Conspicuous Invisibility: Votive Offerings from Female Dedicators on the Athenian Acropolis

<p>The mechanics of Athenian society in many ways empowered citizen women as essential components of their community. This reality, being at odds with Athens’ pervasive patriarchal ideology, was obscured by men anxious to affirm the status quo, but also by women who sought to represent themselves as ‘ideal’ examples of their sex. Using the votive offerings dedicated by women to Athena on the Athenian Acropolis in the Archaic and Classical periods as a basis, this thesis explores such tensions between the implicit value of Athenian women, which prompted them to engage meaningfully with their wider community, and the ideological edict for their invisibility. This discussion is based primarily on two points: firstly, that the naming of a male family member in votive inscriptions denotes female citizen status, thus articulating citizen women’s independent value and prestige within the polis; and secondly that the ubiquity of working women among the dedicators, and value of the offerings themselves, reveals women as controlling financial resources to a more significant extent than other sources would have us believe. In both cases, the actual value and authority of the female dedicators is concealed as the women aimed for a perception of conspicuous invisibility to legitimise their engagement with the public sphere.</p>

Conspicuous Invisibility: Votive Offerings from Female Dedicators on the Athenian Acropolis

<p>The mechanics of Athenian society in many ways empowered citizen women as essential components of their community. This reality, being at odds with Athens’ pervasive patriarchal ideology, was obscured by men anxious to affirm the status quo, but also by women who sought to represent themselves as ‘ideal’ examples of their sex. Using the votive offerings dedicated by women to Athena on the Athenian Acropolis in the Archaic and Classical periods as a basis, this thesis explores such tensions between the implicit value of Athenian women, which prompted them to engage meaningfully with their wider community, and the ideological edict for their invisibility. This discussion is based primarily on two points: firstly, that the naming of a male family member in votive inscriptions denotes female citizen status, thus articulating citizen women’s independent value and prestige within the polis; and secondly that the ubiquity of working women among the dedicators, and value of the offerings themselves, reveals women as controlling financial resources to a more significant extent than other sources would have us believe. In both cases, the actual value and authority of the female dedicators is concealed as the women aimed for a perception of conspicuous invisibility to legitimise their engagement with the public sphere.</p>

RITUAL PITS AT THE MIDDLE DON SETTLEMENTS OF THE SCYTHIAN PERIOD

На городищах и селищах скифоидной культуры, существовавших в VIIII вв. до н. э. в лесостепной части бассейна Дона, фактически не были известны сооружения культового назначения. Для выявления таковых были проанализированы имеющиеся поселенческие материалы. Оказалось, что не менее 16 ям, открытых на шести памятниках и считавшихся хозяйственными, необходимо интерпретировать как ритуальные комплексы. Основанием для этого послужили специфичные находки и стратиграфия. Семь ям содержали человеческие кости вместе с костями животных и фрагментами керамики. В другие в качестве вотивных приношений были помещены наконечники стрел и копья, орудия труда, глиняные поделки и сосуды, нередко преднамеренно разбитые. Есть немногочисленные ритуальные захоронения собак. Как правило, в ямах имеются следы костров или продукты горения. Более половины сооружений найдены на Семилукском городище. Они, несомненно, были связаны с размещавшимися там же массовыми захоронениями. С выделением серии культовых комплексов появилась совершенно новая информация о сакральной сфере жизни оседлого населения региона. In reality, religious constructions have not been found at Scythoid hillforts and unfortified settlements in the forest-steppe belt of the Don basin. Settlement materials were analyzed to identify such constructions. The analysis demonstrated that at least 16 pits (Figs. 1-3) discovered at six sites that were considered to be of household character are to be interpreted as ritual complexes. Specific finds and stratigraphy were used to justify this conclusion. Seven pits contained human bones along with animal bones and ceramic fragments. Arrowheads and spearheads, implements, clay objects and vessels which were, in many cases, deliberately broken (Figs. 4; 5) were placed into some pits as votive offerings. There are some ritual burials of dogs that are few in number. Pits tend to show traces of fire or combustion products. More than half of such constructions were found at Semiluki. They are definitely associated with mass burials located at this settlement. Now that a series of religious complexes has been singled out, we have absolutely new information on sacral life of the sedentary population living in this region

A Gold Ring in a Swine’s Snout (Prov 11:22)

This chapter explores jewellery in the Hebrew Bible in light of the material evidence from the ancient Levant. I consider the function of jewellery in biblical texts, focused upon how these objects modify and ritualize the body. The ability of jewellery to index personhood is utilized in order to explore and unpack the use of jewellery in votive offerings. Moving beyond these insights, I then turn to the recovery of amulets inscribed with biblical passages—the earliest written evidence for biblical literature. As amulets, these objects served an apotropaic, ritual function. In biblical texts, we see this in action in the production of the golden calf, which is made from the jewellery of the Israelites. Such items therefore provide access to dimensions of personal religion and religious worship carried out outside of the official sphere. But by making sure that jewellery was utilized in the furnishing of the Temple, the biblical writers circumscribe this personal piety, making it compliant to the larger dominant model of the official Temple cult.

Votive Exopraxis

Twice a year, the Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. George on the island of Büyükada, off the coast of Istanbul, attracts tens of thousands of Muslim pilgrims who come to make heterogenous and inventive votive offerings. Since these visitors are not Christians, their behavior is a form of exopraxis, which is the subject of the issue of Common Knowledge in which this contribution appears. Due to its scope and dynamism, this shared pilgrimage is perhaps the most important in the contemporary religious landscape of the Middle East, but it is part of a broader ecology that includes many mausoleums of Muslim saints and other Muslim holy places visited by Christians. The rationale and logic of such exopraxes is wild hope (in the Lévi-Straussian sense of wild). Pilgrims from one religious community travel to the sacred place of another not so much for communication or contact with its patron saint—the Muslim pilgrims to Büyükada pray for help to Allah, not to St. George or Jesus—as they travel to be in a place of hope at a time of personal need. This article analyzes how the proliferation of these votive exopraxes indicates both the tenuousness of the distinction between monotheist religions and their need of each other.

"Nueva lectura de una inscripción votiva bilingüe de las termas de Germísara (Dacia superior)

New edition and philological commentary of a long and complex votive inscription from the time of Commodus consisting of a poem in Latin (written in dactylic hexameters) followed, as a complement and amplification, by a Greek text in prose with a certain poetic color. The inscription is dedicated to the Nymph of a thermal sanctuary, mentioned by what appears to be a name or local epithet, and consists both of the commemoration of the fulfillment of a vow and in the narration of the annual festivals that the military unit (numerus) commanded by the dedicator celebrated, through votive offerings and sacrifices, both in honor of the Nymph of the place and of Asclepius, Panacea, Artemis and Hypnos. It is also narrated, in the Greek text, a sanatio and the corresponding offerings of thanksgiving. The use of Greek in this epigraph seems to have to be explained for a reason of cultural prestige