Transcript Sacrifice in Ancient Greece

Sacrifice in ancient Greece
Paul Halstead
Teachers’ Conference
16-6-15
• ‘Ancient’ Greece
o Iron Age/1st mill BC
o esp. Archaic-Classical polis/city state
• Why sacrifice?
o central importance to polis
o many complementary sources
Why? Sacrifice & the Polis
• Polis - religious association of
citizens in community of cult
(Snodgrass 1980)
o temple construction dates
emergence of polis
• Sacrifice central to citizenship
(Vernant 1989)
o right & duty to participate
o moral & cosmological guide
temple, Corinth
Why? Sources for sacrifice
• Many complementary sources
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literature
inscriptions
art - public and private
animal bones
BM
Louvre/wiki
Sources for sacrifice - literature
• Odyssey iii: Nestor at Pylos
o sacrifices heifer, cuts out femur
(thigh), burns in fat for gods
o human participants eat meat
o defines form of classic
‘Olympian’ sacrifice
Sources for sacrifice - literature
• Odyssey iii: Nestor at Pylos
• Hesiod Theogony
o Prometheus butchers ox
o tricks Zeus to take blood-fatbones, leaving meat for man
o Zeus withholds fire from man
o Prometheus steals fire for man
o Zeus sends woman to man, hides
grain in ground – work to eat
o rationale for burnt sacrifice &
cosmological/moral guide . . .
Sources for sacrifice - literature
• Odyssey iii: Nestor at Pylos
• Vernant on Theogony
o animals/raw, men/cooked, gods
burnt
o fire consumes dead
o hunt wild, sacrifice (consenting)
domestic animals
o cultivation/toil ox sacrifice
o proper division = social order
 by lot or status . . .
 strife/trickery dangerous
Sources for sacrifice - inscriptions
• Public sacrifices (Jameson 1965)
o accounting > ritual calendar
 date, place, recipient, victim, unusual
ritual details, COST
 total 56 sheep-goats-pigs
 ‘normal’ sacrifices (eaten)
 also holocaust pigs
o local public sacrifice – varied form
and victim
‘Sacrificial calendar’, Erchia, Attica
(http://arachne.uni-koeln.de)
Sources for sacrifice – sculpture
• E.g. Parthenon frieze:
context + procession =
official polis sacrifice of
cattle
sacrificial ‘ox’ – Parthenon frieze
Sources for sacrifice – sculpture
• E.g. Parthenon frieze:
context + procession =
official polis sacrifice
• Votive relief
o ?family ritual
o private contribution to
public ritual?
Getty
Sources for sacrifice - vases
BM
• Burning of bone-fat package
o sheep/goat-sized?
• Divination – burning of tail
• Portions by weight/lot &
status
Forstenpointner et al. 2013
Tsoukala 2009
Sources for sacrifice - vases
• Sacrificial slaughter
o altars, garlands, libations
o sheep-goat(-pig)
o also secular?
U Penn Mus
Nat Mus Spain/wiki
Louvre/wiki
Sources for sacrifice – animal bones
• Most sanctuaries: thigh (+
tail)
o e.g. Archaic Ephesos Artemision
 HK sheep thighs
 HN also sheep & cow tails
o e.g. Eretria
 Geometric Apollo altar: sheep &
goats burnt thigh & tail
 later layers: unburnt, mixed spp &
body parts - except thigh!
o some sanctuaries: other parts
 Eleusis piglets
Forstenpointner 2003
Sources for sacrifice - comparison
• Ideal civic sacrifice - literature, public sculpture
o ‘Olympian’ burnt cattle bone & fat
• Variable victims & form – inscriptions, vases, bones
o esp sheep/goats for private & local public sacrifices
• Outstanding questions
o antiquity of ‘Olympian’ sacrifice
o sacrifice, meat & democracy
Antiquity of ‘Olympian’ sacrifice
• Burkert – burnt sacrifice
o EIA E Mediterranean
parallels = late
introduction
• LBA animal bones
o ‘Olympian’ sacrifice at
Pylos palace c1200 BC
o Holocaust pigs at rural Ag
Konstantinos
• Early roots, continuity?
Isaakidou et al 2002
Sacrifice, meat & democracy
• Sacrifice = right & ?normal
before eating meat (Vernant)
o shares vocabulary with butchery
o only sacrificed meat eaten?
• Meat intake
o Erchia: 0.5-1.7 kg/head/yr = 5% of
1947 Crete (Jameson)
o N-isotopes in human skeletons?
• Polis sponsors sacrifices
o limits elite display/embezzlement
Athens
Kavvadias & Lagia 2009
Sacrifice, meat & democracy
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Sacrifice = right & ?normal
Meat intake v low
Polis sponsors sacrifices
Sacrificial animals – bones (Ekroth)
o incl. dog, horse, donkey, game +
consumption cut marks
o not sacrificed (unburnt, all parts)
o all boiled together – equality
o but supply – opportunities for
competition?
Wiki
Conclusion
• Sacrifice central to Greek social-political life
• Explored through full range of sources
o archaeological data alone will grow significantly
o including new finds and new methods of analysis
Athens Agora
MacKinnon 2014