Votive offerings, Greek sanctuaries

This book presents a new study of Greek large-scale bronze statuary of the late Archaic and Classical periods. It examines the discovery, origin, style, date, artistic attribution, identification, and interpretation of the surviving bronzes, and focuses in particular on their technical features and casting techniques. It contains over 170 plates of photographs and drawings to illustrate its discussion.

It also places the development of the casting techniques in connection with the stylistic evolution in Greek free-standing sculpture. During the Classical period, artists preferred bronze to marble when creating their contrapposto figures. Indisputably, bronze gave particular freedom to artists in creating three-dimensional figures. In addition, the evolution in style encouraged the development of the uses of bronze to serve the new needs and tendencies in sculpture during the late Archaic and especially the Classical period. Through the examination of how technical matters affect style, this book presents fresh interpretations of these important monuments of Greek art and offers a new approach in the field of Greek free-standing bronze sculpture.

The present dissertation focuses on the peak sanctuaries in Southern Thrace.
The introduction reviews the geographical characteristics, political and socioeconomic features of south Thracian regions. In the first chapter a methodology for determining the ritual significance of peak sanctuaries is laid down. It is based on ascertaining the so called distinctive and non-distinctive criteria for identifying a site as a place of worship.
In the second chapter written records for the peak sanctuaries in South Thrace are examined. They are differentiated into several groups depending on whether they relate directly to the peak sanctuaries, or provide information about other aspects regarding the socio-political, economic, geographical or other characteristics of the issue.

Third chapter points out the archeological data of peak sanctuaries in South Thrace.
At the beginning of third chapter the history and current state of the places of worship in South Thrace subject to examination are discussed. Further on in the same chapter the methods of archaeological research of peak sanctuaries in the mountains of South Thrace are presented as well as the methodology for identifying a site as a ritual one or a place of worship. This methodology is based on developing clear and systematic criteria, which are provisionally divided into two types - distinctive and non-distinctive.

The last (fourth) chapter of the dissertation is devoted to the ritualism in peak sanctuaries in the region subject to examination.
Two sanctuary types in Thracian mountains are differentiated according to social, economic, ethnic or other principles.
The role of folklore references is examined as well, that contributes to the clarification of the ritual practices in peak sanctuaries in South Thrace.

Of the lighting equipment known from Naukratis, oil lamps are best represented with over 330 pieces known to have come from the site. The assemblage allows us to trace the changing uses of lamps within Egyptian and Greek societies over time. In the New Kingdom, olive oil was an commodity imported by the elite, but by the Roman period castor, sesame, linseed and olive oil were widely available for use in lamps. This chapter discusses the production and use of these utilitarian objects that also held important religious and ritual meaning, which can be discovered from the deposition practices reflected in the archaeological context.

K. Tzanavari, Ancient Lete. The city and its cemeteries.
Rescue excavations and epigraphic evidence that refer to ancient Lete have shown that the city was located on the hills and the plain that spread after the Derveni pass, on the western edge of the Langadas basin. The first archaeological research took place during the Ottoman era and carried on after the liberation of Macedonia and during World War I, as part of the archaeological campaign of the Armée d’Orient.
The structural remains, the pottery collected from both excavations and field surveys, as well as the burial data revealed recently in the area, testify that the city was founded around the middle of the 6th c. BC. Depositional fills argue for the continuation of habitation in the 5th c. BC. Few structural remnants survive from the 4th century; the burial evidence however are more representative of the era, with characteristic grave goods, such as clay vessels and terracotta figurines from Attic workshops, as well as their local imitations. It has been attested through inscriptions that the city had an urban organization, while its impressive development at the time is associated with king Cassander, who paid attention to his motherland after 316 BC. A small part of the city wall, at its northern edge, was revealed, dating to that era, and the sanctuary of Demeter flourished at the same time, enriched by cult and votive marble statuettes. The organized cemeteries of the city were located around its periphery. The unlooted graves found at Derveni also belong to the cemeteries of Lete, dating to the late 4th and early 3rd c. BC, with a variety of unique grave goods and metal vessels, whose representations reflect the beliefs in the afterlife. The most important find was the Derveni Papyrus, whose theological-cosmogonic text proved the initiation of the deceased and functioned as a passport for him, to secure eternal bliss for him in the underworld.
The flourishing economic environment that developed after Alexander’s Asian Campaign favored the creation of workshops. These workshops dealt with sculpture, metallurgy, goldsmithing, pottery and coroplastic production, sometimes imitating Attic prototypes. Particularly regarding the sculpture workshops, it is evident that their distinctive artistic character has been influenced by Athenian artists. This prosperity continued in the reign of Antigonos Gonatas (272-239 BC), an era of stability and affluence, and partly as further in time as the dissolution of the Macedonian kingdom by the Romans in 148 BC. Via Egnatia, which crossed Lete as it connected the Adriatic with the Black Sea, contributed to its economic development and created favorable conditions for the installation of Roman settlers.
However, the Roman civil wars that were fought in Macedonia between the armies of Caesar and Pompey (49-48 BC) and later among the legions of the Triumvirate of Antony, Octavian and Lepidus against the armies of Brutus (42 BC) left their marks on the city, as the abandonment and destruction of houses and villas indicate. A group of lavish villas was founded in the city’s region in the late Hellenistic and Roman times, which span as far as the late 4th c. AD. They probably belonged to the Roman elite, which owned vast properties, as is also attested in the region of Langadas via inscriptions. Finally, the fact that one of the gates on the western city walls of Thessaloniki that led to Mygdonia was named Letaia, attests the city’s importance even during the Byzantine era.

