Locating Lost Gifts: Terracotta Figurines as Evidence for Ephemeral Offerings
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32028/jga.v3i.529Abstract
For the most part, Greek gods were not altruistic or loving. In order to get something, one needed to coerce, manipulate, or even bribe a god. Although there was no guidebook to ritual practice or a standardized belief system in ancient Greece, certain rites were repeated in similar ways at multiple locations by different people. Offering a gift to a god was one of these fundamental, and common, actions in Greek ritual practice.
References
Andrianou, D. 2006. Late Classical and Hellenistic Furniture and Furnishing in the Epigraphical Record. Hesperia 75: 561-584.
Beaumont, L. 2012. Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History. London: Routledge.
Bellia, A. 2009. Coroplastica con raffigurazioni musicali nella Sicilia greca (VI-III sec. a.C.) (Biblioteca di Sicilia Antiqua 3). Pisa: Fabrizio Serra Editore.
Bellia, A. 2012. Il canto delle vergini Locresi: la musica a Locri Epizefirii nelle fonti scritte e nella documentazione archeologica (secoli VI-III a.C.) (Nuovi Saggi 116). Pisa: Fabrizio Serra Editore.
Bérard, C., J.-L. Durand, and F. Frontisi-Ducroux. 1989. A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece. D. Lyons (trans) Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bieber, M. 1928. Griechische Kleidung. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Biers, W., K. Gerhardt, and R. Braniff. 1994. Lost Scents: Investigations of Corinthian Plastic Vases by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Bookidis, N., J. Hansen, L. Snyder, and P. Goldberg. 1999. Dining in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth. Hesperia 68: 1–54.
Branham, E. 2012. The Scent of Love: Ancient Perfumes. The Iris: Behind the Scenes at the Getty, J. Paul Getty Trust, 1 May 2012, http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/the-scent-of-love-ancient-perfumes/, accessed 24 March 2015.
Brøns, C. 2015. Textiles and Temple Inventories: Detecting an Invisible Votive Tradition in Greek Sanctuaries in the second half of the first millennium BC, in J. Fejfer, M. Moltesen, and A. Rathje (eds) Tradition: Transmission of Culture in the Ancient World (Acta Hyperborea 14): 43–84. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
Brøns, C. 2017. Gods & Garments: Textiles in Greek Sanctuaries in the 7th to the 1st Centuries BC. Philadelphia: Oxbow.
Brumfield, A. 1997. Cakes in the Liknon: Votives from the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on Acrocorinth. Hesperia 66: 147–172.
Burkert, W. 1987. Offerings in Perspective: Surrender, Distribution, Exchange, in T. Linders and G. Nordquist (eds) Gifts to the Gods: Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium 1985: 43–50. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
Cairns, F. 2016. Hellenistic Epigrams: Contexts of Exploration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Calame, C. 1997. Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece: Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Function. D. Collins and J. Orion (trans) New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Casabona, J. 1966. Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifice en grec, des origines à la fin de l’epoque classique. Aix-en-Provence: Éditions Ophrys.
Cleland, L. 2005. The Brauron Clothing Catalogues: Text, Analysis, Glossary, and Translation. Oxford: Oxbow.
Cleland, L., G. Davies, and L. Llewellyn-Jones. 2007. Greek and Roman Dress from A to Z. New York: Routledge.
Corinth 15.1= Stillwell, A. 1948. The Potters’ Quarter. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Corinth 15.2= Stillwell, A. 1952. The Potters’ Quarter: The Terracottas. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Corinth 18.1= Pemberton, E. 1989. The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Greek Pottery. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Corinth 18.4= Merker, G. 2000. The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: Terracotta Figurines of the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Corinth 18.5= Bookidis, N. 2010. The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Terracotta Sculpture. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Corinth 18.7= Bookidis, N. and E. G. Pemberton. 2015. The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Greek Lamps and Offering Trays. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Day, J. 1994. Interactive Offerings: Early Greek Dedicatory Epigrams and Ritual. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 96: 37–74.
Donohue, A. A. 1988. Xoana and the Origins of Greek Sculpture. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Ekroth, G. 2003. Small Pots, Poor People? The Use and Function of Miniature Pottery as Votive Offerings in Archaic Sanctuaries in the Argolid and Corinthia, in B. Schmaltz and M. Söldner (eds) Griechische Keramik im Kulturellen Kontext: 35–37. Münster: Scriptorium.
