Tomb cult and the ‘Greek renaissance’: the past in the present in the 8th century BC

Antiquity ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (237) ◽  
pp. 750-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Morris
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Greek City ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Complexity ◽  
Early Modern Italy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
City State

Greek society was changing rapidly in the 8th century BC. The archaeological record reveals population growth, increasing political complexity, artistic experiments and a strong interest in the past. Because these processes resemble those at work in early modern Italy, the period has often been referred to as the ‘Greek renaissance’ (e.g. Ure 1922; Hägg 1983a; cf. Burke 1986). This paper is about the glorification of the past in the 8th century, and its relationship to the rise of the polis, the Greek city state. I concentrate on one particular phenomenon, the spread of cults at tombs dating to the Mycenaean period (c. 1600-1200 BC). I argue that the common renaissance analogy has limited value, and that the 8thcentury Greeks created a past narrowly focussed on the persons of powerful ancient beings, from whom they could draw authority in the social upheavals which came about as the loose, aristocratic societies of the ‘Dark Age’ (c. 1200-750 BC) were challenged. Tomb cults go back at least to 950 BC, but after 750 they were redefined and used as a source of power in new ways. I have adapted my subtitle from Maurice Bloch’s well-known paper ‘The past and the present in the present’ (1977), where he argues that rituals bring the past into the present to form a system of cognition mystifying nature and preserving the social order. The argument here is slightly different. I stress the variety of the cults and the range of meanings they must have had, making their recipients highly ambiguous figures. The same cults could simultaneously evoke the new, relatively egalitarian ideology of the polis and the older ideals of heroic aristocrats who protected the grateful and defenceless lower orders, while standing far above them. Bloch's paper borrowed Malinowski’s idea of culture as a ‘long conversation’; developing the analogy, I look at the multiple meanings which any statement in such a conversation may have for the different actors.

The Enigma of Ignatius of Antioch

2006 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-456
Author(s):  
ALLEN BRENT
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Greek City ◽  
The Social ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
City State

If we affirm against recent criticism the authenticity of the Middle Recension of the Ignatian letters, we are nevertheless left with the enigma of Ignatius' relations with Polycarp. This paper explains that enigma in terms of two distinct cultural worlds of early second-century Christianity that come together in the meeting of these two church leaders. Ignatius was the first great missionary bishop who reinterpreted church order, the eucharist and martyrdom against the backcloth of the Second Sophistic in Asia Minor, with its pagan processions, cult and embassies that celebrated the social order of the Greek city state in relation to imperial power. Much of Ignatius' iconography was alien to Polycarp, though the latter was finally to canonise both him and his writings by focusing on his impressively enacted refutation of Docetism through his portrayal of his forthcoming martyrdom.

Making a Difference: Sartorial Practices and Social Order in Eighteenth-Century Sweden

Costume ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Alm
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Making A Difference ◽  
Primary Means

This article focuses on the seventy-three essays that were submitted to the Swedish Royal Patriotic Society in 1773, in response to a competition for the best essay on the advantages and disadvantages of a national dress. When presenting their thoughts on the design and realization of a national dress, the authors came to reflect on deeper issues of social order and sartorial culture, describing their views on society and its constituent parts, as well as the trappings of visual appearances. Clothes were an intricate part of the visual culture surrounding early modern social hierarchies; differentiation between groups and individuals were readily visualized through dress. Focusing on the three primary means for visual differentiation identified in the essays — colour, fabrics and forms — this article explores the governing notions of hierarchies in regards to sartorial appearance, and the sartorial practices for making the social order legible in late eighteenth-century Sweden.

scholarly journals On Memory of Plates and Dishes

Fluminensia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Krystyna Pieniążek-Marković
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Western World ◽  
Individual Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

The aim of the article is to discuss how elements of food narratives meals and kitchen tools used for cooking are used in order to consolidate and shape the Croatian cultural memory, especially in the context of its Mediterranean heritage.For this reason, the texts by Veljko Barbieri, collected in the four volumes under the common and significant title Kuharski kanconijer. Gurmanska sjećanja Mediterana, are analysed. His circum-culinary narratives are a combination of encyclopaedic knowledge, references to historical and literary sources, personal memories and literary fiction. They can be easily inscribed in the Croatian (collective and individual) identity discourse since they are able to strengthen the collective (either national and supranational, or geo-regional) identity, and to construct the cultural memory. They also show Croatia's affiliation to the Western world along with its cultural-civilization rooting in antiquity, the Mediterranean region and Christianity, thus forming a part of the founding memory that develops a narrative about the very beginnings of Croatian presence on this land. The gastronomic narratives serve to create the cultural memory and this version of history which is to stabilize the social identity described by Pierre Nora and Andreas Huyssen. Through his stories, Barbieri shapes memory based on the representation of the past. In the analysed narratives, the memory carriers are dishes and plates which find reference to the oldest history of Croatia rendered by myths and other narratives. Associated with dishes, the pots enable the narrator to recall the past and the identity coded in individual dishes. They also participate in the processes of repeating, storage and remembering which generate a symbiotic relationship between man and thing. The memory carriers that is, food and plates depicted in Barbieri's culinary narratives do not convey their content in a neutral way, but construct their marked images.

Ladies Errant. Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy

Italica ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 531
Author(s):  
Laura Benedetti ◽  
Deanna Shemek
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Early Modern Italy

scholarly journals Pedagogical conditions for the formation of foreign-language sociocultural competence of cadets of educational organizations of the Federal Penal Service of Russia

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 01016
Author(s):  
Nina Shilina ◽  
Galina Aksenova ◽  
Irina Ganishina ◽  
Polina Aksenova
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Foreign Language Instruction ◽  
Educational Organizations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Common

Currently it is necessary to learn cultures of other people, and it is therefore important to find new areas and forms of cultural cooperation. One way to meet these challenges is to learn foreign languages. The sociocultural component in the content of foreign language instruction plays a significant role in the development of the cadets personality, as it provides an opportunity not only to familiarize themselves with the heritage of the country’s culture of its target language country, but also to compare it with the cultural values of his country, which contributes to the formation of the common culture of a cadet. The relevance of problem of the formation of foreign-language sociocultural competence of cadets of the educational organizations of the Federal Penal Service (FPS) of Russia is defined by the social order of society which found the reflection in the Concept of Development of the Penal system of the Russian Federation till 2020 and also it is defined by the increased requirements of acquisition of a foreign language and search of the ways of the formation of foreign-language sociocultural competence promoting formation of bases intellectual, the cultural, professional and communicative developed identity of a specialist.

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