Animals in Greek Religion is more than a thematic collection of essays: its series of chapters, focusing on both abstract and practical aspects of religion, together demonstrate how perspectives generated from human-animal studies can extend our understanding of Greek religious practices, broadly defined. Drawing on the concept of ‘entanglement’, it aims to move beyond the traditional view of animals as sacrificial victims or symbols in myth, proposing instead that Greek religion should be understood as a tripartite system which included gods, animals and humans, and questioning the implicit hierarchy which places animals as subordinate to the human and divine. Julia Kindt’s programmatic introduction sets out the fundamental questions to be addressed: which animals feature in Greek religion? What role do they play in religion as a symbolic medium, and how was their symbolic role shaped by real human-animal interactions in ancient Greek culture? While the latter question comes to the fore more readily in some chapters than others, the book succeeds in asking thought-provoking questions across a wide range of areas.
The first section, ‘Perspectives’, begins with Jeremy McInerney’s discussion of entanglement as an approach, focusing on the complex interplay between the animal and the divine. The following chapter by Ingvild Sælid Gilhus on sources for the study of animals in religion brings out the very broad range of the ancient material and the need to consider animal agency: she notes the contribution of experimental archaeology and of zooarchaeology to our understanding of religion, though few subsequent chapters refer to these, perhaps disappointing when so much recent work has appeared on the archaeology of sacrifice and on the practicalities of animal management at religious sites. In the third chapter of this section, Emily Kearns offers a thorough survey of previous scholarship on animals in religion, and identifies the need to bring cross-cultural perspectives to bear, and the potential of cognitive science for our understanding of animal interactions.
The chapters which form Section 2, ‘Representation’, are in contrast rather more traditional in their outlook, treating the symbolism of animals in myth (Hannah Willey) and ideas about animals in Greek philosophy (James Henderson Collins II). Living animals are most clearly centred in Jan Bremmer’s examination of the theriomorphism of the Greek gods, which considers the diversity of meanings to be found in divine manifestations as horse or bull, and Kindt in one of her two chapters expands further on the concept of theriomorphism by comparing Greek responses to Egyptian modes of divine representation.
Section 3, ‘Practices’, returns us to the everyday sphere, and offers some striking examples of how consideration of human-animal interactions can provide fresh directions for research. Fritz Graf presents a masterly survey of animals in sacrifice, with some thought-provoking explorations of the ‘affordances’ of particular species and the different meanings they carry in ritual, while Milette Gaifman’s study of votives offers a very rich reading of the moschophoros statue type, moving from a simple interpretation of ‘animal as offering’ to emphasize the harmony suggested between the herdsman and the herded animal he carries. Gaifman contrasts these living animals with representations of lifeless hunted animals, suggesting that the Greek tendency to depict votive animals alive rather than post-sacrifice was a purposeful choice and a celebration of animal existence. Kindt’s chapter on animals in divination, and those by Florian Steger and Frank Ursin on Asclepian medicine and by Korshi Dosoo on ancient magic collectively address Gilhus’ question of animal agency in the religious context: how far did animal actions determine human affairs, and how far were humans willing to submit themselves to animals as intermediaries of the divine?
The collection end with Kindt’s reflective conclusion, emphasizing the benefits of entanglement as an approach to animals and religion, and drawing together potential future directions of research. The book is well-presented and illustrated, though the self-contained chapter format inevitably leads to some redundancy, both in the reviews of previous scholarship and in the appearance of certain sources multiple times (the Moschophoros votive from the Acropolis is illustrated twice in different chapters, for example, and similarly the foundation myth of Taras receives two separate treatments, as does the chicken in its role as sacrifice).
Kindt emphasizes the need for cross-cultural perspectives, and for consideration of change over time, but the point which emerges most clearly from the collection is that ‘species matters’, that is, that thinking in broad categories of ‘animal’ and ‘bird’ can obscure the specific interactions which made a horse or an ox, a rooster or an eagle meaningful in its context. There is no doubt that this book succeeds in its aim of presenting ‘a succinct and exemplary study of animals in Greek religion’ which amply demonstrates the potential of engagement with the ‘animal turn’.
