This volume constitutes the proceedings of an international conference held in 2015 at the Université libre de Bruxelles and at the Royal Academy of Belgium, organised by the editors. It includes papers concerning both theoretical approaches and case studies from a well-thought-out number of regions and sites.
In Section 1, focusing on theoretical approaches, F. de Polignac advances the scholarly debate on the changing role of sanctuaries, providing illustrative examples of shifts in their function. De Polignac invites us to think beyond labelling sanctuaries as solely ‘Panhellenic’, ‘interregional’, ‘regional’, ‘civic’ or ‘local’, since these could evolve through time affected by major social changes. B. Eder provides a detailed analysis of ritual practices from the Palatial to PostPalatial and Early Iron Age (EIA) in the central and southern Greek mainland, arguing that shifts in location, layout and access of sanctuaries at the Late Bronze Age / EIA transition demonstrate the different characters of the respective societies; she stresses the significance of the extra-urban sanctuaries in shaping the PostPalatial and EIA communities’ cohesion and regional identities. M. Haysom highlights the need to re-examine how we delineate and identify religion and ritual for Aegean prehistory and historical periods. Using the twelfth-century bc settlement at Karphi on Crete as a case study, Haysom's proposed triad of ‘oddity–consistency–delineation’ is inspired by Clifford Geertz's definitional framework of religion.
Sections 2 and 3 present cases studies from a range of Greek (and one colonial) sites from the Mycenaean to the Archaic periods. Section 4 highlights the significance of bioarchaeological approaches to ritual practices, offering overviews and new studies on paleoenvironmental evidence in relation to rituals and rites; emphasis is put on Lefkandi (Euboea). The value of interdisciplinary research at Lefkandi is shown in the paper of Lemos and in those of C. Thurston, T. Theodoropoulou, A. Mulhall, A. Livarda and G. Kotzamani.
Lemos focuses on the recent excavations at the ‘Ritual Zone’ on Xeropolis; three structures (two dated to the twelfth century [A, B], the third [C] spanning the twelfth to the tenth centuries bc), equipped with clay drums and platforms, hosted gatherings where the display of food and its consumption were prevalent features. Her interpretation of ceramic finds taken together with floral and faunal analyses offers a detailed reconstruction of the ritual landscape. Her comparisons with other relevant structures at Lefkandi and elsewhere in the Aegean put the archaeology of ritual into a wider context. Thurston's paper highlights significant features of the figurines in the ‘Ritual Zone’ (unusual types, secondary re-working, the presence of wheel-made figures, the density and repetition of their deposition), clearly indicating that figurines here had a primary usage and that they served as ‘votive habits’. Theodoropoulou offers an overview of fish and molluscan evidence from EIA Aegean settlements (including Lefkandi), sanctuaries and cemeteries. Apart from the obvious advantages attending zooarchaeological research, she refers to possible constraints, which can nonetheless become an important tool in the hands of archaeologists, namely the non-institutionalised character of EIA ritual acts. Theodoropoulou's marine faunal research as well as Mulhall's analysis of animal bones and Livarda and Kotzamani's archaeobotanical analysis establish strong similarities between the character of faunal and floral evidence in the ‘Ritual Zone’ and the rest of the excavated (domestic or generally ‘urban’) areas on Xeropolis. The ‘Ritual Zone’ revealed some distinct features too: the deer antlers prominent in Structures A and C; shared consumption events at Structure B; the solitary lion bone from the area associated with Structure C (showing that lion meat was consumed solely in this venue); the presence of free-threshing wheat, whose choice may have bestowed special significance on particular activities, and (potentially) coriander probably used for its sensory effects.
M. Voyatzis presents recent discoveries and results at the sanctuary of Zeus on Mt Lykaion in Arcadia, particularly focusing on the ash altar and temenos in the upper site. Highly significant is how the material from this altar suggests a long history of ritual use and animal sacrifice from the Mycenaean period onwards, as confirmed by C-14 analysis. Furthermore, the petrographic and elemental analyses of ceramic material fits well with Voyatzis’s interpretation on the networks of local communities living on or below the eastern foothills of Mt Lykaion and in the wider area of ancient Parrhasia, showing that the shaping of collective memory is intertwined with people's interconnections.
Fruitful comparisons are made between sanctuaries of particular regions. It is not only Voyatzis who explores similarities between the sanctuary of Zeus on Mt Lykaion and the Panhellenic sanctuary of Olympia. M. Mili's paper also makes detailed links between the sanctuaries of Athena Itonia at Philia and Ennodia at Pherai in Thessaly. Mili compares the Philia sanctuary, highly networked, with the local one at Pherai, demonstrating that ‘local’ does not mean reclusive. She shows how these sanctuaries were in ‘dialogue’, one place evoking developments in the other, as well as maintaining regional flavours in ritual practices and identities. In the same spirit, Y. Chalazonitis discusses ritual practices further north, in the Kavala Gulf, emphasising the importance of Artemision on the Thasian acropolis in the late seventh and sixth centuries bc, during the formative years of the polis of Thasos, and the cultural links, but also the distinctive elements, with the sanctuaries of Artemis Parthenos in Neapolis and the Acropolis sanctuary at Oisyme in the Thasian peraea. This paper valuably concludes that Thasos attempted to link her peraea settlements in a religious and cultural Koine, to better exercise control over the mainland region.