Archaeological excavations on a rocky promontory in ancient Apollonia Pontica (present-day Sozopol on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast) revealed a cultural layer that was characterized by abundance of small vases of closed shapes and of fragmentary terracotta figurines, suggesting votive practices in a sanctuary. The assemblage of finds indicates a goddess, with qualities that are typical of sanctuaries of Demeter (and Kore). The article discusses the pottery from the site in terms of chronology and functions. The earliest finds date from the second quarter of the 6th century BC, with a visible upsurge in the deposition of pottery in the second half of the century. The sanctuary’s functioning could be traced without interruption at least until the later 4th century BC, with a visible decline in the quantity of the materials in the Early Hellenistic Period. A defining characteristic of the votive practices was the deposition of small-scale (or ‘miniature’) vases of closed shapes – mainly olpai in the Archaic Period and plain juglets, hydriskoi and amphoriskoi in Classical times. The transition from mainly imported votives to coarser and presumably locally made ones happened in the first half of the 5th century BC. The repertoire hints at various liquids, brought as offerings – water, wine, possibly oil. Along with the votives, the site yielded also significant quantities of tableware and kitchenware, indicating preparation and consumption of food and wine in the sanctuary, and communal feasts that were typical of Demeter’s festivals.

The present article seeks to clarify whether we can associate certain dyes with specific colour terms by juxtaposing the information we have of the purple colour of textiles in sanctuaries from selected written sources with our knowledge of ancient dyes. This will clarify the possible appearance of the textiles dedicated in the Greek sanctuaries in the second half of the first millennium BC, their colour and which dyes were used to obtain them.

The role of Naukratis as a significant eastern Mediterranean trade hub is confirmed by the numerous – over 250 – Cypriot alabaster, limestone and terracotta figures found in the site’s Greek sanctuaries. Indeed, it was the discovery of a Cypriot alabaster figure that led Flinders Petrie to Naukratis in the first place. The quantity of Cypriot figures found within the earliest layers of the Greek sanctuaries of Aphrodite, Apollo and to a lesser degree the sanctuary of Hera and the Hellenion is an indicator of the strength of trade relations between Egypt and Cyprus during the Late Period, particularly during the Saite period. This chapter introduces the range of Cypriot figures found as votive offerings within the Greek sanctuaries of Naukratis. Their production, use and deposition is discussed, highlighting their prominent role as dedications of visitors to Naukratis during the period when the settlement had a unique role as Egypt’s hub of Mediterranean trade.

The Sanctuary of Sinuri is located 15 km southeast of Milas district in Muğla province. The sanctuary is situated on a 540-m-high hill, known as Asar Tepe, which lies between Yukarı Kalınağıl and Çamlıbelen villages (Fig. 1). The sacred precinct of the Late Classical and Hellenistic Periods covers an area of approximately 30 m x 60 m, and architectural re- mains dating to various periods from the Archaic to the Byzantine have also been identified within the boundaries of the sanctuary.

This is an article published by Taylor & Francis in World Archaeology on January 13, 2015, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2014.992077.

Miniature pottery is omnipresent in the ancient Greek world, especially in sanctuaries, from the Prehistoric to the Hellenistic period. This article will present and discuss a significant absence of miniature pottery in one of the best-known sanctuaries in Greece, the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia during the Archaic period. The reasons behind this scarcity are at one level clearly related to the pan-Hellenic character of the sanctuary. However, by comparing the assemblages at Olympia with other sanctuaries, largely in the Peloponnese, it becomes clear that the roles of miniature pottery may be quite complex. This absence in at least some pan-Hellenic contexts, in combination with the kinds of shapes that are most common in particular assemblages, suggests that miniature pottery has significance that goes beyond the ‘votive’, as traditionally construed by Classical archaeologists, to include commemorative and possibly ritual roles.

