The Library
Mapping religious attitudes and practices on to the physical landscape
Tools
Scott, Michael (2012) Mapping religious attitudes and practices on to the physical landscape. In: Theory in (Ancient) Greek Archaeology Conference, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, 4-5 May 2012
Research output not available from this repository.
Request-a-Copy directly from author or use local Library Get it For Me service.
Official URL: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/tiga/home
Abstract
Traditionally, the study of religious practices has been the preserve of classical historians, while the
study of physical religious spaces and structures has been the preserve of archaeologists. Their
approach has most often been to typologize different kinds of sanctuaries, for example, by linking
architectural and artistic grandeur to a scale of public/civic importance. Yet what is increasingly
becoming clear is the sheer resistance of the physical religious landscape to any such neat
categorization. What is needed is a more flexible, inter-disciplinary approach to understanding where
the physical spaces and structures of religious practice fitted into, reflected and helped articulate the
ancient Greek religious experience.
In developing such an approach in this paper, my focus will be on examining the archaeological,
literary and epigraphic evidence for attitudes towards, investment in, and appropriation of, different
kinds of ritual space and architecture by different individuals and civic groups through the 5 th, 4th and
3
rd centuries BC in Attica. My goals will be three-fold. First, to underline how architectural
sophistication rarely acts as a marker of public v. private investment and importance (e.g. civic
investment in the un-elaborated sacred cave at Vari in Attica compared with temples built by
individuals such as the Temple of Artemis Aristoboule in Athens). Second, to chart, in contrast, the
huge variety of ways in which ritual spaces and architecture could be engaged with, invested in and
appropriated within Athenian society (e.g. the ability to lease out sacred land for non-sacred uses for
set durations of time). Third, to think about how, over time, the changing nature of such attitudes and
actions towards the physical religious landscape of Attica allows us to understand the changing nature
of Athenian society itself (e.g. the increasing insistence of civic authorities to delineate sacred space
over the course of the 4th century BC in the โastuโ of Athens as opposed to an increasingly relaxed
approach in the Piraeus as a sign of changing attitudes to the different geo-political communities with
Athens). As a result, I will argue for the need to understand religious topography as process rather
than static end result, and offer a model for the flexible mapping of religious attitudes and practices on
to the physical landscape
Item Type: | Conference Item (Lecture) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > Classics and Ancient History | ||||
Official Date: | May 2012 | ||||
Dates: |
|
||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Conference Paper Type: | Lecture | ||||
Title of Event: | Theory in (Ancient) Greek Archaeology Conference | ||||
Type of Event: | Conference | ||||
Location of Event: | Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA | ||||
Date(s) of Event: | 4-5 May 2012 | ||||
Related URLs: |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |