in an attractive poetic form.
The “space of death” in the family rituals of the Mediterranean world
Paola Corrente, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
In the ancient Near East the cult of the dead played a prominent role in the religious beliefs of the people. The world of the living was constantly in contact with the world of the dead through rituals aimed to strengthen bonds between them, in the hope that the deceased could exert their powers from the Netherworld in a beneficial way. From the second and third millenium B.C. onward, the most important Syrian cities, named, Ugarit, Mari, Emar and Qatna provide us with many sources, literary or archeological, that can be used to reconstruct the articulate world of the funerary cults, among which were particularly famous the kispum, the ceremonial offerings of food and drink to the dead, and the marzeah, the ritual banquets. From the recent archaeological findings of the funerary chambers underneath the royal palace at Qatna, to the worship of the ancestors and the rapiuma, the divinized kings or heroes, it is possible to do an excursus on the various forms these rituals had throughout the levantine Bronze Age, under the guidance of the texts that the archives of these ancient cities have luckily preserved. This paper will be centred on the analysis of the possible connections between the most significant of these texts, especially the Ugaritic ones about the rapiuma, and the material remains brought back to light in the excavations, against the wider background of the religion of death in the ancient world.
Where Dionysus Dwells: Greek Vases As A Virtual Sacred Space
Fátima Díez Platas, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
My paper deals with the imagery of Dionysos and the Dionysiac world on Greek vases and with the consideration of some scenes in which the kind of representation of the god seems to transform the painted spaces into a virtual sacred realm where divine epiphanies do take place. Sanctuaries or places of worship are represented on the surface of many vases, and in some of them the image of the god as a simulacrum suggests the idea of ritual. But there are also a number of scenes, generally labeled as simply “Dionysiac”, where the image of Dionysus suggests the presence of a “living” god among his followers. The virtual epiphany shows the power of Dionysos as the god of wine and as the “Lord of the vase”. By examining the structure of the scenes and the gestures and attitudes of the god and his followers, I argue that the vase becomes an actual -although virtual, because simply imaged- space inhabited by the god, and a place for worshiping his own divine present: wine.
“We prefer to approach the gods in holy places”: Some Ancient Theorizations of Sacred Space
Radcliffe Edmonds, Bryn Mawr College
The NeoPlatonist Damascius claims, “we prefer to appear before the gods in holy places, even though they are everywhere,” but, if the gods are everywhere, what makes a particular place holy? While modern scholarship tries to answer this question in a variety of ways, from Eliade’s phenomenon of the hierophany through Douglas’ and Durkheim’s more conceptual models, ancient sources rarely give explicit theoretical answers to such questions. As modern scholars, however, we must be aware of our definitions and the relation of our modern categories to the ancient ideas, and the rare texts that give a theory of sacred space provide an opportunity for a richer understanding of the ancient concepts. An examination of some ancient theorizations of sacred space in sources such as the Hippocratic corpus, Strabo, Plato, and Iamblichus can help us assess the strengths and limitations of our modern models in understanding ancient ideas of sacred space.
Contemplating Comedy: Augural Space in Early Roman Theater
Robert Germany, Haverford College
Roman augural practice involved sitting in a terrestrial temple while gazing at a specially demarcated zone of sky or as it was often called a “world” (mundus). This temporarily sacred space in which the gods would direct the signifying flight of birds was more than a celestial backdrop; it was also itself a temple (templum caeli) and the technical verb for this temple-gazing was contemplari. Though the institution of Roman theater has not generally been associated with practices of auspication, because of the emphatic insistence on the temporary stage, the conventional unity of time, and the probable placement of audience seating, there was a suggestive similarity between the Roman audience’s spectation at plays and traditional augural contemplation. In this paper I wish to explore some aspects of this structural homology and the ways in which Plautus plays up this institutional resemblance, fashioning his stage as a zone of auspication for the audience, while within the playworld the characters are caught trying to predict the future of their own fictional mundus. Scholars have noted the affinity between the Athenian audience’s role in the theater and the civic institution of theoria, where citizens were delegated to perform spectation at foreign religious events (see, e.g., Nightingale 2004). Roman theater is generally assumed to be unconnected to cult, except in the vestigial sense of its festival production context, and certainly not imitative of deep patterns in Roman religious thought. My argument, however, would make Roman augural contemplatio exactly parallel to Greek civic theoria in its relationship to the role of the audience at theater.
It(inner)ant sacred places: wanderers as creators of personal religious space in classical Greece.
Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
In classical Greece, different kinds of itinerant priests and wonder-workers are well known, mainly through hostile descriptions (Plato, Hippocrates) but sometimes also by some evidence from inside (Empedocles). However, both perspectives coincide in showing that these travelling experts in divine matters aimed to construe a religious sphere wherever they acted, a wandering sacred space attached to specific people rather than to any specific location. Thus, sacred places could easily turn into metaphorical images for inner states. The main mechanisms of such constructions are: privileging the image of the path; creating boundaries between profane and sacred territory; and depicting utopian spaces which the audience would envision as their real destiny. This kind of conceptions may have been the basis for the very influential Platonic metaphor of a sacred journey or a mystic initiation for inner religious experience.
Oreibasia: The Mountain as Sacred Space in Dionysian Cults
Ana Jiménez, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
Many texts from different times attest that maenads climbed up periodically to the mountains to celebrate orgiastic rites. The purpose of this paper is to analyze this motif known as ὀρειβασία, First, I will present the general features of the ritual and I will try to establish, if it is possible, the differences between literary and historical texts. Next, I will focus on the most important mountains (Parnassos, Kythairon or Taygetus, for example) as a sacred space where rites were celebrated in order to analyze possible local variations. Finally, I will examine the motivation and consequences of the ὀρειβασία.
Inclusion, Exclusion, and Sacred Spaces in the Performance of the Opet Festival
Steve Karacic, Bryn Mawr College
The Opet festival, celebrated from the 18th Dynasty into the Roman Period, was one of the most important events in the Egyptian religious calendar. Its performance fused the Egyptian ruler with the royal ka to produce a god-king and recreate the cosmos. Unfortunately, the exact ceremony has been lost to antiquity. However, the architecture, imagery, and inscriptions from within and around the Luxor Temple enable a likely reconstruction, which provides insights into Egyptian conceptualization of sacred space and ritual. The procession, while moving across a formally and socially demarcated holy ground, was a carefully choreographed interaction between inclusion and exclusion: the initiates of the ceremony openly, and with great pomp, marched over a mile before the masses but keep the cult statues hidden, members of the public, the priests, and the ruler converged in the courtyard of the temple but only the priests and monarch proceeded to the holy of holies, and the king’s transformation into a god occurred in seclusion but was incomplete until his public appearance in the courtyard. It was through this balance of inclusion and exclusion, evident in the organization of the sacred precinct, that the participants of the Opet Festival created and maintained their world; for the ritual could not have succeeded without both the initiates and the masses.
Sacred Space and Divine Presence in the Jerusalem Temple
Naomi Koltun-Fromm, Haverford College
The biblical descriptions of the building of the temple in Jerusalem are fraught with anxiety. Even as the writers glorify the building project and the faithfulness of the builders, a tension remains: is this human built sacred space appropriate for their god, Yahweh? While Yahweh demanded other altars and directed the building of the tabernacle, the moveable desert shrine, Yahweh had no hand in the designing of Solomon’s temple. Jerusalem, after all, was a new sacred spot, not one with any previous Israelite history. Thus the narratives concerning the building of Solomon’s temple attempt to bring God back into the story, as divine director, as part of a larger motive to undergird the status of Jerusalem and its temple as central to Solomon’s kingdom and to promote its divine pedigree.
‘Do not Drop Things here...’ - Waste Disposal Regulations in Sanctuaries and beyond
Astrid Lindenlauf, Bryn Mawr College
Waste and its disposal played an important role in the social and political life of poleis. Legislation on waste disposal appears to have aimed primarily on discouraging people from dropping waste within the boundaries of sanctuaries. In my paper, I will understand and interpret the phenomenon of Greek waste disposal legislation with respect to changing concepts of cleanliness and their crucial intersections with processes of social and political change over time, in particular in the context of the development of the Greek polis. I will argue that polis ideology is the key for understanding the preoccupation of polis authorities with the cleanliness of public sanctuaries. More specifically, I will argue that sanctuaries can be related to the social and political life of Greek cities on three distinct levels. First, they played an important role in defining the city's space. Second, sanctuaries played a major role in integrating members of the civic community and in creating new forms of solidarity, because they provided the place for cults of the polis in which citizens and other inhabitants of the civic territory could participate. Third, sanctuaries are the places where the history of a polis was made by erecting public and private dedications.
The Memnonia as a sacred space:
Raquel Martin, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
Cemeteries, especially in Egypt, are very important sacred places. However, not only is the place considered sacred, but also the people working there. The Memnonia, the Greek word used to name the West bank of the Theban territory, was a very important funerary complex from the Pharaonic epoch until Roman times. The literary and, especially, the papyrological information about the ritual activities related with mummification in this area helps us to understand the operation of the guilds of undertakers and their role as "sacred workers". The aim of my paper is to review the Graeco-Roman papyrological information in order to point out how working in a sacred place impregnates the workers with sanctity, but also transmits potent taboos which prevent normal relationships between them and the rest of the population.
The Geography of Paradise: Elysium, Isles of the Blest and Hyperboreans
Marco A. Santamaría, Universidad de Salamanca
In this paper I will try to establish where the ancient Greeks located some ideal places that we can label as “paradise”: the Elysium, the Isles of the Blest and the Land of the Hyperboreans. All of them had in common their remote situation in the “limits of Earth” (?σχατα γα?ης), especially in three cardinal points: the West (Elysium, Isles of the Blest), the North (Hyperboreans) and even the South (the Land of the Ethiopians). I will analyze if there is a way to visit these extreme lands, at least for a few privileged men, or if they are conceived only as place of eternal dwelling after the death.
ἐπ’ ἔσχατα βαίνεις: Sacred Liminality in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus
Asya Sigelman, Bryn Mawr College
My paper investigates the ambiguous sacred-profane status of Sophocles’ Colonus and the parallels which this ambiguity finds in the characters of both the main hero — Oedipus — and of the play’s chorus. Specifically, I am interested in how the tragedian focuses on images of space and spatial movement (literal stepping, walking, running) to convey the liminality of Colonus, of Oedipus, and of the elders who comprise the chorus.
Liminal Spaces and Witchcraft in Roman Poetry
Jennifer Tracy, Bryn Mawr College
Witchcraft – and witches – are notoriously difficult to define in the ancient Greco-Roman world. An analysis of the use of space by the witches of Roman literature helps to identify what differentiates them from the average person. Roman authors have their witches perform rituals in marginal, non-sacred, or even anti-sacred spaces, to emphasize the distance of their powers from normative ritual power. Victor Turner describes liminal space as on the “outside or on the peripheries of everyday life” and the liminal figure as one who has withdrawn from the “social-structural matrix.” I argue that the ritual spaces of witches and witches themselves fit this definition of liminal space through a discussion of works by Vergil, Horace, Apuleius, Lucan, Tibullus, and Ovid. Their witches work magic in anti-social spaces, on the margins between life and death and/or the natural world and civilization. This contrasts emphatically with normative ritual space, which is communal space in which social-structural distinctions do exist. The purpose of this distinction is to highlight how unlike regular ritual power the powers of witches are. Specific abilities of these literary witches, such as calling up spirits of the dead from the underworld or reversals of natural processes, correlate with the particular marginal space utilized.
Architecture as Sacred and Cosmic Icon: The Case of Minoan Crete
James Wright, Bryn Mawr College
Beginning in the 3rd millennium and continuing through the 2nd, sacred spaces were defined in terms of places where people gathered for focused worship. Formalization of these practices can be first observed in mortuary and some residential settings in the creation of built spaces that both channeled and contained groups of worshippers. With the formation of urban centers in the early 2nd millennium specific architectural forms were formalized and monumentalized and these suddenly began to be represented in a lively and expressive art that characterizes the Neopalatial Period (c. 1750-1550 BCE). One of the most striking aspects of this development is the emergence of an iconography of architecture that combines sacred natural spaces with monumental built spaces and populates them with ranked individuals, who often are displayed participating in processional ceremonies that culminate in large gatherings. The representations suggest a powerful ideology that integrates all levels and sectors of the ancient “Minoan” society.