Ekroth, G. 2015. Bare Bones: Zooarchaeology and Greek Sacrifice, in S. Hitch and I. Rutherford (eds) Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World: 15–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fiorentini, G. 1969. Il santuario extra urbano di S. Anna presso Agrigento. Cronache di Archeologia e di Storia dell’arte 8: 63–80.
Furley, W. D. 2010. Life in a line: a reading of dedicatory epigrams, in M. Baumbach, A. Petrovic, and I. Petrovic (eds) Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram: 151–166. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Geagan, H. 1970. Mythological Themes on the Plaques from Penteskouphia. Archäologischer Anzeiger 85:31–48.
Georgaka, V. 2014. Handmade, Terracotta Animal Figurines from the Athenian Acropolis. Les Carnet de L’ACoSt [Online] 11: Varia. (http://acost.revues.org/435 accessed: 3 October 2016).
Gill, D. 1974. Trapezomata: A Neglected Aspect of Greek Sacrifice. Harvard Theological Review 67: 117–137.
Gill, D. 1991. Greek Cult Tables. New York: Garland Publishing.
Griffith, M. 2006. Horsepower and Donkeywork: Equids in the Ancient Greek Imagination. Part Two. Classical Philology 101: 307–358.
Higgins, R.A. 1954. Catalogue of the Terracottas in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, 2 Volumes. London: British Museum.
Huysecom-Haxhi, S. and A. Muller. 2007. Déesses et/ou mortelles dans la plastique de terre cuite: Réponses actuelles à une question ancienne. Pallas 75: 231–247.
Huysecom-Haxhi, S. and A. Muller. 2015. Figurines en contexte, de l’identifcation à la function: vers une archéologie de la religion, in S. Huysecom-Haxhi and A. Muller (eds) Figurines grecques en contexte: Présence muette dans le sanctuaire, la tombe et la maison: 421–438. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Isthmia 8= Morgan, C. 1999. The Late Bronze Age Settlement and Early Iron Age Sanctuary. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Jameson 1994. Theoxenia, in R. Hägg (ed.) Ancient Greek Cult Practice From the Epigraphical Evidence (Proceedings of the Second International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, Organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 22–24 November 1991, SkrAth8º): 35–57. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athens.
Jim, T.S.F. 2011. The vocabulary of ἀπάρχεσθαι, ἀπαρχή and related terms in Archaic and Classical Greece. Kernos 24: 39–58.
Jim, T.S.F. 2012. Naming a Gift: The Vocabulary and Purposes of Greek Religious Offerings. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 52: 310–337.
Jim, T.S.F. 2014. Sharing with the Gods: Aparchai and Dekatai in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jost, M. 2008. La vie religieuse à Lykosoura. Ktema 33: 93–110.
Karoglou, K. 2010. Attic Pinakes: Votive Images in Clay. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Kearns, E. 1994. Cakes in Greek Sacrifice Regulations, in R. Hägg (ed.) Ancient Greek Cult Practice From the Epigraphical Evidence (proceedings of the Second International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 22–24 November 1991): 65–70. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athens.
Kearns, E.2011. Ὁ λιβανωτὸς εὐσεβές καὶ τὸ πόπανον: The Rationale of Cakes and Bloodless Offerings in Greek Sacrifice, in V. Pirenne-Delforge and F. Prescendi (eds) Nourrir les Dieux?: Sacrifice et représentation du divin (Kernos Supplément 26): 89–103. Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège.
Klinger, S. 2015. Fauna in the World of Women in Ancient Greece and Some Observations on the Animal Votives at the Demeter and Kore Sanctuary at Acrocorinth, in C. Lang-Auinger, E. Trinkl (eds), Φυτά και Ζωια: Pflanzen und Tiere auf griechischen Vasen (Akten des Internationalen Symposiums an der Universität Graz, 26.-28. September 2013, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Österreich Beiheft 2): 33–46. Wien: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Kopestonsky, T. 2009. Kokkinovrysi: A Classical Shrine to the Nymphs at Corinth. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University at Buffalo.
Kopestonsky, T. 2015. Cueing Behavior: Figurines at Roadside Shrines in Corinth, in E. Lafli and A. Muller (eds.) Figurines de terre cuites en Méditerranée grecque et romains, Volume 2: Iconographie et contextes: 407–416. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Kopestonsky, T. 2016. The Greek Cult of the Nymphs at Corinth. Hesperia 85: 711–777.
Kyrieleis, H. 1980. Archaische Holzfunde aus Samos, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 95: 87–147.
Kyrieleis, H. 1983. Neue Holzfunde aus dem Heraion von Samos, Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene a delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente 45: 295–302.
