Hiera kala

Hiera kala
Title Hiera kala PDF eBook
Author Straten
Publisher BRILL
Pages 464
Release 2015-08-24
Genre History
ISBN 9004283455

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Hierà kalá presents a collection, analysis and interpretation of the representations of animal sacrifice from ancient Greece. The Archaic and Classical material is dealt with comprehensively. Later evidence is adduced more selectively, for the sake of comparison. All aspects of Greek sacrifice that are (or appear to be) represented in the iconographical material are treated in depth; interpretations are based on a combined study of the archaeological, the epigraphical and the literary data. Full catalogues of vase paintings and votive reliefs with depictions of sacrifice are included. A generous selection of these are illustrated in more than 200 figures.

Hierà Kalá

Hierà Kalá
Title Hierà Kalá PDF eBook
Author Folkert T. Van Straten
Publisher BRILL
Pages 470
Release 1995
Genre Religion
ISBN 9789004102927

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This volume deals with the depictions of animal sacrifice from ancient Greece, full catalogues of which are included. The relevant aspects of Greek sacrifice are studied on the basis of an analysis and interpretation of these representations, combined with the pertinent textual data.

Smoke Signals for the Gods

Smoke Signals for the Gods
Title Smoke Signals for the Gods PDF eBook
Author F. S. Naiden
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 438
Release 2015
Genre History
ISBN 0190232714

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Animal sacrifice has been critical to the study of ancient Mediterranean religions since the 18th century. Two leading views on sacrifice have dominated the subject: the psychological approach of Walter Burkert and the sociological one by Jean-Pierre Vernant and Marcel Detienne. These two perspectives have argued that the main feature of sacrifice is allaying feelings of guilt at the slaughter of sacrificial animals. Naiden redresses the omission of these salient features to show that animal sacrifice is an attempt to make contact with a divine being, and that it is so important for the worshippers that it becomes subject to regulations of unequaled extent and complexity.

Polytheism and Society at Athens

Polytheism and Society at Athens
Title Polytheism and Society at Athens PDF eBook
Author Robert Parker
Publisher OUP Oxford
Pages 576
Release 2005-11-24
Genre History
ISBN 9780199216116

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This book is the first attempt that has ever been made to give a comprehensive account of the religious life of ancient Athens. The city's many festivals are discussed in detail, with attention to recent anthropological theory; so too, for instance, are the cults of households and of smaller groups, the role of religious practice and argumentation in public life, the authority of priests, the activities of religious professionals such as seers and priestesses, magic, the place of theatrical representations of the gods within public attitudes to the divine. A long final section considers the sphere of activity of the various gods, and takes Athens as a uniquely detailed test case for the structuralist approach to polytheism. The work is a synchronic, thematically organized complement (though designed to be read independently) to the same author's Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford 1996).

Omens and Oracles

Omens and Oracles
Title Omens and Oracles PDF eBook
Author Matthew Dillon
Publisher Taylor & Francis
Pages 487
Release 2017-07-14
Genre History
ISBN 1317148967

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Addressing the role which divination played in ancient Greek society, this volume deals with various forms of prophecy and how each was utilised and for what purpose. Chapters bring together key types of divining, such as from birds, celestial phenomena, the entrails of sacrificed animals and dreams. Oracular centres delivered prophetic pronouncements to enquirers, but in addition, there were written collections of oracles in circulation. Many books were available on how to interpret dreams, the birds and entrails, and divination as a religious phenomenon attracted the attention of many writers. Expert diviners were at the heart of Greek prophecy, whether these were Apollo’s priestesses delivering prose or verse answers to questions put to them by consultants, diviners known as manteis, who interpreted entrails and omens, the chresmologoi, who sang the many oracles circulating orally or in writing, or dream interpreters. Divination was utilised not only to foretell the future but also to ensure that the individual or state employing divination acted in accordance with that divinely prescribed future; it was employed by all and had a crucial role to play in what courses of action both states and individuals undertook. Specific attention is paid in this volume not only to the ancient written evidence, but to that of inscriptions and papyri, with emphasis placed on the iconography of Greek divination.

Religion of the Gods

Religion of the Gods
Title Religion of the Gods PDF eBook
Author Kimberley Christine Patton
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 513
Release 2009-02-09
Genre Religion
ISBN 0199723281

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In many of the world's religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, a seemingly enigmatic and paradoxical image is found--that of the god who worships. Various interpretations of this seeming paradox have been advanced. Some suggest that it represents sacrifice to a higher deity. Proponents of anthropomorphic projection say that the gods are just "big people" and that images of human religious action are simply projected onto the deities. However, such explanations do not do justice to the complexity and diversity of this phenomenon. In Religion of the Gods, Kimberley C. Patton uses a comparative approach to take up anew a longstanding challenge in ancient Greek religious iconography: why are the Olympian gods depicted on classical pottery making libations? The sacrificing gods in ancient Greece are compared to gods who perform rituals in six other religious traditions: the Vedic gods, the heterodox god Zurvan of early Zoroastrianism, the Old Norse god Odin, the Christian God and Christ, the God of Judaism, and Islam's Allah. Patton examines the comparative evidence from a cultural and historical perspective, uncovering deep structural resonances while also revealing crucial differences. Instead of looking for invisible recipients or lost myths, Patton proposes the new category of "divine reflexivity." Divinely performed ritual is a self-reflexive, self-expressive action that signals the origin of ritual in the divine and not the human realm. Above all, divine ritual is generative, both instigating and inspiring human religious activity. The religion practiced by the gods is both like and unlike human religious action. Seen from within the religious tradition, gods are not "big people," but other than human. Human ritual is directed outward to a divine being, but the gods practice ritual on their own behalf. "Cultic time," the symbiotic performance of ritual both in heaven and on earth, collapses the distinction between cult and theology each time ritual is performed. Offering the first comprehensive study and a new theory of this fascinating phenomenon, Religion of the Gods is a significant contribution to the fields of classics and comparative religion. Patton shows that the god who performs religious action is not an anomaly, but holds a meaningful place in the category of ritual and points to a phenomenologically universal structure within religion itself.

The Late Mannerists in Athenian Vase-painting

The Late Mannerists in Athenian Vase-painting
Title The Late Mannerists in Athenian Vase-painting PDF eBook
Author Thomas Mannack
Publisher
Pages 208
Release 2001
Genre Mannerism (Art)
ISBN 9780199240890

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The potter and painter Myson founded the Mannerist workshop at the end of the sixth century BC. The Mannerists were his pupils and pupils of his pupils, and specialized in columnkraters, hydriai, and pelikai. The workshop was unusually long-lived and was active through the whole of the fifthcentury and the first decade of the fourth.The style of painting and the choice of some subjects are curiously old-fashioned. A number of pictures show rare themes such as the Death of Prokris, Odysseus and Nausicaa, and Orestes in Delphi. Other paintings give an unusual twist to well-known stories. The Mannerists were influenced bytheatrical productions, extant wall paintings, and the works of other vase-painters.The workshop provides important clues for the chronology of Attic vase-painting, for example drawing reflecting Pheidias' Athena Parthenos, and Aeschylos' plays Sphinx, Eumenides, and Seven against Thebes.