Settlements could be in ‘dialogue’, or even in competition, as in the case of Eleusis and Athens. In his contribution F. van den Eijnde explores M.B. Cosmopoulos's idea (Bronze Age Eleusis and the Origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries [2015]) that the Late Helladic Building B in Eleusis became a lieu de mémoire. He argues that the building was not only in use until the Sub-Mycenaean period but still visible during the Geometric period and most probably partly employed until the early sixth century bc. Through his juxtaposition of archaeological with literary evidence, van den Eijnde demonstrates that cult in Eleusis emerges in interaction with developments in Athens.
Ancestor rituals and the function of the Westkomplex at Kolonna on Aegina is the focus of the paper by G. Klebinder-Gauss. Its prominent location, the artefact assemblage and inscriptions indicate that this building was used for ancestor or hero worship and dining by one or several kinship-based groups. Through newly excavated EIA and early Archaic finds in the area of the Westkomplex, Klebinder-Gauss proves a continuous tradition of referencing the older remains, culminating in the erection of the Westkomplex in the late Archaic period. She illustrates that reusing earlier structures in the context of ancestor or hero worship is usually connected to formative periods of a site's spatial development and political identity.
Tsingarida and D. Viviers explore the Archaic building complex in the North Necropolis of Itanos in east Crete to illuminate how ‘history and ancestry are mobilised to construct cultural and social identities’ (p. 213). A wealth of recent excavated finds from the complex, indicative of collective feasting and ceremonies performed inside the hearth room and in the open-air yards, demonstrates long-term ancestor rituals conducted during the sixth and fifth centuries bc, here connected with earlier (seventh-century) tombs. To interpret these activities occurring in the so-called ‘Cretan archaeological gap’, Tsingarida and Viviers propose that political (possibly legislative) reforms (resulting in a growing austerity in burial habits) may explain the physical evidence. The possibility that the complex can be linked to an extended family group may be comprehended as a shift in the places used for their status display.
Human mobility and ritual practices performed in abandoned Cycladic settlements is the topic of I. Sanchez's paper. She rightly argues that these patterns vary considerably by period; even more information would have emerged if these abandonment processes were linked with formative periods of the settlements’ history. For example, towards the late eighth and into the seventh century bc some Cycladic sites can reflect possible episodes of synoecisms. Sanchez properly argues that geographical mobility can reveal shifting social identities. One point for future thought: reorganisation of the previous cult sites in abandoned Cycladic settlements in the EIA can be connected to emerging landscapes of memory (lieux de mémoire) (cf. Cosmopoulos 2015 and van den Eijnde in this volume) and to deliberate choices by the local communities to maintain the appropriate settings for their cults.
A. Alexandridou (stimulated by S. Davis’s animal bone analysis) differentiates the early occupation phases at Cycladic Despotiko from other early Greek sanctuaries where sacrifice and communal feasting were prominent features; she stresses the difficulties in distinguishing between sacred and profane structures during the EIA and in the case of early Despotiko. As this site can be seen as under the ‘authority’ of Paros from the EIA onwards, as evidenced by the material finds, the significance of the developing network of sanctuaries in Paros and its wider territory – apropos the emergence of Paroikia as the single polis of Paros (from a possible synoecism) – is highlighted.
R.-M. Bérard's paper discusses funerary rites in the colonial context of Megara Hyblaea. It is an inspiring contribution: aided by anthropological analysis, it offers valuable insights. Thus, no remarkable differences appeared between the grave types chosen for men and women; the examination of child graves gains significant importance, since some showing a mixed Graeco-indigenous cultural tradition may suggest that these children were born of ethnically mixed couples. Bérard concludes that the difficulty in comprehending social hierarchy and specific status through the graves at Megara Hyblaea (especially before the sixth century bc) often has to do with great variability in funerary treatments and choices: an observation that should beget comparable interpretations in the Greek mainland.
This is a well-edited volume, balanced in its themes and in its rich, often colour, images. It is accessible to undergraduates and senior researchers alike in the disciplines of archaeology, history and anthropology. The book adds a wealth of new data to the material record. Another significant virtue is its emphasis on intra-site and regional comparisons and the multidisciplinary approaches evidenced in many papers, exemplifying that linked interpretations of find-groups can produce fine-scale reconstructions of the ritual landscape. Many recurring aspects are worth appreciation (though a thematic index would more easily trace such): for instance, the growing number of Aegean sites showing evidence of various lieux de mémoire chosen by social groups and communities to (re)invent common identities; or the occurrence of rituals in the vicinity of proto-fortification, fortification or retaining walls. Of great consequence is the realisation that rituals, rites and cults often occurred in formative periods of a site's history and identity, before or beyond polis formations, as well as in the context of poleis.