Kyrieleis, H. 1988. Offerings of ‘the Common Man’ at the Heraion at Samos, in R. Hägg, N. Marinatos, and G. Nordquist (eds) Early Greek Cult Practice: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 26–29 June 1986: 215–221. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athens.
Kyrieleis, H. 1993. ‘The Heraion at Samos,’ in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds) Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches: 125–153. New York: Routledge.
Langdon, S. 2007. The Awkward Age: Art and Maturation in Early Greece, in A. Cohen and J. Rutter (eds) Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy (Hesperia Supplement 41): 173–191. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Linders, T. 1972. Studies in the Treasure Records of Artemis Brauronia. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen.
Lissi Caronna, E.C. Sabbione, and L. Vlad Borrelli (eds). 2000–2003. I Pinakes di Locri Epizefiri: Musei di Reggio Calabria e di Locri: Parte 2 (Atti Memorie della Società Magna Grecia: 4th series, Volume 2.1–5). Rome: Società Magna Grecia.
Lissi Caronna, E.C. Sabbione, and L. Vlad Borrelli (eds). 2004–2007. I Pinakes di Locri Epizefiri: Musei di Reggio Calabria e di Locri: Parte 3 (Atti Memorie della Società Magna Grecia: 4th series, Volume 3.1–6). Rome: Società Magna Grecia.
Marcus, J. and K. Flannery. 1994. Ancient Zapotec Ritual and Religion: An Application of the Direct Historical Approach, in C. Renfrew and E. Zubrow (eds) The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology: 55–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Milanezi, S. 2005. Beauty in Rags: On rhakos in Aristophanic Theatre, in L. Cleland, M. Harlow, and L. Llewellyn-Jones (eds) The Clothed Body in the Ancient World: 75–86. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Mylona, D. 2008. Fish Eating in Greece from the Fifth Century BC to the Seventh Century AD: A Story of Impoverished Fishermen or Luxurious Fish Banquet? (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1754). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mylona, D. 2015. From Fish Bones to Fishermen: Views from the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, in D. C. Haggis and C. M. Antonaccio (eds) Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World: 385–417. Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
Nosch, M.-L. 2014. Linen Textiles and Flax in Classical Greece: Provenance and Trade, in K. Droß-Krüpe (ed.) Textile Trade and Distribution in Antiquity/ Textihandel und-distribution in der Antike: 17–42. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Oakley, J. and R. Sinos. 1993. The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Palmieri, M. 2016. Penteskouphia. Immagini e parole dipinte sui pinakes corinzi dedicati a Poseidon. Athens: Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene.
Patera, I. 2012. Offrir en Grèce Ancienne: Gestes et Contextes. Stuttgard: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Perachora 1 = Payne, H. T.J. Dunbabin, and A.A.A. Blakeway. 1940. Perachora I. The Sanctuaries of Hera Akraia and Limenia: Architecture, Bronzes, Terracotta. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prêtre, C. 2012. Kosmos et Kosmema: Les Offrandes des Parure dans les Inscriptions de Délos (Kernos Supplément 27). Liège: Presses universitaires de Liège.
Rask, K. 2016. Devotionalism, Material Culture and the Personal in Greek Religion. Kernos 29: 9–40.
Reilly, J. 1997. Naked and Limbless: Learning about the Feminine Body in Ancient Athens, in A. Koloski-Ostrow and C. Lyons (eds) Naked Truths: Women, Sexuality, and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology: 154–173. London: Routledge.
Riis, P. J. 1993. Ancient Types of Garments. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek and Roman Clothing. Acta Archaeologica 64: 149–182.
Robinson, B. 2011. Histories of Peirene: A Corinthian Fountain in Three Millennia. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Rouse, W. 1902. Greek Votive Offerings: An Essay on the History of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rudhardt, J. 1992. Notions fondamentales de la pensée religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Grèce classique. Paris: Picard.
Salapata, G. 2002. Greek Votive Plaques: Manufacture, Display, Disposal. Bulletin Antieke Beschaving: Annual Papers on Classical Archaeology 77: 19–42.
Salapata, G. 2015. Terracotta Offerings in Sets or Groups, in S. Huysecom-Haxhi and A. Muller (eds) Figurines grecques en contexte: Présence muette dans le sanctuaire, la tombe et la maison: 179–197. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Samos 18= Jarosch, V. 1994. Samische Tonfiguren: des 10. bis 7. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. aus dem Heraion von Samos. Bonn: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.
