Now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com and Adlibris.com. Bones, behaviour and belief. The zooarchaeological evidence as a source for ritual practice in ancient Greece and beyond Edited by Gunnel Ekroth & Jenny Wallensten https://doi.org/10.30549/actaath-4-55 The importance of the zooarchaeological evidence as a source for ritual practices in ancient Greece is gradually becoming widely recognized. Animal bones form the only category of evidence for Greek cult which is constantly significantly increasing, and they can complement and elucidate the information provided by texts, inscriptions and images. This volume brings together sixteen contributions exploring ritual practices and animal bones from different chronological and geographical perspectives, foremost ancient Greece in the historical period, but also in the Bronze Age and as early as the Neolithic period, as well as Anatolia, France and Scandinavia, providing new empirical evidence from a number of major sanctuaries and cult-places. On a methodological level, the complexity of identifying ritual activity from the zooarchaeological evidence is a recurrent theme, as is the prominence of local variation visible in the bone material, suggesting that the written sources and iconography may offer simplified or idealized versions of the rituals actually performed. Although zooarchaeology…
Now available for purchase at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, Adlibris.com, and Bokorder.se Current approaches to religion in ancient Greece. Papers presented at a symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 17–19 April 2008 By Matthew Haysom & Jenny Wallensten (eds.) In recent years Greek religion has emerged as one of the main topics for the study of ancient Greek society as a whole. This flourishing interest is certainly due to the recognition of the centrality of religion to Greek culture: religious beliefs and practices were connected to almost every aspect of the Greek world. This volume brings together fourteen contributions from a group of upcoming international scholars, presented at a conference held in the Swedish Institute at Athens and the British School at Athens in 2008. The papers take a wide range of approaches: archaeological, epigraphic, iconographical, philological and historical. They demonstrate the diversity of the subject, covering such issues as nineteenth-century historiography, cult epithets, the pantheon, regionalism, polis religion, the performance of ritual, the use of music in ritual, the accessibility of sacred space, and the visual aspects of dedications. The contributions bring new theoretical perspectives, seek to better understand ritual, and highlight the variety of Greek religion. Contents Preface…