Sacrifice in Ritual
As a follow-up to my recent post about the difference between altars and shrines (and altars as places of sacrifice), I thought I would post a link to Greek Sacrifice Ritual, a 2001 resource put out by Bard Classics.
Originally, I found this site on one of the Hellenic Polytheism Yahoo! Groups link sections, but it linked to a defunct version of the site. The current link is courtesy of Google.
Greek Sacrifice Ritual, on the page that has not survived the link transition (but still exists on Archive.org), states that the web site aims “to clarify the process of Greek sacrifice ritual and [demystify] the ideology surrounding it.” You can read the full statement of intent here, but do not try to go to the illustrated guides because the images only work on the updated link.
Wait, did I say illustrated guides? Yes. Greek Sacrifice Ritual contains four illustrated guides to rituals ("Burkert's interpretation of animal sacrifice," "Sacrifice in the Iliad," "The Thesmophoria," and "Sacrifice from the Hagia Triada Sarcophagus."). Some illustrations are modern cartoonish drawings, while others come from Greek and Cretan sources.
Most of the site focuses on blood sacrifice, and I do not believe that an equivalent resource illustrates the bloodless version. Enjoy.
6 responses:
Isn't that a *wonderful* site? I love it! I found it when I was writing Longing for Wisdom and have been back many times since. :)
Yes. :) Absolutely wonderful!
There is a question about the technology of sacrifice that I have often wondered about.
It started when I looked at the altar to Minerva-Sulis in the temple that stood adjacent to the Roman baths in Bath, England.
It looked (a) like it had not been subjected to repeated fires and (b) too small for a significantly large fire.
So I wondered if some altars were for "show" and others were for "go."
Or were "working altars" capped with a renewable layer of bricks or something on top of the marble? (That's what I would do.)
If if you boiled the flesh of the sacrificed animal off to the side in a cauldron of some kind, burning only strips of fat, etc., should still leave traces in porous stone.
There's a research project...
Excellent, Annyikha! Thanks for posting that.
Chas » That WOULD make a great research project. Unless, of course, the altar is an addition put there by a well-meaning nineteenth-century archaeologist.
There are some 19th-century statues at Bath, but I was under the impression that the altar with its inscriptions was from the Roman period.
If you learn anything more on this topic, please do post it.
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