Sanders, G., S. James, I. Tzonou-Herbst, and J. Herbst. 2014. The Panayia Field Excavations at Corinth: The Neolithic to Hellenistic Phases. Hesperia 83: 1–79.
Sinn, U. 1992. The Sacred Herd of Artemis at Lusoi, in R. Hägg (ed.) The Iconography of Greek Cult in the Archaic and Classical Periods, Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens and the European Cultural Centre of Delphi (Kernos Supplément 1): 177–187. Athens: Centre d’Étude de la religion grecque antique.
Sokolowski, F. 1955. Lois sacreés de l’Asie Mineure. Paris: E. de Boccard.
Sokolowski, F. 1962. Lois sacreés des cités grecque: Supplément. Paris: E. de Boccard.
Sokolowski, F.1969. Lois sacreés des cités grecque. Paris: E. de Boccard.
Stephens, S. 2004. For You, Arsinoe, in B. Acosta-Hughes, E. Kosmetatou, M. Baumbach (eds) Labored in papyrus leaves: perspectives on an epigram collection attributed to Posidippus (P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309): 161–176. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies.
Sokolowski, F. 2005. Battle of the Books, in K. Gutzwiller (ed.), The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book: 229–248. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stewart, A. 2013. Two Notes on Greeks Bearing Arms: The Hoplites of the Chigi Jug and Gelon’s Armed Aphrodite, in T. Hölscher, O. Dally, S. Muth, and R. Schneider (eds) Medien der Geschichte. Antike Griechenland und Rom: 227–243. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Theodoropoulou, T. 2013. The Sea in the Temple? Shells, Fish and Corals from the Sanctuary of the Ancient Town of Kythnos and Other Marine Stories of Cult, in G. Ekroth, J. Wallensten (eds) Bones, Behaviors and Belief: The Zooarchaeological Evidence as a Source for Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece and Beyond (Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae, Series in 4º, 55): 197–222. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen.
Touzé, R. 2008. Les matières premières employées dans la confection des huiles, onguents et poudres parfumés en Grèce ancienne. Les aromates à l’épreuve de l’expression, in L. Bodiou, D. Frère, and V. Mehl (eds) Parfums et odeurs dans l’antiquité: 45–59. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
Trinkl, E. 2014. The Wool Basket: Function, Depiction and Meaning of a Kalathos, in M. Harlow and M.-L. Nosch (eds) Greek and Roman Textiles and Dress: An Interdisciplinary Anthology: 190–206. Oxford: Oxbow.
Van Straten, F. 1981. Gifts for the Gods, in H.S. Versnel (ed.) Faith, Hope, and Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World: 65–151. Leiden: Brill.
Van Straten, F. 1988. The God’s Portion in Greek Sacrificial Representation: Is the Tail doing Nicely?, in R. Hägg, N. Marinatos, and G. Nordquist (eds) Early Greek Cult Practice: Proceedings of the fifth international symposium and the Swedish School in Athens, 26–29 June 1986: 51–68. Stockholm: Svenska Insitutet i Athens.
Van Straten, F. 1992. Votives and Votaries in Greek Sanctuaries, in A. Schachter, E. Kearns, B. Bergquist, and F. Graf (eds), Le Sanctuaire Grec: huit exposés suivis de discussions: 247–290. Geneva: Fondation Hardt.
Van Straten, F. 1995. Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece. Leiden: Brill.
Villing, A. 2015. Don’t Kill the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg? Some Thoughts on Bird Sacrifices in Ancient Greece, S. Hitch and I. Rutherford (eds) Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World: 63–102. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wagman, R. 2015. The Cave of the Nymphs at Pharsalus: Studies on a Thessalian Country Shrine. Boston: Brill.
Whitley, J. 2006. The Economics of Dedication at Greek Sanctuaries, in A. Snodgrass (ed.) Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece: 258–268. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Williams, C.K. 1981. The City of Corinth and Its Domestic Religion. Hesperia 50: 408–421.
Yiannopoúlou, A., V. Evangéloglou, E. Maragkoudáke, and Ch. Pipílou. 2013. Αρχαïκó νεκροταφεíο στην Αρχαíα Κóρινθο, K. Kissas and W.-D. Niemeier (eds) The Corinthia and the Northeast Peloponnese: Topography and History from Prehistoric Times until the End of Antiquity (Proceedings of the International Conference Organized by the Directorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, the LZ’ Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and the German Archaeological Institute, Athens, Held at Loutraki, March 26–29, 2009): 91–97. Munich: Hirmer.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
