Startseite Altertumswissenschaften & Ägyptologie Ancient Greek Construction Rituals, Tradition, and the Articulation of Communal Identities
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Ancient Greek Construction Rituals, Tradition, and the Articulation of Communal Identities

  • Andrew Farinholt Ward

    Andrew Farinholt Ward is an Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Culture in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts, and core faculty of the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program, at Fairfield University. He is the Field Director for the Institute of Fine Arts-NYU and University of Milan excavations in the main urban sanctuary of Selinunte and has served as the Supervisor of Excavation for the American Excavations Samothrace project. His research focuses on the depositional practices and site formation processes of ancient Mediterranean sacred places, with a particular emphasis on colonial religion and cross-cultural interaction.
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Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Ancient Greece and Rome
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Ancient Greece and Rome

Abstract

In Greek antiquity the practical aspects of building a structure were inseparable from a polythetic set of ritual activities conducted in parallel to construction. Reflective of a community’s identity, these rituals require a different approach than the more codified “foundation deposits” documented in the ancient Near East and Egypt. Using evidence from the Sicilian Greek city of Selinous, and recent investigations of the city’s main urban sanctuary as a case study, this paper outlines how narrative and theme, rather than formalism and typology, are a necessary lens for interpreting Greek construction rituals. Emphasizing actions that articulated the shared identities and memories of the community, similar patterns can be identified throughout contexts in Selinous and across other communities in Sicily and the wider Mediterranean. Defining Greek construction rituals has proven elusive because they are as adaptable as the identities and local constructed memories that they served to memorialize.

Abstract

In Greek antiquity the practical aspects of building a structure were inseparable from a polythetic set of ritual activities conducted in parallel to construction. Reflective of a community’s identity, these rituals require a different approach than the more codified “foundation deposits” documented in the ancient Near East and Egypt. Using evidence from the Sicilian Greek city of Selinous, and recent investigations of the city’s main urban sanctuary as a case study, this paper outlines how narrative and theme, rather than formalism and typology, are a necessary lens for interpreting Greek construction rituals. Emphasizing actions that articulated the shared identities and memories of the community, similar patterns can be identified throughout contexts in Selinous and across other communities in Sicily and the wider Mediterranean. Defining Greek construction rituals has proven elusive because they are as adaptable as the identities and local constructed memories that they served to memorialize.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Contents VII
  4. Abbreviations
  5. List of Figures XIII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Part I Ritual, Poetics, and the Past: Greece
  8. Into the Woods: Reading the Iliad with Boeotian Cult 17
  9. Epinician Rituals in Pindar’s Fourth and Fifth Olympians: Shaping and Preserving Identities in Song 35
  10. Repeat, Remember: Ritual and Literature (Horace; Sappho, Alcaeus; Homer, Sophocles, Epicurus, Callimachus, Vergil) 47
  11. Ritual, Meter, and Cultural Memories of Megatheism: A New Case for Sarapis as the God of Hyssaldomos’ Verse-Inscription from Mylasa 71
  12. Part II Ritual, Poetics, and the Past: Rome
  13. Georgics 4: Vergil on the Rites of Poetry and Philosophy at the Dawn of a New Era 97
  14. Horace’s Ritual Song in Augustan Rome: The Sacred Poet as an alter princeps 119
  15. Divining Identity in Seneca’s Oedipus 139
  16. Part III Performing Identity
  17. Call the Witnesses: Athenian Citizenship Practice at the Crossroads of Memory, Ritual, and Identity 153
  18. Embodied Memory in the Panathenaia 169
  19. Ritual Against Memory: Managing the Ancestors in Ancient Rome 195
  20. Part IV Trauma and Memory
  21. Aeneas’ tropaeum: Collective Trauma and Commemoration in Vergil’s Aeneid 213
  22. Broken Hospitality and Traumatic Memory in the Funerals of Vergil’s Pallas and Valerius Flaccus’ Cyzicus 237
  23. Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Prudentius, Peristephanon and Paulinus of Nola, Natalicia 271
  24. Part V Women, Ritual and Memory
  25. Remembering Female Names: Crisis, Ritual, and Collective Identity Formation in Ancient Greek Epic Poetry 289
  26. Ritual Lament, Memory, and Identity in Euripides’ Trojan Trilogy 307
  27. Memory, Ritual, and the Politics of Closure in Tacitus, Ann. 3.76 323
  28. Part VI Places
  29. Treasuries, Identity, and Politics 337
  30. Ancient Greek Construction Rituals, Tradition, and the Articulation of Communal Identities 355
  31. Ritual, Memory, and Identity: The Case of Theoriae 385
  32. Pomponius Mela’s Hercules: Preserving Phoenician Ritual Memory and Identity 405
  33. List of Contributors 423
  34. Index Rerum
  35. Index Locorum
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111197456-019

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Contents VII
  4. Abbreviations
  5. List of Figures XIII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Part I Ritual, Poetics, and the Past: Greece
  8. Into the Woods: Reading the Iliad with Boeotian Cult 17
  9. Epinician Rituals in Pindar’s Fourth and Fifth Olympians: Shaping and Preserving Identities in Song 35
  10. Repeat, Remember: Ritual and Literature (Horace; Sappho, Alcaeus; Homer, Sophocles, Epicurus, Callimachus, Vergil) 47
  11. Ritual, Meter, and Cultural Memories of Megatheism: A New Case for Sarapis as the God of Hyssaldomos’ Verse-Inscription from Mylasa 71
  12. Part II Ritual, Poetics, and the Past: Rome
  13. Georgics 4: Vergil on the Rites of Poetry and Philosophy at the Dawn of a New Era 97
  14. Horace’s Ritual Song in Augustan Rome: The Sacred Poet as an alter princeps 119
  15. Divining Identity in Seneca’s Oedipus 139
  16. Part III Performing Identity
  17. Call the Witnesses: Athenian Citizenship Practice at the Crossroads of Memory, Ritual, and Identity 153
  18. Embodied Memory in the Panathenaia 169
  19. Ritual Against Memory: Managing the Ancestors in Ancient Rome 195
  20. Part IV Trauma and Memory
  21. Aeneas’ tropaeum: Collective Trauma and Commemoration in Vergil’s Aeneid 213
  22. Broken Hospitality and Traumatic Memory in the Funerals of Vergil’s Pallas and Valerius Flaccus’ Cyzicus 237
  23. Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Prudentius, Peristephanon and Paulinus of Nola, Natalicia 271
  24. Part V Women, Ritual and Memory
  25. Remembering Female Names: Crisis, Ritual, and Collective Identity Formation in Ancient Greek Epic Poetry 289
  26. Ritual Lament, Memory, and Identity in Euripides’ Trojan Trilogy 307
  27. Memory, Ritual, and the Politics of Closure in Tacitus, Ann. 3.76 323
  28. Part VI Places
  29. Treasuries, Identity, and Politics 337
  30. Ancient Greek Construction Rituals, Tradition, and the Articulation of Communal Identities 355
  31. Ritual, Memory, and Identity: The Case of Theoriae 385
  32. Pomponius Mela’s Hercules: Preserving Phoenician Ritual Memory and Identity 405
  33. List of Contributors 423
  34. Index Rerum
  35. Index Locorum
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Heruntergeladen am 19.12.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111197456-019/html
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