This paper deals with a series of rural demes located on both the west and the east coast of Attica and seeks to identify the cults practiced by each local deme population by examining and combining the epigraphic, literary, and archaeological evidence for each deme. It suggests a widespread practice of ‘rural’ cults, such as that of the Nymphs, Pan, and Hermes, in the demes situated on the west coast, whereas it appears that Artemis, Apollo and other Olympic gods played a leading role in the religious life of demes situated on the east coast. My assumption is that this situation can be connected to the presence of very ancient and significant sanctuaries on the east coast, which were intensely frequented since remote times. By contrast, the absence of religious centres of this scale and importance on the west coast led to a larger diffusion of 'minor' rural cults.

ABSTRACT
A sanctuary of Eileithia and Sosipolis is mentioned by Pausanias in the following passages:

[6.20.2] At the foot of Mount Cronius, on the north . . . , between the treasuries and the mountain, is a sanctuary of Eileithyia, and in it Sosipolis, a native Elean deity, is worshipped. Now they surname Eileithyia Olympian, and choose a priestess for the goddess every year. The old woman who tends Sosipolis herself too by an Elean custom lives in chastity, bringing water for the god's bath and setting before him barley cakes kneaded with honey.
[6.20.3] In the front part of the temple, for it is built in two parts, is an altar of Eileithyia and an entrance for the public; in the inner part Sosipolis is worshipped, and no one may enter it except the woman who tends the god, and she must wrap her head and face in a white veil. Maidens and matrons wait in the sanctuary of Eileithyia chanting a hymn; they burn all manner of incense to the god, but it is not the custom to pour libations of wine. An oath is taken by Sosipolis on the most important occasions.

With the discovery of the sanctuary of Eileithyia and Sosipolis north of the Kronos hill in the last decade, a topographical problem concerning the sanctuary for a long time, was finally solved. In the context of the study of the findings from the excavation, which is still in progress, issues related to the worship which lasts from the archaic era to the late antiquity, will be discussed.


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The small plate with the inscription of Kleom(b)rotos, an athlete winner at the Olympic Games, from Francavilla Marittima near Sybaris was the object of many epigraphic studies. However, it has not achieved a sure and unanimous interpretation. This article examines the various issues of the dedication from an archaeological point of view. The linguistic models and the metric rhythm of the inscription, expression of an oral culture, are related to the rituals and the ceremonies in the Greek archaic sanctuaries. The inscribed plate of bronze commemorates the solemn promise of Kleom(b)rotos to Athena and the donation perhaps of a xoanon or a sphyrelaton erected in the sanctuary on the Timpone della Motta (c. 600-575 BC)

With few exceptions, the large number – over 400 fragments – of ‘Greek’ figures found at Naukratis date from the period between 620 and 300 BC when Naukratis operated as an eastern Mediterranean trade hub and port of Egypt. The majority of imported Greek figurines are of East Greek origin and were found in Archaic and Classical Greek sanctuary deposits. Six broad groups can be distinguished, with parallels known from other East Greek, Cypriot and Phoenician sites. The Greek figures include: Archaic East Greek hand-made and mould-made figure plaques; Archaic East Greek mould-made figures and figure vases; Late Archaic and Classical East Greek protomes and figures; and late Classical and early Hellenistic East Greek and Greek mould-made hollow figures. This chapter introduces the wide variety of Greek figures brought to Naukratis, their production, use and deposition.

To commemorate their victory in the Battle of Salamis, according to Herodotus (8.121-22), the allied Greeks dedicated three captured enemy warships as thank offerings, one each at Isthmia, Sounion, and Salamis. Earlier scholars have proposed in very general terms either seaside locations or intra-sanctuary settings. In this paper, I argue for both the feasibility of over-land transport, and I offer specific intra-sanctuary locations for the dedicated Phoenician warships by considering the relevant topographical, archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidence. I also offer a new interpretation for some puzzling remains just south of the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion. Once dedicated, the warships both became the sacred property of the resident divinity as they assumed the aspect of monumental wooden sculpture. These triremes are salient examples of votive offerings that could only achieve their full symbolic meaning by prominent positions in the sanctuaries at Isthmia, Sounion and Salamis (the uploaded Pdf is an excerpt only).

The monetarization of the markets accelerated in the 5th century BCE led to the monetarization of the cults. The mercantile logic and money-oriented society shaped the transaction between the worshippers and the cults of Demeter. The relationship to deities was regulated by ‘do ut des’, i.e. one gives something so that the deity may give something in return. The epigraphic sources from the 5th and 4th centuries BCE give insight into the finances of the Eleusinian cult and illustrate the extent of monetarization of the cult of Demeter.